Kafka on the Shore is a metaphor. It follows no rules, it doesn’t adhere to reason, and applicability is not an issue. It fills you up, it tears you down. A fugue of emotions are present, you can’t seem to figure out which of the many different realizations flooding you is most important. Waves roll up again and again on the beach of your consciousness and at first you resist, but after a while you understand that your struggle is pointless, so you give in. You read, you feel, you try to understand, you try to make sense. And you know what? You love it.

I don’t think I can adequately get the gist of a Murakami experience on a goodreads review. It’s something else, something you have to experience for yourself. I will try, but I know I shall fail. You have to realize that reading Murakami requires a unity of perception and feeling. I can try to make you understand certain concepts found in the book, but I will fall short on the sensory part. Murakami’s strength is the feeling he wraps around his teachings. He’s a surrealist painter, a musician, an oddity that weaves consciousness with pop-culture and makes it work. People say his works are easily accessible yet elegantly complex, I whole-heartedly agree. His style is so rich and resonant that it can dabble into lunacy without any sort of urgency. He isn’t regulated in any way, a writer free from normative paradigms and moral constraints. He’s pretty strange, but trust me, it’s awesome the way he writes. Okay, I’m gonna stop myself here. All I’m going to say is try it, experience it. See for yourself.

This novel is shared between two people’s inter-connected tales of self-discovery. A damaged fifteen year-old named Kafka, an illiterate and magical old-man named Nakata, one fleeing from something, the other searching, one looking forward, the other looking back, one with a bright future ahead of him, the other with a dark past. Two very different people, yet their fates are intertwined by something so inconspicuous.

As I said, Murakami hurls many different things at you at break-neck speed. He can talk about fate one minute, then drop it and talk about imperfection the next. It’s kind of messy at times, but the cumulative effect is still pretty solid. It’s like he’s packing everything in a mumble-jumble of thoughts that confusion is a constant. But when you sift through his words, you find that your confusion is more of feeling than an actual state of mind. You understand him perfectly, but you can’t put into words the emotion inside you. Stunning is I think the closest word possible to describing it. For me, though, the thing that stood out the most was his ode to time.

“Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.”

Time is an important concept. It is correlated to love and memory, two other topics that are central in Murakami’s points. You see, some people when they find love and are at their happiest, they want to freeze time and live in that moment forever. But what they have to know is that a moment alone will lose all meaning. The present is useless without both the past and future. You cannot appreciate something without knowing how you got there nor understanding that something will come out of it. The past gives a history, the future a possibility. Time is thing of beauty. Life without it is like air, you exist but you are stagnant and boring. With it, it is like the wind, moving, dancing, flowing into the unknown. But not only that, time makes love possible, because love takes time.

“Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.”

Aside from love, time also makes one important thing possible. Memories. “If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.” It allows us to store things inside our minds so that we can cherish them as long as we can. It permits us to remember those that have been, those that build up who we are. Because each person is shaped by the cumulative memories that he or she makes. Whether they may be happy or painful or boring, they mold us into who we are. Identity is slowly transformed over time, with our memories playing a vital role.

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”

Our identity, no matter how much time and memories change it, some part of it will stay the same. There are things that are unchangeable, things that will make you look into the past and see the same thing now. But, there are things that we purposely hold on to that hurt us, things that we hide in us and contain through time. Things that we can let go of, but we don’t, even if it is painful. A time will come when you will have to let go.

“In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.”

“As long as there’s such a thing as time, everybody‘s damaged in the end, changed into something else.

“But if that happens, you’ve got a place you can retrace your steps to”

“Retrace your steps to?”

“A place that’s worth coming back to.”

