Haruki Murakami is sometimes the Japanese author – perhaps the most widely read in America, he inspires some readers to join his cultish following and voraciously devour each book he releases. He’s known for his ethereal, reality-bending, and potentially magical stories, often labeled as a postmodern writer. If there’s one Japanese author that Americans know, it’s Murakami. Interestingly enough, though, during my time in Japan, I have yet to find a Japanese native who reads or even knows of him – often leaning more towards Sōseki or Mishima.
Regardless, Murakami’s sheer popularity and distinctiveness as an author (I’ve been told he writes like nobody else) inspired me to give Kafka on the Shore a chance.
We follow two main characters, Kafka Tamura, a 15-year-old boy running away from both his home and a strange, Oedipal prophecy made by his now-dead father, and Nakata, a mentally handicapped older man who lost his ability to read but has gained the ability to talk to cats and later stones. If you’ve never read Kafka on the Shorebefore, you might be wondering how these characters with strange backstories and motives fit into some coherent story – know you are not alone in this sentiment, because this is what I was wondering throughout my reading of the book. However, if you continue to expect the puzzle pieces to fall into place, you will be sorely disappointed. Characters rarely follow literary laws of linear motives or logical planning. Instead, characters simply explore, move, and follow without much explanation. Particularly with Nakata, whose chapters are written in the third person – Nakata has goals, but, likely due to his lack of a functional memory, never provides the logic behind them. It is this kind of thinking that one can expect when reading Kafka on the Shore.
What happens in this book is, as you could expect, not easily summarized. Kafka reads a bit, listens to some music, and eventually shockingly fulfills his prophecy by entering sexual relations with not just his mother, but also the fifteen-year-old version of his mother. Nakata, on the other hand, makes sardines fall from the sky and encounters the “concept” of Colonel Sanders. An entrance stone is involved somewhere and at some point we end up in a different realm.
So, why is this book so popular? Do Americans like being confused, or perhaps is it just the whispers of magic involved that are enough for readers to maintain interest in an otherwise nonsensical story?
In truth, I have come to feel lukewarm on Murakami, but I would disagree with the notion that he is complete nonsense. I believe Murakami’s project involves meaning. We know a soldier is a soldier by the uniform he wears, as one of two soldiers who guide Kafka to the second realm described. What sign or symbol does Kafka have? None, the same as Nakata. They describe themselves as empty, or partially empty, just shells that contain a hollow void. How does their emptiness become full? Is it meaning, derived from some symbol assigned to them or memories, another problematic subject for most characters in the novel?
If that is so, holding meaning is the key to the fulfillment of our existences, then why do we feel as if the tether between meaning and ourselves is a regretful situation? Nakata, arguably the most empty and meaningless character, is regarded by others as having this strange allure as he acts not just devoid of meaning but mostly ignorant of customs and laws – he approaches strangers and talks to cats in public and is mostly loved for it. Kafka’s situation is more difficult to unpack, given the pedophilic and incestuous nature of the major culmination of his story. However, in his story too, he begins to abandon his worries and concrete visions of his future for the pursuit of what he believes to be love, perhaps a positioning by Murakami of love existing somewhat distinct from meaning.
Our two main characters exist in a world that is outside meaning or attempts to escape it. In their meaningless pursuits – Kafka’s strange pursuit of love and Nakata’s journey with the entrance stone – Murakami provides a temporary reprieve of meaning for his readers. No logical progressions, no step-by-step plans for the plot. We are instead reading and feeling these lives that escape the modern shackles of meaning just to see what’s on the other side. Perhaps this is why readers are devoted to the Murakami cause – we get to take a break from financially planning for the fiscal year or calendaring out our months and instead experience the ten days these characters had in a world devoid of those looming responsibilities. It’s a step beyond escapism – we’re not just escaping the regularity of our lives but even further the modes of thinking we’re forced into.
At the end of the day, I am attempting to make sense of a book that ranks high on my list of books that truly made very little sense to me. However, this book makes you wonder. There’s no sense that you’re logically building to some philosophical revelations by the end of the book, but instead you’re shown around Murakami’s world without meaning, existing as a tangential approach to one’s life. It absolutely does not make sense, and I would be shocked if someone could reduce this novel to bullet points.
I will close with a favorite quote from the end of the novel. Kafka finally meets Oshima’s surfer brother, who says, “When you surf you learn not to fight the power of nature, even if it gets violent.” Perhaps Kafka on the Shore is a large wave and I’m needlessly attempting to fight its currents by trying to figure it out. Read this book and experience its currents for yourself!