Friday, July 31, 2015

Book Number Who Cares?

So I like Haruki Murakami, right? And I've seen suggestions that if you like Murakami, you'd also probably like Kafka.

They lie.

According to my e-reader, I made it 72% of the way through a book of his short stories, so no, I didn't finish the whole thing but I only had three short stories (and their related endnotes) left.

My conclusion? While Murakami is whacked out and weird, there is a deliberateness to his work that makes the WTF-ness intentional. Reading Kafka, however, is like listening to someone tell a story when they've spent the last three days combining meth, mushrooms and LSD. It's manic, confusing, and I came away thinking that every character was insane or in the midst of a psychotic break.

Yeah. No more Kafka for me. Ever. I'm actually having to cleanse my reading-palate by reading non-fiction. I'm going to be too judgmental of weird right now.

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