With Kafka on the Shore ( 海辺のカフカ , 2003), Murakami delivers what is arguably his most crowd-pleasing work. It has all the ingredients that make up a great thriller; it has a sympathetic teenage anti-hero who is at odds with the world; it has an engrossing parallel plot that never loses steam; it proffers more than enough head-scratching, eyebrow-raising mysteries any Murakami fan could wish for. To top it all off, it is also a deeply philosophical work that tackles complex subjects such as identity and Fate. The novel’s intriguing title naturally calls to mind the Czech writer Franz Kafka, author of The Trial and the short story Metamorphosis , immortal symbol of twentieth-century Existentialist angst. When the novel opens, it is instantly clear to the reader that Kafka, a boy who has just turned fifteen, is a troubled soul. He has an internal voice called “the boy named Crow” (“Kafka,” incidentally, means “crow” in Czech) that he converses with, and he quickly comes to the ...