As I finish this review, I’m very excited. Yes, I know that I’ve got my memories to look back to, but what I’m excited about are those memories that haven’t been made yet. The future is ahead of me, I’ve got time on my hands. The possibilities are endless.

this book is fucked up in a lot of ways but the thing that grossed me out the most was the fact that whenever kafka was thirsty he drank milk

رواية عن مراهق ياباني محب للقراءة هرب من منزله و المدرسة... و تتقاطع هذه القصة مع قصة رجل ياباني مسن معاق ذهنيا يحدّث القطط... و كثير من الأحداث الغريبة المتداخلة مع بعضها... و كثير من الحديث عن الموسيقى و الأدب و الكتب و الفلسفة و الحياة و اللاوعي و الأحلام
أجواء القصة غرائبية و فنتازية... و الحبكة بحد ذاتها مشوقة جدا... و جدير بالذكر أيضا أن الترجمة متقنة
أنهيت صفحاتها السبعمئة في أقل من ثلاث أيام... بيد أني فور إنهائها شعرت بأنها اختفت... و كأني لم أقرأ شيئا... فهي لم تولد فيّ أي فكرة من اي نوع... و كأنها فقاعة صابون ملونة و كبيرة تراقصت أمام ناظريّ ثم فُقعت و تلاشت في الفراغ من دون أن تخلف أثرا... ربما لأن النهاية لم تفضِ إلى شيء... و كأن فلسفته هي اللاشيء... فما تركت عندي إلا ا��لاشيء لأتحدث عنه... و لكن العزاء أنه لاشيءٌ ممتعٌ
و ليس من المفاجئ قول أن الرواية ليست محتشمة، فهذا أمر صار من الانتشار بحيث بات واحدنا يستغرب من وجود رواية محتشمة للأسف... بيد أن هذه الرواية بالذات فيها مرض ما... و كأن هناك عقدة نقص تستسترونية من نوع ما تشي بها الكلمات

بأية حال ربما توقع شيء من الاحتشام في عالم غير محتشم أصلا كتوقع وجود رجل جميل كأمير دوستويفسكي "مشكين" في عالمنا هذا دون أن ينعتوه بالأبله

الأكيد أني لن أقرأ له ثانية، إذ القراءة له نوع من العبث
و ليس هناك وقت كثير لهدره على العبث

