It took me 3 tries to read this book over 10 years.
In 2014 when I first picked it up, it was a gift before my trip to Japan. I, a 15 year old boy, ironically struggled to follow the story of another 15 year old boy (our protagonist, Kafka Tamura). Kafka had muscles, hated his father, and seemingly was well versed in his absurdist literature. I, on the other hand, was self conscious about my body, liked my father, and didn’t know a thing about Kafka outside of a vague sense he wrote a book about a bug. I also had no patience for the dual stories of Kafka and Nakata, and couldn’t take seriously the Johnnie Walker appearance and sardines raining from the sky.
In 2021 I gave it another go, this time somehow getting 80% through and then getting bored because I thought I knew how it would end. Unimaginable! (Also, I was wrong).
Finally, this week I decided to try again. As a (self-proclaimed) Murakami veteran at this point, I knew what I was getting into, and gave it the grace and patience it needed.
It’s hard to really get my thoughts organized because of how much there is going on in this book. And that is an intentional effect, much like how Miss Saeki’s lyrics for “Kafka on the Shore” resonate but their meaning is simultaneously inexplicable. It is a story about love, grief, dreams, consciousness, identity, and connectedness. It is about running away, losing yourself and finding yourself; a coming-of-age story and a love story, too. It has absurdist undertones, Oedipal overtones, and transcendent icons of capitalist marketing. And like all Murakami, at least 10 pages of music history is forcibly stuffed inside.
Overall, my experience with this book felt much like my experiences with 1Q84 and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - inexplicably resonant and wonderful.
More thoughts below, unorganized. Contains minor spoilers, with major spoilers tagged.
Much like the shore of consciousness that Murakami steps in and out of, individual identities ebb and flow with other individuals. While Hishino gets off thrice with a philosophy major sex worker, she talks about how an understanding of self strengthens when viewing yourself from the view of another, and vice versa; identities feed and merge off of one another unconsciously. Most notably, [spoilers removed]. Similarly, [spoilers removed]. I personally find the idea of people living on in others, whether it’s reincarnation, or just the continuation of their essence through another’s self, very comforting. To imagine those we’ve lost still living alongside us, or of our own souls after death continuing on, is my personal hope for what afterlife looks like.
The boy named Crow is still someone I have to work out an understanding of. It is ostensibly clear that Crow IS Kafka, but to what degree and on which axis he exists is less clear; he is the manifestation of Kafka’s subconscious, but not sure what else.
The whole mother/sister search drives a lot of Kafka’s original purpose, and the status on that is left intentionally unconfirmed on some parts, and has metaphorical conclusions on others. Ultimately this question isn’t actually that important to the story. I wish Sakura was more fleshed out as a character and not just [spoilers removed]
Oshima is potentially the most memorable character in the story for me. Maybe I’ll get a Mazda Miata in his honor.
And I haven’t even talked about Nakata’s storyline. He is Jesus in this book (if Jesus didn’t know that he was Jesus), and talking to cats is the least crazy thing he does. I hope his shadow is at peace.