One of the pleasures of writing for the Reading group is that it’s a place I can safely get things wrong. Generally, when you write a review, your opinion is pretty final and you don’t get much chance to recant later. I’ve recently been doing some research about HG Wells and there are a good handful of critics whose sole remaining claim on immortality is having written completely wrong-headed reviews about the appeal and longevity of The War of the Worlds.

“What a splendid opportunity is lost in the description of the exodus from London!” wrote the otherwise forgotten Basil Williams. “One thinks what a writer with a great eye for poetical effect like Mr Meredith would have made of such an idea; whereas Mr Wells is content with describing the cheap emotions of a few bank clerks and newspaper touts.”



Ouch.



Here, I can hope to escape such long-term embarrassment by claiming that the thoughts I am about to set down are transitory, impressionistic and I may contradict them next week.



And now that I’ve tried to cover my back, let’s get down to business. I’m just over halfway through Kafka on the Shore and I have a burning question: what is this shit?



I’ve read enough to know that I’m in the hands of a supremely talented writer, a master storyteller and one with bright visual flair and access to dark and deliciously disturbing imagery. But I also find the book infuriating, meandering and, so far anyway, empty.



Last week, I quoted a David Mitchell review predicting the novel would have “besotted devotees … critical admirers; and people who come out in a nasty rash.” In the space of a week’s reading, I’ve felt like all three. One of the two story strands, relating to the teenage runaway Kafka Tamura, started off with real urgency as Murakami skilfully planted hints about his dark past, and ramped up the mystery about why he was running and where he might end up. As a Reading group contributor called Valérie Bergeron wrote: “the book seemed to capture perfectly the feeling of being lost and trying to find your place in the world. Trying to escape from your family, from family stories that you are afraid you are doomed to repeat.”

I was soon immersed in this story, rolling with it even when, in a secondary strand, relating to a “stupid” old man called Nakata (who also experienced something strange in his childhood), cats started talking. I had so much invested by this time that I was prepared to indulge a little silliness. Especially as Murakami so effectively turns this apparently light-hearted cat material into a nightmare. One made all the more alarming by the introduction of the flesh and blood (so much blood) incarnation of the faceless cartoon from Johnnie Walker bottles.



There was more intrigue and adventure, apparently complex characterisation and fine writing, for which some credit must be due to Philip Gabriel’s translation, because this is a stylishly written novel: smooth, pacy and elegant. It enabled me to soldier on through scenes where mackerel fall from the sky and when old man Nakata stopped a gang fight by opening his umbrella and conjuring more aquatic life from the air – this time leeches.

But I lost patience soon afterwards. It started with this:



The day after your father was murdered, close to where it happened, two thousand sardines and mackerel fall from the sky. Just coincidence?”

That’s a character called Oshima talking to Kafka. He might as well also be sounding a klaxon and wearing a pointy hat with a flashing light on it. Possibly I could still have forgiven this moment of over-explanation as a natural bit of conversation. Sometimes it makes sense that characters spell connections out to each other. Except that a page on in this protracted dialogue, Murakami grabbed me, ran me headfirst into a giant gong and started shouting “DON’T YOU SEE?” into my ringing ears. The clanging piece of awkwardness came in a revelation from Kafka, which was in turn summed up by his friend Oshima, just in case the reader didn’t get it first time. It refers to a prophecy Kafka’s father made to him when he was young:



So he said that some day you would kill your father with your own hands, that you would sleep with your mother … The prophecy made about Oedipus. Though of course you knew that.”

I too knew that. Damn straight I did. Because not only have I read more than one book in my life, I’d just had it explained to me at great length two-and-a-half pages earlier when a character called – oh yes – Oshima, outlined the story of Oedipus Rex to Kafka (and by extension we fool readers). Possibly I should be willing to believe that there may be something else going on here, and suspend judgment until I’ve read more, maybe even until I’ve read the novel again. But at the moment Murakami appears to have the infuriating habit of explaining and re-explaining every stage of his story. He points out the symbolism, tells us how to read, and generally treats us like lower, slower life forms. Like people who need to be handed notes similar to the following, conveniently scribbled in a book by Oshima:



It’s all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It’s just as Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibility. Turn this on its head and you could say that there’s no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise. Just as we see with Eichmann.

These explanations, instructions and announcements that we are encountering profundity would be just about tolerable if it weren’t for my growing suspicion that there are actually very few depths to plumb.



And this heavy didacticism is combined with so much whimsy-pimsy. The lessons have no anchor. The magical realism casts everything from its moorings. Ghosts float into the narrative. Everything comes lacquered in silliness. Moss, we are told at one point, “has wordlessly covered the rocks” – presumably in contrast to chattier moss. Nothing the characters do carries any load of consequence, since mackerel can start landing on the characters’ heads and turn everything around.



Reading group contributor Theorbys summed up the essential problem for me so far: “When I reread Kafka on the Shore recently it did not have any real magic just a lot of the fantastic and a lot of deep dark and likeable characters mysteriously interacting. The latter seemed too easy by far.”



Hopefully, by next week, I will be declaring myself wrong and Murakami a genius. No one who can write anything as funny and clever as the quotes co-opted for this review of the UK Top 20 singles deserves to be discounted. If there’s anything you can say to sway me either way, I’d be very glad to hear it. Clearly, this is a serious writer with a serious following. I must be missing something. Mustn’t I?