موراكامي موراكامي موراكامي
هذا اللعين، العجيب، هذا الرجل المجنون. مجنون فقط؟ لا أظن
لعل أصدق وصف قرأته لهذا الرجل هو وصف صديقي شادي، أنه رجل: "حشّاش" حقًا، لا يمكن لرجل طبيعي أن يكتب مثل هذا العمل. هل صنعه موراكامي، أن أن الرواية هي من صنعته؟
طوال 600 صفحة ويزيد، كنت أشعر بحالة عجيبة للغاية
ما هذا؟ هل هذا الشيء واقعي حقًا؟ قطط تتكلم، صخور تتهامس، عالم موازي، سماء تمطر علقًا وأسماكًا، شخصيات حقيقية، لا تدرك إن كانت حقيقية أم أنه مجرد وهم!
أصابتني الحيرة الشديدة أثناء القراءة، لم أستطع أن أصدق ما أقرأ
ماذا جرى، ما علاقة هذا بذاك، ما الحقيقة وما الحلم لا أدري، ومن الجيد ألا ندري
فما النفع من محاولة عقلنة اللاعقلاني؟ ومن محاولة محاسبة اللاواقعية على أساس واقعنا؟
طوال قراءتي للرواية ظللت أسائل نفسي تلك الأسئلة
(سبويلر آلرت وكدهو):
نأتي للرواية إذن
تبدأ الرواية بمشهد الطفل، كافكا تامورا، هذا الصبي المشاغب الشقي، الذي يأبى أن يتم عامه الخامس عشر إلا وأن يكون خارج سلطة أبيه، تامورا، أو جون واكر، سمه ما شئت
وأمّا المسار التاني، فهو الرجل العجوز الكهل، ناكاتا، الصبي المثلوم، العجوز الرقيق ، والغبي، الذي يحادث القطط، فاقد الذاكرة منذ طفولته نتيجة للغزو الأمريكي، هل كان غزوًا حقًا؟ لا تسأل!
ومسار آخر، هو شبه هلامي، تجده في بداية الرواية ولكن سرعان ما يختفي، هو سرد التحقيقات التي قامت بها الحكومة اليابانية للمسألة، وتأتي أحداثها ضمن تحقيقات الشرطة مع الطلاب والأساتذة، أملًا في درك الحقيقة
ومن هنا تبدأ ألاعيب موراكامي، ذلك المجنون العبقري، الذي أعتبره أكثر من مجرد روائي فذ، هو بالإضافة لذلك أكثرهم عبقرية وشرًا، وهو كذلك أمتعهم.
يأتي الجزء الصلب في الرواية، أو الجزء الفلسفي فيها، سمه ما شئت
فتجده يحدثك عن هيجل، وماركس
وعن فلسفة هيجل المثالية تلك، وعن منطقه اللوذعي الجدلي، الذي يفصل بين المجاز وبين الواقع، ومتى يكون الواقع مجازًا ومتى يصبح المجاز واقع. يحدثك عن تاريخ اليابان العسكري، وعن هزيمتها وانتكاستها، إن لم تكن الحربية، فقل الثقافية.
يحدثك عن الموسيقى والأدب، والشعر؛ شعر الهايكو بالطبع، الأشهر على الإطلاق، إن لم يكن في العالم كله، ففي اليابان وآسيا بشكل أخص.
يحدثك عن الموسيقى، وعن الفن، وعن تاريخهما: بيتهوفن وكبرياءه، فاجنر وتعاليه، وليستز وعبقريته.
يحدثك عن الجاز، موسيقى الجاز بالطبع، وعن البوب، وعن كل أصناف الفن الرائج آنذاك.
يحدثك عن صراع اليابان الثقافي، أو قل، الاستعمار الثقافي الأمريكي لليابان.
وفي وسط كل ذلك، يحدثك عن الكتب والمكتبات، وهي مستودع كل ما سبق!
يصوغ لك ها هنا موراكامي، بعبقريته، عالمًا فانتازيًا خياليًا لا شك أنه مرهق، ولا شك من أنه عبقري كذلك. يضعك موراكامي في ثنائية طوال الرواية، وتجد نفسك مفقودًا بين ناكاتا وكافكا طوال الرواية.
يحدثك عن هذا الصبي ملعون أبيه، وعن اللعنة التي حلت به
ويحدثك عن ناكاتا ذاك، الذي تولى مهمة قتل الأب عوضًا عنه
يحدثك عن حجر المدخل ذاك، مدخل ماذا؟ مدخل عالم الخيال، هذا الذي اخترقته الآنسة ساييكي من قبل، واخترقه من بعد كافكا تامورا نفسه.
وعن ناكاتا الذي ضلع هو بمهمة غلق هذا المدخل إنقاذً اللعالم، لتنتهي مهمته بذلك ويعود لعالمه الآخر، حيث لا يكون - على حد تعبيره هو - خاويًا، غبيًا.
رواية غرائبية، فانتازية لدرجة بعيدة، لا تخطر على بالك أصلًا أن هذا خيال، هل هذا خيال حقًا؟ حيال بشري محدود؟ أشك.
لا ينكر أحد - إلا مجحف - عبقرية موراكامي، ولا ينكر أحد كذلك - إلا مدع - سفالته كذلك :D
هي، كما قالت القارئة سلمى، رواية غير محتشمة أبدًا، لكنها مع ذلك رواية بديعة رهيبة، لا تشعر أنك سليم العقل حقًا بعد إنهاءها.
وهذا هو المنوط بالكاتب، أي كاتب، أن يصيبك بالدهشة، بل والرهبة أحيانًا من مدى عبقريته.
كما قلت، بعض التفاصيل جاءت غرائبية أكثر من اللازم، وليس من المفترض بنا محاولة تفسيرها، فتفسير الخيال اعتمادًا على الواقع لن يقودك لشيء، لكنه مع ذلك سوف يضلك، ومحاولة عقلنة الغير عقلاني محاولة غير مجدية.
فقط، اترك عقلك خارجًا، واسبح مع هذا الموراكامي، وعالمه البديع.
يجدر بنا ألّا ننسى الإشادة بترجمة السيدة إيمان، شكرًا إيمان حزر/رزق الله، لولاها لما كنت استمتعت بقراءة الرواية بهذا الشكل. الترجمة منضبطة للغاية، وبديعة ورائعة، تشعرك بأنك أمام نص عربي أصيل لا نص مترجم، فلها منّا جزيل الشكر والعرفان.
شكر للصديق أبا نواف، لتصويره الكتاب، ولتصويره آلاف الكتب غيره

تاني تجربة ليا مع موراكمي بعد 1Q84 بس أول مرة اكتب review عن تجربتي معاه. معتقدش إني حكتب حاجة جديدة عن اللي غيري كتبها بس هي رواية مميزة غريبة سحبتني معاها في عالم غريب ٥ ايام استمتعت فيهم جداً بوصف الأحداث و عالم الرواية و رمزيتها و أساطيرها.

