If Murakami was a Muppet

BBC Collective has an extract and review of Haruki Murakami's novel, Kafka on the Shore, due out this month.

From the review:

Kafka On The Shore, Haruki Murakami’s tenth novel, entwines the fates of 15-year-old Kafka Tamura and mentally deficient pensioner Nakata, who talks to cats and causes fish to fall from cloudless skies.

and

...Aside from Norwegian Wood and the brooding South Of The Border, West of the Sun, his fiction tends towards a chaotic, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to theme and plotting. If Murakami was a Muppet, he would be the Swedish Chef.

and

Kafka On The Shore is as Murakami as they come: gripping, ragged, thought-provoking, funny and largely inexplicable. If the Möbius-strip illogicality of a movie like Lynch’s Lost Highway gives you palpitations then steer well clear. But if, as Kakfa muses of The Arabian Nights, the thought of stories that “have this sort of vital, living sense of play, of freedom that common sense can’t keep bottled up” appeals, then come on in, the water’s lovely.