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Kafka On The Shore
"The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory."
"Asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime."
"But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to."
Infinite Jest
"Mediocrity is contextual."
"It towered, a kind of Überad, casting a shaggy shadow back across a whole century of broadcast persuasion. It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase."
"The feeling is why I want to. The feeling is the reason I want to die. I'm here because I want to die. That's why I'm in a room without windows and with cages over the lightbulbs and no lock on the toilet door. Why they took my shoelaces and my belt. But I notice they don't take away the feeling do they."
Head-to-Head
Characters: Hal Incandenza and Kafka Tamura actually have a lot in common: both are teen protagonists who are well-read and would be insufferable were it not for the more endearing traits of each. While Hal's story is mostly static around his home and school, he embarks on mental adventures with mari'huana & hallucinogens, and in a less metaphorical way, we meet Kafka as he's leaving home for good. Both styles of adventure are rewarding to follow along.
The breadth of Infinite Jest allows for the cast to have another deep, pseudo-protagonist in Don Gately as well as dozens of other players who are three-dimensional. Wallace's characters are everything; there are characters from opposing political factions who literally never leave a mountainside conversation during the book and act almost solely as a vehicle for setting and context. This is only a short example, but the entire tome is framed by its many characters in similar ways, and as much as I really liked Kafka and Oshima, they aren't enough on their own to fell the entire township of Enfield.
Advantage: Infinite Jest.
Setting: Kafka On The Shore bears most of Murakami's most famous tropes for setting: a deserted cabin in the woods, urban and rural Japan in varying doses, dreamlike only-maybe-real moments in hardly distinct places—all of which are set in the real world. Meanwhile, Infinite Jest is a lot of fun with its political landscape and irradiated postwar U.S.A. O.N.A.N., as well as the microsocieties in the tennis academy and the halfway house. Both are huge draws for their books, but Wallace's setting kind of ends at necessary-fun, and doesn't quite transcend to full-blown atmosphere like Murakami's does.
Advantage: Kafka On The Shore.
Plot: Both contain a ton of the moments that remind me why I read, with reveals and realizations of how things are or were in the plot. But then, there are frustrating 5-page passages in Infinite Jest written entirely in attempted ghettospeak that really do nothing other than give background to an unimportant character, and sections in Kafka On The Shore have little to do with the advancing plot and are so attemptedly symbolic (not to mention sometimes horrific) that they're meaningless. Infinite Jest was a slow burn that didn't actualize until after the story was over, meanwhile Kafka On The Shore was a pageturner that turned unsatisfying during long swaths of the conclusion.
In short: both plots occasionally suffer from their authors' gifts for writing, but both are compelling and memorable.
Advantage: Push.
Ending: I wish someone would tell me what Kafka was supposed to be about other than a coming of age novel. Don't get me wrong: it's so satisfying at the end when Kafka leaves for home that it felt like an earned victory. Roll the Final Fantasy fanfare music and call it a wrap. But, the more I Google opinions and reread passages, the less I can wed the happenings and symbols of the book to get the bloody point. Conversely, while Infinite Jest also ended with a number of questions, similar further reading explains and justifies pretty much everything in the book to me. I like it when I get things, even if I need some help from a better book student than me.
Advantage: Infinite Jest.
Writing/Language: The authors use their considerable skills for completely different effects. Murakami's reputation for dreamy atmosphere and beautiful Oriental settings precedes him. Wallace's often muddling turns of phrase are used to express a lot with a little such that the considerable length of his books is still generally dwarfed by the content of them. Wallace is definitely the more soundbyte-friendly of the two, but Murakami's ambiance is second to none. It's a matter of opinion thing, but I have this problem where I love both.
Advantage: Push.
Philosophy: If anyone can ever condense and explain the philosophical dowry of Kafka On The Shore, give me a call. It's neat how it borrows philosophy from many other bright writers and thinkers, but the whole thing lacks a unified point.
Infinite Jest is spectacular, representing qualities of the Samizdat in the plot itself. It's a short question that the book poses: if there were media so divine that you gave up your self to consume it, is it worthwhile? And, if not, what is the nature of entertainment? It's a brain cooker.
Advantage: Infinite Jest.
Advantage: Kafka On The Shore.
Plot: Both contain a ton of the moments that remind me why I read, with reveals and realizations of how things are or were in the plot. But then, there are frustrating 5-page passages in Infinite Jest written entirely in attempted ghettospeak that really do nothing other than give background to an unimportant character, and sections in Kafka On The Shore have little to do with the advancing plot and are so attemptedly symbolic (not to mention sometimes horrific) that they're meaningless. Infinite Jest was a slow burn that didn't actualize until after the story was over, meanwhile Kafka On The Shore was a pageturner that turned unsatisfying during long swaths of the conclusion.
In short: both plots occasionally suffer from their authors' gifts for writing, but both are compelling and memorable.
Advantage: Push.
Ending: I wish someone would tell me what Kafka was supposed to be about other than a coming of age novel. Don't get me wrong: it's so satisfying at the end when Kafka leaves for home that it felt like an earned victory. Roll the Final Fantasy fanfare music and call it a wrap. But, the more I Google opinions and reread passages, the less I can wed the happenings and symbols of the book to get the bloody point. Conversely, while Infinite Jest also ended with a number of questions, similar further reading explains and justifies pretty much everything in the book to me. I like it when I get things, even if I need some help from a better book student than me.
Advantage: Infinite Jest.
Writing/Language: The authors use their considerable skills for completely different effects. Murakami's reputation for dreamy atmosphere and beautiful Oriental settings precedes him. Wallace's often muddling turns of phrase are used to express a lot with a little such that the considerable length of his books is still generally dwarfed by the content of them. Wallace is definitely the more soundbyte-friendly of the two, but Murakami's ambiance is second to none. It's a matter of opinion thing, but I have this problem where I love both.
Advantage: Push.
Philosophy: If anyone can ever condense and explain the philosophical dowry of Kafka On The Shore, give me a call. It's neat how it borrows philosophy from many other bright writers and thinkers, but the whole thing lacks a unified point.
Infinite Jest is spectacular, representing qualities of the Samizdat in the plot itself. It's a short question that the book poses: if there were media so divine that you gave up your self to consume it, is it worthwhile? And, if not, what is the nature of entertainment? It's a brain cooker.
Advantage: Infinite Jest.
Winner Winner Turkey Supper
tl;dr: I like symbolism, but Murakami's symbols might as well be hieroglyphics. Kafka On The Shore has favorite book potential written all over it, but as I've harped on enough, I just can't get past what I can't get.
Infinite Jest continues its march through the bracket, moving to round 3.
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