حبيت نكاتا جداً و طيبته و عفويته و حسيت بحيرة كافكا و اندفاعه في الحياة مع خوفه من المجهول و مصير نبوءة أبوه.

الاقتباس ده اعتقد موراكمي يقصد بيه حالنا بعد الانتهاء من الرواية أو "العاصفة"

"ولحظة انتهاء العاصفة ، لن تتذكر كيف نجوت منها ، لن تتذكر كيف تدبرت أمرك لتنجو ، ولن تدرك هل انتهت العاصفة أم لا . ستكون متيقنا من أمر واحد فقط : حين تخرج من العاصفة ، لن تعود الشخص نفسه الذي دخلها ، ولهذا السبب وحده ، كانت العاصفه"

و دي مجموعة illustrations عحبتني

















#world_literature_challenge
#Japanese_literature

2018 view: Let's state for the record before I write anything further, this is far from Murakami's best in my opinion, yet still a story packed with delightful Murakami strangeness; featuring a UFO incident survivor who talks to cats, who begins the story as a cat whisperer - literally; the other main thread is the tale of a 15-year old runway who finds an amazing privately owned public library! Despite the kookiness of the story, it is one of his most linear and down to earth stories covering a multitude of themes from Oedipal shenanigans through to 'working-class' social commentary, overall all a bit of a rarity in his works. But, if you enjoy Murakami... you know you have got to read them all :) 6 out of 12,Three Star read.

2012 view: Murakami's modern classic Kafka On The Shore didn't really stimulate me, as much as his other stuff, but is still wonderfully written, with some brilliant sections in this story that almost gets surreal in parts, as opposed to just 'magical real' in my opinion. As ever a must-read for Murakami advocates. 6 out of 12, Three Star read.

موراكامي وروايته الأشهر على الإطلاق
وحتى الآن بعد عدة قراءات للمؤلف لا تزال هي الأفضل
والأعمق
والأكثر جنونا

ربما لأنها تحوي واحد من أفضل الشخصيات الروائية في التاريخ
السيد ناكاتا محب الحنكليس وصديق القطط

ربما لأن شطحات الخيال بها هي الأشد جنونا ولطفا في نفس الوقت

ربما لأن موراكامي يعيش في عالمه الخاص
ليس له وطن أو ثقافة واحدة
وإنما هو مزيج رائع متعدد الثقافات والألسنة
ولا يمكن أن نصفه بحال بأنه روائي ياباني

إنه يعبر عنا -نحن سكان الأرض- جميعا

ربما لأنك لن تتمها شاعرا بأنك فهمتها

وربما عدم فهمها هو مفتاح شعبية هذه الرواية البديعة

لكنها في النهاية واحدة من أجمل القراءات التي يمكن أن تخوضها في حياتك

Few books have infected me with boredom-induced ADD, the desire to gnaw my own foot off at the ankle, and the state of mind you might experience if forced to sit upon a nest of hornets while watching your home being burglarized, but this was one of them. It took me until page 70 to stop wanting to hop up and rearrange the spice cupboard or my sock drawer every few sentences, but then the feeling returned at page 243. Only 224 pages to go! From then on, my hatred and resentment of this book progressively grew like a dead cow bloating in the heat.

“Kafka on the Shore” is a mess. It is such a mess that it makes my six-year-old son’s post-playdate bedroom look like Buckingham Palace. Loosely based on the Oedipus myth, and taking some obvious inspiration from Catcher in the Rye, this book seems to be little more than a random hodgepodge of ideas held together with pipe cleaners and raspberry jam.

