I thirstily drunk up Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" as if the words were springwater rehydrating a cactus. Page after page kept disappearing as if time didn't exist while my nose was buried between the pages. It's a book of surreal, metaphysical, comical, tragic genius. It carouses across a narrative that weaves in Shintoism and greek mythology and and and... It's consciousness expanding and disturbing at the same time. There were parts that I found profoundly disturbing but forced myself to continue reading and it was fully rewarding to pull together the riddles with which he constructs the plot.
I don't usually go for science fiction, not since I was a 12 year old Ursula K. Leguin fan. This isn't science fiction, I think it's much closer to Umberto Eco in style. I was turned off by the advertisements which made me think it was airport trash. It's definitely not.
I wasn't planning on reading his books because I'm not a fan of his political beliefs centering around the middle east. But, it was actually curious to read this in light of my knowledge of his opinions on Israel. I can see within this book how he came to his understanding but would love to catch him in a philosophical debate and use the theories he threw out at the readers in the book as counterpoint. I can see where he's building from and also see a really clear counterpoint using his own logic.
This book is an amazing and addictive and bordering on genius work of fiction.
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3 comments:
Okay, I'm getting it. I LOVE SCI FI. Read the Dune books or at least the first one.
Let me guess, he hates Israel and wants it banished from the world? Or is it much more nuanced and enlightened? I'm guessing the latter as the book would not be very fun to read if it was the former.
I haven't read the Dune series... will look it up :-)
Ricardo, It's not so really about israel but when I read it I got an insight into his philosophies which allowed me to get underneath him a bit and understand his public comments on israel. He sees israel as a wall and the palestinians as eggs and he stands on the side of the eggs. Take from that what you will ;-)
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