In the following essay, Myers reviews Kafka on the Shore, tantalizing would-be readers with glimpses of plots, characters, and elements of the magically realistic story.

Haruki Murakami became an international cult hero with his evocation of a sinister parallel universe in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He also sold over four million copies of Norwegian Wood, his lugubrious love story which starts out depressingly and very slowly gets worse. So many tears fell from female readers that the pages became wet and warped and stuck together and Murakami became rich.

Murakami is a magic realist. This is of course just another humdrum lit crit label, but Murakami does manage to breathe some pop culture spoofiness into the genre with Kafka on the Shore. He happily gives surreal cameo roles to Colonel Kentucky and red label Johnnie Walker in top hat. But there is not much danger of you...