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.