SYNOPSIS
Kafka on the Shore, by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, is a surrealist tale about two characters, Kafka and Nakata. Kafka is a 15-year-old boy who has run away from home in order to escape an Oedipal prophecy, whereas Nakata, a mentally disabled old man with the ability to converse with cats, is on a journey to find a lost cat. Although the two do not ever come face-to-face, Kafka and Nakata's actions affect each other metaphysically. In Murakami's magic realist world, anything is bound to happen — mackerel rain from the sky, and young boys fall in love with ghosts.