Murakami's Kafka on the Shore

I have just recently finished reading Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. Similar to Hard-Boiled Wonderland, this story takes on two seemingly related stories that eventually clash together, metaphorically. This story became one of my favorites-- a story about two characters: Kafka Tamura, a 15 year old solitary boy who runs away from home to possibly search for his life gone mother and sister; and Nakata, an old timer who is mysteriously drawn towards Kafka's destiny.

Murakami's adds humor to the story by naming characters Johnnie Walker and Colonel Sanders, making cats talk, and make leeches, sardines, and other fish fall from the sky.

Some interesting quotes:

"There are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never erase from our memory." Just like our bodies, the only thing that stays with us for our entire lives, I instantly thought.

"Everything's a metaphor" -- Goethe

"Listening to the [Schubert's] D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of-- that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect."

"Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story." -- Tolstoy

"In everybody's life, there's a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can't go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That's how we survive." So make decisions and don't look back, I thought

"I have to get the other side of my shadow back."

"Being empty is like a vacant house. An unlocked, vacant house. Anybody can come in, anytime they want. That's what scares me the most. I can make things rain from the sky, but most of the time I don't have any idea what I'm going to make rain next. If it were ten thousand knives, or a huge bomb, or poison gas-- I don't know what I'd do.... I could say I'm sorry to everybody, but that wouldn't be enough."

"There's another world that parallels our own, and to a certain degree you're able to step into that other world and come back safely."

"Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside."



The following remarks below are SPOILERSDo not read ahead if you don't want to know what happens in the book. Srry, I just had to write about this real interesting book! hehe

After reading this book, I've started to notice a main theme that I think Murakami is trying to address. That everything and everybody is connected, no matter how far he/she/it is.

Miss Saeki~ The most interesting character in the entire story. Although mainly known as the owner of the Komura Memorial Library, hints given by Murakami as the story progresses gives the reader a sense that she is Kafka's mother--who, abandoned him at such an early age just so she could bear herself from falling in love with him. After all, Kafka is able to see the 15 year old Miss Saeki staring at Kafka on the Shore in the night in his room, and the time when he is in the cabin where the two soldiers brought him. According to Kafka, it was all natural to him, feeling as if they both have a warm connection, just like all mother's today have a connection with their own child, even though they don't realize it. Perhaps this is how Kafka feels like he is in love with Miss Saeki.

It is also interesting how, near the end of the novel, Nakata is the only one who Miss Saeki can rely on to burn her memories kept in files. Obviously, these two share a close bond. For whatever reason, Nakata is drawn into the entrance stone. He is able to seek things that are not filtered in his conscious grasp, "Until I go there, I wouldn't know" as he would say. Furthermore, according to the sources from when he was a child during the Rice Bowl Incident, his teacher stated that he was the only child who was able to find the bloody towels that she hid when she was having her period after she thought about her having sex with her husband. Futhermore, the fact that Nakata was the only one who didn't wake up from that incident is ominous itself. This concludes the transitive property: that if Kafka is connected to Miss Saeki, and Miss Saeki is connected to Nakata, then Nakata must be connected to Kafka and vice versa.

Kafka's relationship with Sakura also gives the reader that she could be his sister. Her hospitality-- aside from jerking him off for relaxation sake-- is an example. Such as letting him come by her temporary home, giving him her number on the very day they first met on the bus en route to Takamatsu, among others. Later on in the story when Kafka dreams of having sex with her when he is in Oshima's cabin is a sign of Kafka's love for her, and love, just like with Miss Saeki, means that they have some sort of connection with each other.

Although the characters in the story seem as if they are going through their own journey themselves, there are some motivators. Nakata's motivator, although hard to tell exactly, seems to be either the cats or Hoshino, the slightly indecent truck driver. Without the cats, Nakata wouldn't have anyone to talk to, despite stating himself as "not very bright". And without Hoshino, he wouldn't have gone any further from Nakano Ward. He probably would not have had the opportunity to dine, sleep, or, to put it all, live. On the other hand, Hoshino would've struggled with his job if it weren't for Nakata, stating himself that he learned more about music-- Beethoven-- and the real world surrounding him.

Kafka's motivator is the toughest, considering being connected to almost everyone in the novel. But in all honesty it seems that he is drawn to Miss Saeki the most, then probably Oshima.

There are, of course, some moments where things remain a mystery-- unable to find the last piece to the puzzle. What's the deal with Johnnie Walker and his flute composed of cats? Could he be Kafka's father? What about that blood stain on Kafka's shirt when he, for whatever reason, is in that same shrine where Colonel Sanders brings Hoshino to locate the entrance stone? Speaking of Colonel Sanders, what's his deal? Not human, basically non-existing, however allows Hoshino to have hot sex with a drop-dead gorgeous babe who studies philosophy as a major, ironically. After all, he was the one who knew where the entrance stone was. Is HE connected to Miss Saeki? And speaking of the entrance stone, that seems to be the soul of the entire story.

Let's not forget about that slimy, white "thing" that came out from the mouth of Nakata's corpse. This scene is similar to the final moments in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, where Toru hits a thing with a baseball bat, possibly Noboru Wataya, and kills it bloodily during the night in a mysterious room under the well.

But overall this book was something else-- I enjoyed it deeply.