There was so much to hate about this book. Here are just a few things:
1. Boring, unnecessary descriptions – that do nothing to further the story – of what people are wearing, what Kafka likes to do during his workout, what he decides to eat, what he is listening to on his Walkman, and so on. I wouldn’t have been surprised to read a monologue from Kafka along the lines of: “When I wipe my arse, I like to use just four squares of toilet paper, no more, no less. I count them out – one, two, three, four. Then I fold the length over once, and again. Equipped now with the perfect, handheld quilt, I wipe in a single, expert, sweeping motion – front to back. Examine the paper to determine whether I need to repeat the process. However, I would add that this is only if the paper is two-ply. For one-ply paper, I need a minimum of eight sheets, but only if they are of high quality. If not of high quality, the boy Crow reminds me, ‘Remember, you’ve got to be the toughest 15-year-old on the planet.’”
2. The gratuitous cat torture scene. Johnnie Walker (him off the whiskey bottle) has to cut the hearts out of living cats and eat them so that he can collect cat souls to make a special kind of flute. There is no freakin’ point to this scene whatsoever – we never hear about Johnnie or his cat-flute again.
3. The annoying way characters – Oshima in particular – deliver sermons about philosophy, art, literature and classical music. It took me right out of the story (tangled mess though it was) and smacked of “Look at me – aren’t I clever?”
4. The screechy-preachy scene with the “feminist” caricatures in the library.
5. Hate to be ungroovy or whatever – but I just couldn’t stand any of the sex scenes, particularly with Miss Saeki, the 50-something librarian who gets it on over and over again with the 15-year-old protagonist even though he and she both know she might be his long-lost mother. Excuse me while I go mop the vomitus off of my living room wall.

After the first 100 pages I thought that I might end up giving this book three stars. Another 100 pages on, I decided two stars. By page 331 I decided one star, and by the end of this frustrating, pretentious, and completely unsatisfying book, I felt like I’d squandered so much of my precious life reading this pile o’ doo-doo that I didn’t want to give it even one star. However, since Mr. Murakami knows how to spell (or at least, I’m assuming he does since this is a translation) I will relent.

In the end, love or loathing of a book is entirely subjective, and scores of critics loved this one. As for me, I feel that if I’d wanted to find meaning in a random jumble of junk, I would have had more luck going to the thrift store and sifting through the bric-a-brac box than wasting time on Mr. Murakami’s brain-omelette.

“Not just beautiful, though--the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me.”



Wow! Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore took me on an incredible journey! Again! Kafka Tamura, the 15-year old runaway, looking for his place in the world, is a great character. So many great characters and interesting, bizarre situations. I also really liked how Hoshino, the truck driver who helps Nakata on his quest, evolve. Bumping this one up!

Original review:
What can you say about Haruki Murakami’s ...Kafka on the Shore? Of course, this novel is a crazy ride! That’s something any fan of Murakami’s work (myself included) has come to expect. Fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura and an older man named Nakata drive the plot. Kafka is a runaway who is trying to escape an Oedipus prophecy. Strangely enough, he also seems to be running toward that curse as he seeks out a mother who abandoned him as well as a long lost sister. The other principal character, Nakata, was involved in a bizarre incident with other schoolchildren during WWII that has somehow robbed him of his reason. Nakata doesn’t do well in the human world, but he can make fish fall from the sky and talk with cats. We can’t conclude that Nakata is crazy because the cats actually talk with Nakata as well. Both characters are on journeys which sort of (but don’t quite) converge. I like that with Murakami, all journeys take us outside the normal bounds of reality to some fantastic alternate world. Kafka on the Shore is no exception.

For me, this doesn’t quite match 1Q84 or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but it is distinctly Murakami and I enjoyed it! 4.5 stars.

***هر يك از ما چيزي را از دست مي دهيم كه برايمان عزيز است. فرصت
هاي از دست رفته، امكانات از دست رفته، احساساتي كه هرگز نمي توانيم برشان گردانيم. اين قسمتي از آن چيزي است كه به آن مي گويند زنده بودن.***
اصلــــــاً دلم نمیخواست تموم شه. یادمه دو بار شروعش کردم و حول و حوش صفحه 50 - 60 ول کردم ولی این سری چسبیدم بهش و تا ته رفتم و الان پشیمونم که چرا زودتر نخوندمش. از اون کتاباییه که دلم میخواد یه بار دیگه بخونمش.
عاشق روند موازیش شدم. یه جاهایی احساس میکردم خونم منجمد شده حین خوندنش (از جمله قسمتی که از کشتن گربه ها حرف میزد). مدام منتظر بودم یه سرنخ بده بهم ولی لعنتی خیلی دیر به دیر سرنخ میداد و من دائم دنبال ارتباط بین شخصیتا بودم.
انتظار داشتم پایانش خیلی هیجان انگیز و خفن و تاریک باشه و بازم شگفت زدم کنه ولی خب نشد که بشه و من سوالم این بود تهش : همین؟؟ 600 صفحه خوندم که تهش به همین سادگی و خوشمزگی تموم شه؟
ولی در کل خیلی خیلی خیلی خوشم اومد ازش و
این جمله که "مسئولیت از رویا آغاز میشه" خیلی واسم معنی دار و دلچسب بود.
*****************
ریویو دوم - ۲۹ خرداد ۱۴۰۳
با این که هنوزم این کتاب رو دوست دارم
اما
یه سری نکات بیشتر به چشمم اومد مثلا این که توجه موراکامی به سکس و مسائل جنسی کلا زیاد بود توی این کتاب؛ به طرزی عجیب و البته قابل پیش بینی
انگار ابزاری بود برای بیشتر کردن جذابیت داستانش تا حدی که زیادی شده بود
نکته دوم این که ته داستان میتونست غیرقابل انتظارتر و جالب‌تر تموم شه؛ پایانش کاملا قابل حدس و قابل پیش بینی بود
و تماسی که در نهایت با ساکورا گرفت! واقعا چه لزومی داشت؟
و این که کافکا گفت خوابتو دیدم :/// آدم یاد دوستای صد سال پیشش میفته که به یه بهونه میخوان سر حرفو باز کنن
همین :)

This - along with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Sputnik Sweetheart and The Rat tetralogy (A Wild Sheep Chase, etc) - was one of my favorite Murakami books. Absurd, funny, and still a bit nostalgic and morose, it is a unique and powerful read including raining fish. For those discovering Murakami, I would read it fourth after the three I already mentioned.
Lovely writing!

Fino's Murakami Reviews - Novels
Hear the Wind Sing (1979/1987-2015)
Pinball, 1973 (1980/1985-2015)
A Wild Sheep Chase (1982/1989)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985/1991)
Norwegian Wood (1987/1989-2000)
Dance Dance Dance (1988/1994)
South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992/2000)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995/1997)
Sputnik Sweetheart (1999/2001)
Kafka on the Shore (2002/2005)
After Dark (2004/2007)
1Q84 (2010/2011)
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013/2014)
Killing Commendatore (2017/2018)

Fino's Murakami Reviews - Short Story Collections and Misc
The Elephant Vanishes (1993)
After the Quake (2000/2002)
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006)
Men Without Women (2014/2017)
First Person Singular (2020/2021)
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007/2008)

The real rating would be 3.5 stars.
The first 400 pages were so damn breathtakingly perfect, that is an unpredictable, fun, witty, colourful, wise and full of life story. However, the last 200 pages were much of an awfully sluggish read. Sometimes I wished this book to remain unfinished because on every page you may come up with the idea that how is this mercurial book supposed to end? As you make progress you expect more at the end and suddenly its like you get hit by a truck! Then this truck takes a slow-motion move hitting you at your speed of reading the last 200 pages, and you suffer watching all those expectations get demolished! Anyway, I wish Miyazaki would make an anime out of this book.
I identified my teenage self with Kafka, his craving to be stronger and being in control, the dark side of his being "Crow", who I still deal with.
Nakata and Hoshino were so funny and sometimes I laughed so hard as reading their stories, and I thought Philip Gabriel has done a perfect job as a translator, though I read a review criticizing his translation! I wish I could read it in Japanese so I could enjoy more.
BTW, I just love the cover...