Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore
By Haruki Murakami


First impressions. I’m still trying to figure it out. One would say its surrealist, or magic realist, postmodern, but let’s not go into these terms now.

There is Nakata, an old man, cannot read or write, but by Buddha’s definition he is one endowed with powers that come when the mind is empty. Because he does not read or write he was able to access abilities that do not involve the rational mind, like talking to cats, making the skies rain with fish, or with leeches. He was a craftsman for a long time. Somehow, doing things that do not involve reading or writing or using the critical mind makes the mind silent or empty, and I think that is how Nakata was able to develop his abilities.

Kafka Tamura. Fifteen years old, runs away from home; he hates his father, he grows up missing a mother and a sister. Loves to read, is quite world class in his readings. He has an alter ego named Crow. Crow gives him advise on how to survive in this world where Kafka finds himself totally alone.

Nakata kills Johnnie Walker, who kills cats and gathers their souls to make them into a powerful flute. I wonder what that flute and soul gathering is all about. Some folklore or mythology involved here that I am not yet aware of.
Johnnie Walker, a character taken after that scotch whisky ad, not supposed to be a real person but a concept. Just as the other character Col. Sanders, Kentucky fried chicken ad man. Johnnie is supposed to represent the dark force while col. Sanders the white force. Of course. Johnnie stands for alcohol, the colonel, for…fried chicken? A good force? Now this just one of the funny and confusing aspects of the novel.

Kafka was fated to kill his father and sleep with his mother and sister. Like Oedipus. So this is a remake of the Greek classic Oedipus Rex. A Freudian drama. I still couldn’t convince myself to believe in Freud, so if this is the premise of the novel then I shouldn’t go any further because there is no point. Because I don’t believe Freud’s penis-envy, incestuous theories.

But let’s not touch on the Freudian view for now. Let us however see it like in Oedipus Rex, Kafka is fated to kill his father. Whatever Kafka does, he will suffer because his destiny is to kill the father. I think it’s about the inevitability of suffering, but I just don’t know why suffering has to come in the form of murder and incest. (And I wonder what Foucault has to say about this). The extremes.

And so Nakata, the poor, simple man who can talk to cats and make the heavens rain with fish and leeches, takes Kafka’s fate and kills Nakata’s father instead. But he does not actually murder Kafka’s father because he believed that he killed Johnnie Walker, the man who kills cats. Still, in a “metaphorical way” (the author’s words) Johnnie Walker is Kafka’s father.

The novel is full of unrealisms, but is realistic in many ways too. At certain points I feel like reading a typical drama that’s one for the telenovelas, angst and self-pity and all (and we really have so much of this in the Philippines, that I think it’s preventing us from thinking more constructively about our lives. We just love drama.)

The storyline is focused on a boy who runs away from home because he has issues. Nothing new about this. What is new in the novel is how the author interprets this juvenile drama into the mysteries of life, of the looking at other fascinating aspects of reality that we normally ignore. Like the seeming ordinariness of cats, stones and simpleminded people; in the novel they are the ones whose brilliance shine through. I am happy of course to recognize Buddhist/Zen/Perennial philosophy at work here.

One thing we shouldn’t ignore though is Murakami, the author, is Japanese, he wrote in Japanese, and lives in Japan. The novel is a reflection of the social issues in Japan—the alienation of the youth like Kafka, neglected or misunderstood by their parents; the affluence that comes with such alienation, none of our third world poverty issues. The youth’s sense of alienation, some of our young, affluent, city-bred Filipino population can relate with.

And I am sure they will have many other things to recognize in the novel. These are just my first impressions. I did not let go of the book for three days, enjoying the philosophical, literary landmarks along the way. Apart from touring Murakami's interesting inner world, I am also introduced to how a male Japanese psyche thinks (sexual daydreams and all). Which is quite interesting, given that I have been reading female writers for the past months.

I will need to reread the novel. That’s for sure. There are certain things that will need more illumination, like the meanings of Johnnie Walker and Col. Sanders and the realities of Kafka’s parents and sister. The significance of the stone and the forest and the character of the androgynous Oshima. Also, Nakata and Kafka never got to meet each other.

The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

Couldn’t put this book down once I opened it’s covers. Maybe because I am a product of American and Belgian missionaries, just like the Africans whose story is told in the book. And yes, it’s not exactly an eye-opener for me. A theme of the book is that of the Christian God and the Bible--that Christianity does not hold the sole Truth in this multicultural, multiperspective, multiple-Truths world. It is one truth that I have learned a long time ago, but one that many people still have to come to terms with.

Kingsolver's novel is an eye-opener in many ways.

It talks about American politics in the diamond-rich Congo, where children starve. It’s about missionary girls who realize the oppressive power of a Christian God as interpreted by their missionary father. It’s about being different from the common definitions of beauty, normality. It’s even about God the dictatorial father-figure coming face-to-face with God whose essence is found in the trees that provide shelter, and in the ravenous black ants that eat and destroy.

