Cockroach on the beach/the Kafka-Murakami connection :-)
After having read pretty much every Haruki Murakami book that is available in Italian, I thought it was about time for me to read some Kafka, given how many times he is mentioned in the author's books.
I was resisted to this for a long time because of the fact that, at least in Italy Kafka's material is often overly analyzed, and it was done so in a way that would make anybody steer away from it.
I figure a good starting point would be the "metamorphosis".
After having finished it, my conclusion is all the literary criticism seems to concentrate mostly on very trite analysis, explaining to the reader how this is really metaphor for the human condition blah blah blah; now, what I found most appealing and remarkable is the fact that the author managed to spend 80 pages describing to you in detail the life of a fairly ordinary family, and it does so without the reader ever been bothered by the fact that one of the members is a giant cockroach; very much like Haruki Murakami always manage to make ordinary life exist in parallel with the fairly fantastic realities seamlessly.
Now that is definitely a remarkable technical achievement!
I hope this makes sense to whomever is reading it, this reflection might go beyond the range of my written English, also I am a musician, not a literary critic.
If anybody knows of any publication that looks at this book more from the angle I was trying to describe please let me know.
After having read pretty much every Haruki Murakami book that is available in Italian, I thought it was about time for me to read some Kafka, given how many times he is mentioned in the author's books.
I was resisted to this for a long time because of the fact that, at least in Italy Kafka's material is often overly analyzed, and it was done so in a way that would make anybody steer away from it.
I figure a good starting point would be the "metamorphosis".
After having finished it, my conclusion is all the literary criticism seems to concentrate mostly on very trite analysis, explaining to the reader how this is really metaphor for the human condition blah blah blah; now, what I found most appealing and remarkable is the fact that the author managed to spend 80 pages describing to you in detail the life of a fairly ordinary family, and it does so without the reader ever been bothered by the fact that one of the members is a giant cockroach; very much like Haruki Murakami always manage to make ordinary life exist in parallel with the fairly fantastic realities seamlessly.
Now that is definitely a remarkable technical achievement!
I hope this makes sense to whomever is reading it, this reflection might go beyond the range of my written English, also I am a musician, not a literary critic.
If anybody knows of any publication that looks at this book more from the angle I was trying to describe please let me know.