Murakami's Kafka on the Shore

If someone like Steven King put in a scene with cats being tortured I'd be really annoyed at such a crude attempt to elicit an emotional response from me. Murakami has such a scene in this book but it's interesting in how it works OK. We're seeing it from the POV of a mentally retarded character, Nakata, who can't feel anger. And the perpetrator has just begged Nakata to kill him. There is this feeling of Nakata trying to grow and become something more than what he has been. Plus the dreamy feeling of the first 144 pages of this novel. All weighed against the horror of this guy slicing up cats and eating out their hearts.

Murakami manages to not just piss me off. On an emotional level the idea of cats being tortured I think bothers me more than humans would. I wouldn't pass the Blade Runner cyborg test I guess.