Kafka on the Shore follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka
Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark
prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a
bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly
turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid
accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from
the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest
harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but
the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle.