The rabbit hole to Haruki Murakami’s mind.

A boy runs away from the home that’s kept him trapped in an Oedipal curse. An old man finds a job as a searcher of lost cats, occasionally being able to speak to them. Two stories intertwined in the odd and even chapters of the book, we see a story unfold that can only be told by the likes of Mr. Haruki Murakami.

We follow Kafka on his way to find his mother and sister throughout murky atmospheric Japan when suddenly, we’re thrust into Murakami’s capricious mind. Kafka while on the run meets all sorts of people who soon find an attraction to his determined personality. Each one of them giving him their own meaning of living. Through love, lust, and darkness Kafka must navigate through an unknown world filled with the unlikely corners of a library, a mysterious Ms. Saeko, and an Oedipal curse.

Nakamura, an innocent old man, is in search of lost cats. This has become his weekly form of income; getting paid by families who resort to him when losing their pets. While on the job searching for a cat, this unknowingly leads him down a dark trail of adventure and the unseen. This takes him across the boundary of what he’s familiar with, as he befriends a casual truck driver, and carries a stone of mysterious capabilities.

Like a strand of DNA, the two journeys follow similar paths both protagonists walk a fine line of reality and the metaphysical. Mr. Murakami’s style is very reminiscent of the late Franz Kafka’s style, as he weaves in and out of an oddly molded world. Mr. Murakami presents many notions towards other great authors and literary works, such as the Arabian literary piece One thousand and One nights and Ugetsu Monogatari written by the great Ueda Akinari.

This piece, in particular, has a special place in my library as the first of many Murakami novels that have intrigued me until this day. The words contain a certain flair for mystery while seeming all the while overt to its true meaning. From the start to the end, if the reader isn’t faced with exhilarating moments they’re hit with a brief pause to recollect and think about the journey. I would consider this a perfect blend of mystery in the world of the most common individuals.