Kafka on the Shore

The shortest time I took to read a book by at least a couple of months. Was quite lost at the end of the three days: partly because I had not prepared myself to be searching for reading options that soon. A plane full of people and I had a neat little world I had encased myself in. I even forgot to observe the proverbially much-awaited take-offs and landings. A few scatterred thoughts and notes here.

The book builds a parallel universe in which the characters live and which they react to. Logic and cause and effect are all reined in this universe. Their reactions are not to the real world around them but to this universe in their minds. And throughout u r very worried that not everyone would understand it, someone from outside the realm, within the story and maybe from even from within our world, would think it too fantastic and not understand. U, yourself, want people to buy the world which the writer has so successfully sold to you.

But somehow, they are all still a step ahead of the real world. And by the time the real world catches up with them, they have fulfilled all that was the longings from their inner worlds. For instance, the kid, whose name I have already forgotten, can still get back and start from where he left, can go to school. Very lucky and very different from what happens. Either the actual world catches up much faster or the inner world really never lets go of you. And then you end up a disappointment to everyone around you who could never comprehend and to yourself, cause eventually you do not get to stay in your world, have become a disappointment to everyone in the real world whom you have cared about and might achieve nothing of import in either world. The kid goes back to school to complete his education. Makes plans to come back to the library after that. His inner turmoil having been taken to fruition.