Kafka on the Shore - 20091121

Until I've read What I Talk About When I talk About Running, Haruki Murakami to me could hardly be anything but chic. When I was still a youngster, tried to be stylish, I picked up the Norwegian Wood which gave me no pleasure, except those sporadic sex scenes. Obviously I was too naive by then. Yesterday, I've completed the reading of Kafka on the Shore, a real fascinating novel that I could not stop flipping pages after pages in those cold nights of the previous week.

It is so sad that most of us lacks the guidance to understand different styles of writing. If people are not graduates of Arts, 99% of them would start scratching head if the novel on hand is not narrative. However, the world is so big and could absorb many different genres of writing, say magical realism. Thus, by turning a blind eye on imagination, we would put down those head-scratchers. Murakami's would be one of those.

In addition, generally speaking, I hate those Taiwan-translation pieces very much. The "Chinese" in it is always so winding. With the previous reading experience of Yukio Mishima's Forbidden Colour, that I gave up the awful Chinese version on half way, and embraced the English version to complete the reading with a fruitful experience. I thus picked up the English translation of Kafka on the Shore at the very beginning and the time spent was very nice.

So, although the 1Q84 is very hot these days, for the sake of better understanding, I would wait for the English version.