It's true. I like eel. But this post isn't about eel. Sorry to disappoint you.I’ve finished reading Kafka on the Shore. I was so impressed with the style and story I think it’d be a great disservice not to give this book a “formal” review. Formal probably isn’t the right word. But it’s the word I’m going to use regardless, even though it's probably going to just be my haphazard memory of the book along with some poorly placed clichés...
Kafka on the Shore is the story of a young boy and an old man. Sounds simple enough right? Far from it.
It begins when young Kafka Tamura, the strongest fifteen year old in the world, runs away from home to get away from his father and the oedipal prophecy he placed upon Kafka. He travels south to the Takamatsu where he finds refuge in a private library and befriends the librarian, Oshima. While hiding out in the library he falls in love with the head of the library, a beautiful woman with a troubled past, but their time is cut short when Kafka’s father is found dead in his home the police begin searching desperately for Kafka. In order to protect him Oshima takes him to a cabin in the mountains where he spends his time reading and exploring the surrounding forest. However the police aren’t just searching for Kafka, there’s another man.
The other man is Nakata, an elderly fellow afflicted by a childhood “illness”, maybe phenomenon is a better word, that left him illiterate and, as he regularly reminds us, a little slow. He lives in a small flat in Tokyo where he makes it days to day with a little help from relative and his “sub city” from the Governor. While Nakata struggles in his interaction with other people he has the peculiar ability to take to cats and, as we are soon to discover, a bizarre influence over the weather (it rains mackerels, there I said it) . He uses his ability to communicate with felines to help reunite lost cats with their owners. One particular runaway cat changes his life forever when he tracks him to a house whose owner has a particularly unorthodox way of making flutes. His encounter with this musician of sorts forces Nakata to head south in search of the ever elusive “entrance stone” and a series of events that had been set in motion long before.
The two continue on their different paths barreling towards one another while encountering many memorable characters such as a back alley pimp appearing as Colonel Sanders, a sociopathic Johnny Walker, a trucker who’s willing to follow the winds of fate, a mysterious boy named Crow, and a few cats to keep it all interesting.
Now some of you may think you're starting to understand it at this point. I assure you that you're not. Kafka on the Shore is full of plot twists that once you think you’ve got something figured out they reveal a new piece to the puzzle and send you through another loop or dimension or reality or something.
This is the first Murakami novel that I’ve read and it won’t be my last. His writing style is both riveting and sublime. Each chapter demanding that you read the next, while every question is answered with another question.
Now for those of you who have already read the book I’m including a little back and forth that I had with the NESF regarding my thoughts on the ending and the book in general. If you haven’t read the book I guarantee that reading this is just going to confuse the hell out of you so you probably shouldn’t even bother. I also wouldn't want to give away any of the ending. It's really something that you should experience for yourself first...
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Desomniac: There was only one thing I didn't really understand.
NESF: Only one?? Wow!
Desomniac: Is the person that the Crow attacks the thing that came out of Nakata's mouth?
NESF: Hmm, it's possible. I really have no idea what that wormlike creature was. What was your take on that?
Desomniac: I think that Johnny Walker, the crow victim and the worm are all the same thing.
NESF: Yeah, I could see that. I could also see that they are all different spirits from this other world.
Desomniac: See, I think that Colonel Sanders is a different spirit, a good spirit, while the others are all bad spirits.
NESF: And so, what was the point of opening the entrance stone in your mind?
Desomniac: I see it as the "entrance" into the afterlife, or possibly a sort of purgatory. But I definitely think everyone there is dead.
NESF: Right, and so Nakata sought the entrance stone and had Hoshino open it because he was psychically linked to Kafka? I guess a broader addendum to that question is: what do you think Nakata's role in that story really was?
Desomniac: I've been thinking about this a lot. So Nakata got all fucked up as a kid.
NESF: Right.
Desomniac: And I kind of think that that whole scene had to do with the entrance and that the woods they were in are the same woods by the cabin. Possibly being that they stumbled upon the spot when the entrance was closed, however it's still a powerful spot but only so much so that it affected the children. Nakata got lost in the entrance which is why it took him so long to come back and why he was changed, because part of him was left on the other side. Now this is where Walker et al come in. I think that the reason Nakata was chosen by these spirits is because they met him at this time. As such Nakata subconsciously knew about the good and evil that was present there, most notably the evil. After this experience in order for Nakata to be at peace he had to open the entrance in order to lure this evil out of the shadows so it could be killed.
NESF: You mean they met him when he was a child?
Desomniac: The spirits? Yes. He was with them when he blacked out.
NESF: And they were the good spirits?
Desomniac: Both good and bad.
NESF: But there was also evil in this world and he couldn't feel at peace until he got the evil out?
Desomniac: Yes. So when he blacked out he came in contact with both the good and the evil. Then after that he was sort of in limbo between both worlds, which is why he could talk to cats. In the end Hoshino could because he was in the same place, having met with Sanders and being affiliated with Nakata and the stone.
NESF: yes, that's a very good point
Desomniac: We also have to consider one more thing, that Saeki said she opened the entrance before when she was young. I got the impression she was younger than Nakata so that would mean that in recent history it was accessed three times. Four if you include when Oshino's brother went there, which I think that we should. Now this all suggests to me that whatever happened to Nakata is what started all of this.
NESF: Interesting.....how did Nakata's experience affect Saeki's experience originally?
Desomniac: I’m starting to think that Nakata's experience in essence created the entrance and without that Saeki would never have been able to open the entrance because it never would have been there.
NESF: Yes! Very interesting.
Desomniac: However Saeki was wrong to open the entrance and that's what started the whole tragedy of Kafka.
NESF: So, do you really think it was his mother?
Desomniac: Oh yeah, no question about it.
NESF: So explain to me then what Saeki really did then in terms of the tragedy of Kafka?
Desomniac: Okay. Saeki couldn't deal with the death of her love so she opened the entrance to see him again but that wasn't forever. Then she was left with her memories and feeling of loneliness. She went on touring about the country and met Kafka's father and they had a child, Kafka. She was so insecure about his father or Kafka himself doing something to hurt her she abandoned them both. Kafka was then left with only his faint memories and a feeling of loneliness. Now throughout the story Kafka was bitter about the DNA he received from his parents but in the end the psychology condition passed onto to him from his mother was far more impactful on his life.
NESF: Ok, but what do you make of his father's oedipal prophecy?
Desomniac: Lightning
NESF: Pardon?
Desomniac: Lightning. So before his father was struck by lightning they said he wasn't all that interesting of a person, it wasn't until after that that he became a devote sculptor. The lightning strike didn't just open his mind to art but also gave him a sort of foresight into his sons future
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We trailed off into something else after this. If you've read the book and have some of your own thoughts about it I'd love to hear them.
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