I’ve been reading “Kafka on the Shore” by Haruki Murakami. I ploughed through the first 3/4 of the book but now I’m on page 478 out of 615 it’s very much gone downhill for me.
spoiler
Nakata is my favorite character in the book and I loved the journey with Hoshino. But since Colonel Sanders turned up, it seems to fall into a repititve pattern where Colonel Sanders tells Hoshino what to do and we watch him do it - no uncertainty, no suspense, just following orders. I’m also bored with how Nakata suddenly seems to know exactly what to do with complete conviction, which seems very much contrary to his childlike mind in the first part of the book.
As for Kafka’s arc, I find the philosophical discussions with the other characters anything but engaging. The sex scenes between a teenager and a 50 year old are just disgusting.
Is the ending worth it? I’m reading the French translation, sorry if the characters have different names.
For me personally it wasn’t. I read through Kafka on the shore and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and for both I thought afterward that it was a waste of my time. There wasn’t any great twist or revelation.