Wildly inventive book blurbs

What is a reader supposed to think when the back of a book such as Kafka on the Shore states that it is "A magnificently bewildering achievement...Brilliantly conceived, bold in its surreal scope, sexy and driven by a snappy plot...exuberant storytelling" (Independent on Sunday). Or that it is "Addictive" (multiple blurbs). Addiction is defined as "The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something" (theFreedictionary). Sexy implies that there is some type of sexually attractive person or activity in the book. However, what these two words mean in book blurbs is quite different than what their dictionary definitions, and of the two only addictive might apply to this novel by Haruki Murakami.

The premise is that the fifteen year Kafka is trying to escape an Oedipal prophesy, passed on him by his father, and ends up in a library with helpful, but unusual employees. There are many incidents, some of which involve sex, but none of which could be described as particularly sexy. They are perhaps sad, violent, or disturbing, though.

Another narrative thread follows a rather simple elderly man, Nakata, who has the unusual skill of speaking with cats, and by this means locating the occasional stray feline. The paths of Kafka and Nakata never actually cross, but their stories are intertwined with each other.

The end of the book is quite open to interpretation. There are unanswered questions, and the reader must be willing to either tolerate ambiguity or form hypotheses that are satisfactory.

"The Historian"

The Historian by Elisabeth Kostova is a suspenseful historical journey to find the burial site of Vlad Ţepeş, more commonly known as Dracula. The narrator, who remains nameless throughout the first half of the book is a 16 year old girl living in Amsterdam, with her diplomat father, Paul. The story unfolds in letters spanning from the 1930-1950's written by Paul, and his college advisor about their search to discover the truth about Dracula. Beginning with how Paul was drawn into the hunt not by inclination, but by the appearance of a blank book bearing the name Dracula, of unknown provenance, in the library one day; the letters document his subsequent research into the dark mystery. The search takes Paul from Oxford to Turkey, Belgrada, Budapest, and Sofia with a mysterious and beautiful Romanian anthropologist.

The suspense is maintained throughout the book by the interweaving of the letters documenting the past search for Dracula and the present day narrator's attempts to rescue her father from Dracula's minions. A brief excerpt will show how Kostova heightens the reader's anxiety: "The man behind the newspaper was so still that I began to tremble in spite of myself. After a while I realized what was frightening me. I had been awake for many long minutes by now, but during all the time I had been watching and listening, he had not turned a single page of his newspaper" (p. 228). At this point the story jumps back to Paul's letters and the reader must keep reading about the past in order to learn what will happen in the present.

I recommend this book for the engaging quality of the writing. The merging of the European and Turkish accounts of Dracula fact and legends in a quasi-academic way makes for entertaining reading. The journeys through Central-Eastern Europe illuminate the history if those states, but of course in a somewhat fantastical way.

"The Grand Complication"

The Grand Complication by Allen Kurzweil is a fantastic (as in improbable), and superficial story. Within exactly 360 pages it chronicles the adventures of Alexander Short, reference librarian, and his involvement with a mysterious patron. In a fine play on words, Henry James Jesson III, is both a patron of the library, and soon Alexander's employer. Ensnared in a wild, and highly improbable hunt to make complete a collection of antiquities for Jesson, Alexander rapidly moves from the “safety” of the card catalog to interacting with a range of strange people and institutions. In the process Alexander alienates his wife Nic, and risks his career at the library.

At the end of 360 pages it does not feel like one understands either Alexander or his employer adequately. Particularly what motivates Jesson? The characters motivations are lacking partly due to the lack of depth to Alexander, Nic, and Jesson. Without greater characterization the reader is hard pressed to either believe the story or to like the characters. Due to the farcical nature the novel is less engaging than it could be. There is a great deal of focus on card catalogues, the Dewey Decimal system, and general bibliomania. It is enjoyable reading, but the only similarity to (claimed by the dust jacket) Umberto Eco is due to the action occurring in a library, and the mystery which they are trying to solve.