Christian missionaries from the US, believing that the Africans are condemned to hell unless they learn about Jesus and his offer of salvation, enter the Congo with their holy mission. A preacher and his wife and four daughters arrive in the forest village called Kilanga. Reverend Nathan Price,like all zealous preachers who listen to no one but to the Christian God (through the Bible of course), does not bother to truly encounter the people he plans to baptize and convert. It is his wife and daughters, all in fear of him, who tell the story of the consequences of his beliefs.

The story is told from the perspectives of the wife, and the four daughters, each having her own unique encounter with the Africans. The story comes in multiple perspectives, the African experience viewed in different angles. In this way, the story comes out fuller and richer.

In one way, it is saying that the Christian zeal is misdirected with its intention to save the world. It is the arrogance of claiming that it is the sole religion that holds the spiritual truth and all those who have not encountered Jesus will go to hell. And it’s their fault if they did not come to know Jesus before they die, because they lived in the farthest parts of the earth where the missionaries could not reach them on time.

Why Poisonwood Bible?

While clearing the ground to set up their backyard garden, the Reverend Price wrestled with a small tree, the Poisonwood. The African woman househelp warned them about the tree, but the self-important Reverend ignored her as he does to the other Africans, his wife and his four daughters who, in his mind, are lesser in wisdom than him.

It’s named Poisonwood because anyone who comes in contact with its bark and branches and white sap will soon suffer welts and inflammation of the skin. The Reverend Price soon learned about this as he himself felt his skin burn, to his dismay. It was just the first lesson not learned in this side of Africa, for the Reverend went on to commit the same mistakes.

The missionary kept telling the Africans that Jesus is Balanga, the local word for precious, but pronounced in a different way this same word means the poisonwood tree.The missionary who did not care enough to know the difference between balanga Jesus and balanga poison kept saying the poisonwood word, and thus preached the gospel of Jesus the poisonwood tree.

To the Africans in Congo, the Christian Bible is indeed poisonwood. It is poison to them who are forced to accept a foreign god and give up their local gods who have been guiding them and their ancestors.

In the Mood for Love

Watched this film "In the Mood for Love" by Wong Kar-Wai, starring Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. The plot is typical love story actually, so it's not the story that really caught my attention; it's the cinematography. And the music. Although I was truly hooked on the story too, no matter how ordinary it is. It's about a love that wasn't meant to be. Or a love that could not be. Or doomed love.

I had to read the subtitles because the film was in Chinese, by Chinese actors. I would have enjoyed looking at the characters' facial nuances as they said their lines, and more of the details of the cinematography, but I had to concentrate on the words being said so part of my attention was on reading the subtitles.

There is something enigmatic about the face of the woman protagonist. Beautiful, well-proportioned face, with almond eyes and an expression that remains serene with all the sentiments and emotions. Maybe it is the Chinese way of being. They handle emotions in a subtle way, without having to wail out their angst as the westerners do.And so you see her sitting on a stool, alone in her room, silent. Just silent, unmoving, still, the room is as quiet as she is. I think that is a very meaningful scene.The camera does not focus on her face, it focuses on her still body on a stool, in the room. And the silence.

Westerners would say she is repressing her emotions, stuck-up. But I think it's her Chinese blood; she's not repressed or stuck up, she just handles emotions in a serene way. Strong emotions at that. It's the stillness in her that allows those strong emotions to be there and yet not repressed. If she represses her emotions, she would get cancer, which westerners usually do. There is a difference between being still and yet feel ones emotions on one hand, and on the other, repressing ones emotions, trying hard to be still, which means controlling ones emotions. The first is a Buddhist frame of mind, the other is the typical Western way of controlling, even of ones emotions.

This is just a psychological reading of the film of course, because the film is more than this.

And that street corner shot; the angle remains the same even as the time of day changes and other people apart from our protagonists, pass by, and the weather changes too, rain and shine, but the shot remains the same. Our protagonists pass by that street in different moods, in different clothes. The street remains the same all throught the days, but its a different street all the time too, different sun that shines different shades of light depending on the time of day, different rain everytime it rains, different moods of the same people who pass by everyday. And you see the streetwalls in different hues too, depending on the tone of the day. It is such a beautiful way of rendering the essence of time and change and people and the ephemeral nature of it all.

There is that scene where the man finds his way to Cambodia, where a shot of an old temple in ruins, a monk in orange robes sits by, violin playing in the background, and the camera gives us a long while to fully take in this scene. The man finds a hole in the wall and whispers his secrets in there, again several minutes is devoted to this scene, with all the music and the temple ruins and the monk in orange robe flooding our senses. Finally the hole where the man whispered his secrets is shown filled up with mud. The man's lonely, love secret is sealed in there. It is the mud, the earth, the ruined temple, the skies above the temple, that are witness to the unraveling of the secret in the hole. And the beautiful violin music that expresses the scene in sound.

The film opens with lines of love poetry, and ends with more lines of love poetry. How romantic, and yet there is no anguish of tragedy, because the sadness is tempered with a sense of beauty.

Watch the film. So many symbolisms, allusions (watch the clock e.g). I got a copy from a friend who was all too willing to have copies of my film collection.