Field of Dreams

Written by Haruki Murakami
Through the books, Murakami appearing himself as the one of the best author of Japanese Contemporary World. Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between the two, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters.
The odd chapters tell the 15 year old Kafka's story as he runs away from his father's house to escape an Oedipal curse and to embark upon a quest to find his mother and sister. After a series of adventures, he finds shelter in a quiet, private library in Takamatsu, run by the distant and aloof Miss Saeki and the androgynous Oshima. There he spends his days reading the unabridged Richard Francis Burton translation of A Thousand and One Nights and the collected works of Natsume Sōseki until the police begin inquiring after him in connection with a brutal murder.
The even chapters tell Nakata's story. Due to his uncanny abilities, he has found part-time work in his old age as a finder of lost cats (a clear reference to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle). The case of one particular lost cat puts him on a path that ultimately takes him far away from his home, ending up on the road for the first time in his life. He befriends a truck-driver named Hoshino. Hoshino takes him on as a passenger in his truck and soon becomes very attached to the old man.
Nakata and Kafka are on a collision course throughout the novel, but their convergence takes place as much on a metaphysical plane as it does in reality and, in fact, that can be said of the novel itself. Due to the Oedipal theme running through much of the novel, Kafka on the Shore has been called a modern Greek tragedy.
Kafka on the Shore demonstrates Murakami's typical blend of popular culture, quotidian detail, magical realism, suspense, humor, an involved and at times confusing plot, and potent sexuality. It also features an increased emphasis on Japanese religious traditions, particularly Shintoism. The main characters are significant departures from the typical protagonist of a Murakami novel, such as Toru Watanabe of Norwegian Wood and Toru Okada of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, who are typically 30-ish and rather humdrum personalities. However, many of the same themes re-occur in Kafka on the Shore as were first developed in these and other previous novels.
The power and beauty of music as a communicative medium is a central theme of the novel—the very title comes from a pop song Kafka is given on a record in the library. The music of Beethoven, specifically the Archduke Trio is also used as a redemptive metaphor. Among other prominent themes are: the virtues of self-sufficiency and efficiency, the relation of dreams and reality, the specter of the heritage of World War II, the threat of fate, the uncertain grip of prophecy, and the power of nature.