Haruki Murakami

1Q84 is a postmodern masterpiece, rich in intertextuality, literary experimentation, spiritual fanaticism, and a general mistrust for not only society but for reality itself. It proposes the mutual exclusivity of religion, politics, and violence through an air of secrecy and conspiracy behind all the subtle (and progressively less subtle) inconsistencies plaguing the media and even daily life. It is through these inconsistencies, which take place primarily at the most mundane level, that show more Murakami weaves a tale of star-crossed love in the midst of such quiet unease. It is a representation of everyone's own search for an authentic life in an age where the "facts" are rarely straightforward, intimacy is just a means by which to feel alive, and ideologies are thinly veiled justifications to propel the narratives of those most powerful. Murakami teaches us that the most disturbing truths lie just beneath our conscious awareness. show less

"Workin' on mysteries without any clues,
Workin' on our night moves-"
-Bob Seger, "Night Moves"

Seemingly a prose retelling of Seger's reminiscence, liberally infused with doses of both "Harold and Maude" and "The Last Picture Show," Murakami stages young Japanese characters and their baggage in a melancholy, sexual, coming-of-age drama drenched with Western pop culture. But for the rather high suicide count, this is thematically familiar stuff (a central issue of choosing living/the future show more over choosing death/irrecoverable past) but made fresh and compelling by Murakami's style which is simultaneously smooth and easy, and yet rich and lyrical. Dialogue is well executed, characters well-defined and imperfect, and place and environment are drafted dead-on, laid out for readers like place settings at a table. This is actually deceptively well-crafted for the story told.

"It was one of those early autumn afternoons when the light is sharp and clear.....the clouds were white and as sharp as bones, the sky wide open and high." show less

As usual, when I read Murakami, I don't understand everything. But this is still a fascinating read with the bizarre and surreal intertwining together with the ordinary. An interesting technique is the use of the lens of a camera to zoom into the lives of the characters. Though the word Tokyo never appeared at all, it is clear that the plot took place in this city, a place that I can't visit now because of Covid. We wonder why Eri Asai fell into a deep sleep. Is it to escape everyday life? show more Perhaps we all wish to be able to do that sometimes. It was not explicitly stated but Eri appears to regain consciousness, which I see as a symbol of hope. The story ends with the approach of dawn. After darkness, there will be light. show less

Review: Kafka on the Shore
JUNE 13, 2023 / RTRUBE54 / EDIT

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami. New York: Vintage International, 2002.

Summary: In two parallel plots Kafka tries to escape a curse and find his mother and sister (and himself) and Nakata tries to recover the part of him lost during a strange school outing incident in his youth.

This represents my first encounter with Murakami, one that left me strangely fascinated. I’ve not always found myself drawn to magical realism, but I show more could not put this down.

The story involves two connected plots, advanced in alternating chapters. The first follows the title character Kafka, a fifteen year old who runs aways from his father, the famous sculptor Koichi Tamura, to search for his mother and sister, who left when he was four. He makes his way to Takamatsu where he meets an accommodating young woman, Sakura, who shelters him when he awakens to find himself covered with blood and no memory of how it got there. His trek eventually takes him to a private library in a former wealthy home administered by Miss Saeki, who many years before had recorded Kafka on the Shore, remembering a young lover lost. He’s welcomed and protected, by Oshima, a transgender man. For a time he lives at the library, and then when in danger of being found by the police, who are seeking him as a material witness in the murder of his father, Oshima shelters him in a cabin deep in a forest in the Kochi Prefecture

The second plot involves Nakata, an aging man who as a child was part of a group of school children who fell unconscious during a school outing during the Second World War. The others recovered to lead normal lives. After several weeks of lying unconscious, Nakata awakened but couldn’t remember anything and could no longer read or write or learn how to do so. He’d led a quiet life, working in a kind of sheltered furniture workshop. He eventually received a government subsidy on which he lived alone. He had a unique ability to understand the language of cats and to find lost ones and restore them to his owners. On one such search, he encounters a sinister character, Johnnie Walker, who has been capturing and beheading cats to make a magic flute. To recover the cat he is seeking, Johnnie Walker tells Nakata that he must either kill Johnnie Walker or he will kill the cat. Nakata, utterly non-violent, eventually does so, returns the cat, and then flees. Hitchhiking, he meets up with Hoshino who takes him to Takamatsu, where they have a variety of strange adventures including an encounter with Colonel Sanders, who is a kind of spirit guide (or concept).

That raises one of the main ideas in the novel–the way spirits leave the body encountering others. Though Kafka has fled his father to evade a kind of Oedipal curse, Kafka’s bloody clothes episode and Nakata’s murder of Johnnie Walker, who turns out to be Koichi Tamura, occur at the same time. Miss Saeki visits the room where Kafka sleeps in the library each night as a fifteen year old girl looking at a painting, eventually having sex with him, as later Miss Saeki herself does.

As I mentioned, there is a kind of Oedipal curse going on with Kafka, murdering his father, and sleeping with both mother (Miss Saeki) and sister (Sakura, in a violent rape dream).

Meanwhile, Nakata is also on a quest of the kind that he knows it when he finds it, trying to the patience of Hoshino, who is also transformed by his time with the old man. He’s only had a thin shadow since the childhood incident. Likewise, Miss Saeki, always at her desk writing…and waiting.

Two people, Nakata and Miss Saeki, trying to find what was lost. Kafka, trying to find himself, in his lost mother and sister. And Oshima? What is his role? Perhaps as a wiser guide than Crow, the alter ego of Kafka (which in Czech means “crow” or “jackdaw”), who just tells him he has to be “the toughest fifteen-year-old in the world.” As the novel concluded, I found myself wondering, what of Oshima?

There is so much more, and I find myself with many questions like this one. It’s a book that invites multiple readings. As one may pick up from this review, there are scenes of violence, a vivid dream of a rape, and descriptions of sexual intimacies, so this may not be for everyone. None of it is gratuitous (well, maybe the scene in which Colonel Sanders fixes up Hoshino with a hooker, although there is something going on with sexual energy here). There is also the compelling power of music, whether it is Miss Saeki’s Kafka on the Shore or Beethoven’s Archduke Trio. I wonder about archetypes, if that is the right word, like Colonel Sanders and Johnnie Walker. This is one of those books I’ve finished but it isn’t finished with me…. show less