I read Kafka on the shore a while back and Bunny recently. Both the books are totally different in genre and the world they delve into, but the one commonality I could find was, both of them left me confused at the end. To make it very clear, I am not comparing these two books, but just reflecting on how I felt after both the reads and trying to analyze how they might impact the readers.
A quick intro to both the books
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami is a contemporary fiction/fantasy set in Japan. It involves around two characters Kafka Tamura, a 15 year-old boy and Nakata, an elderly man who can speak to cats but has lost his memory after an incident in his childhood. The book begins with narrating both their stories alternately. It proceeds to unfold its magical realism when both of these characters meet.
Bunny by Mona Awad is a dark academia and satirical fiction book set in American college campus. Samantha, who is a young fiction writer, mostly writes on dark themes, gets admitted to a prestigious MFA program. But things get difficult and weird as other members of the cohort are privileged and Samantha has quite strong and mixed feelings on the four women whom she finds, calling each other Bunny.
Enigmatic style and other similarities
Both of the books were good in blurring the boundaries of reality and imagination. By introducing elements of magical realism, it often results in ambiguity and frankly difficulty in categorizing them as truth and dream.
Kafka runs away from his home, displaying a coming of age scenario. But Murakami underplayed that style of narration to let the character to have his freedom to be adult and explore his self. When his actions quite often relate that of an young adult, rather than a teenage boy. On the other hand, Samantha is doing her masters, so we can assume that she is in her twenties. But most of the reactions that Samantha displays often becomes close to how a typical teenager behaves, hence I had quite a time to scoff at the book, but this is for a later time. Moving on…
Both the protagonists isolate, alienate themselves to an extent from their peers. When Kafka goes to the library, the conversations he has with the librarian and Saeki, clearly conveys that he is mature for his age and he is perfectly capable of holding interesting conversations with adults and also bring insights to the table. He also refuses explicit help and tries to take care of his own self. Similar scenario goes on with Samantha, she tries to persuade her instructor to pursue her semester individually and not with the group that she was assigned to. Samantha takes care of herself and she gets threatened by the four other privileged women of her cohort and develops a sense of hatred to overcome her jealousy and how threatened she feels by them.
A wonderful self-exploration by the characters in both the novels makes the reading even more intriguing. When elements apart from reality enters the plot, it takes its place very comfortably, in other words, I could let them ease me into the transition and it is not off-putting. Since the boundaries are very ambiguous, surrealism finds its sweet spot.
They are different
Though there are some commonalities, both are completely two different books with their own wonderful plots, narrations and genre.
Starting with Kafka on the shore, the character Nakata was completely different from any other character I have come across. After the incident, Nakata navigating his life with little memory he has and the ability to talk to cats is perplexing but that is exactly the randomness that is required to be curious on what is supposed to happen now. I am not going to say I completely understood the book. Yes, it left me quite confused, I sought out internet and read thoughts of so many other people on the book. It really made understanding pleasurable. All aside, Murakami with his minimalistic writing style and simple words, still kindled questions on reality. It was intended for the readers to form their own sense of the book.
Bunny, was the What did I just read now book. It never stops to create a jolt. Just when I thought, ohhh ok now I get it, it slaps the next second with another what now. The writing was vague in some places and it becomes hard to relate to the characters after a point. When you want to get hooked on to a book, Bunny will be the perfect read.
Happy reading and let me know your thoughts when you read or have read the book(s).
Featured Image credits: Rene Magritte, The False Mirror, 1928. Oil on canvas. Image courtesy of © 2017 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Other Images credit: Goodreads, Amazon
Lit Loom 