The World's Literature in Europe discussion

Chapters 14-15

The even-number chapters refer to Nakata, the clean-cut older man who developed an ability to converse with cats; the odd-number chapters to the teenaged Tamura.

In Ch. 14, Nakata is investigating the whereabouts of Mrs Koizumi's lost tortoiseshell cat Goma, when an intimidatingly huge, black dog leads Nakata across town to meet Johnnie Walker, a costumed look-alike to the English whiskey distiller.

In Ch 15, Tamura stays two days and nights in a fully stocked cabin in the midst of a thick forest, observing the expanse of land and sky, working out his stress, reflecting on a nonfiction book, and keeping a diary in which he notes having forgotten how he got to the cabin with a blood-soaked shirt.

Chapters 16-17

Nakata discovers that the missing cat Goma and the vagrant cats have been captured by Johnnie Walker for a soul-collecting mission. An eerie scene transpires, two helpless cats being rescued in the nick of time.

This and the next chapter share some commonalities: knives, music, preparation, eating, rules, blood, acceptance, etc., but Johnnie Walker 's dark mission produces death whereas Miss Saeki's mission brings the light of knowledge.

Kafka Tamura meanwhile enjoys the sounds and peacefulness of nature, respecting its safe and dangerous sides. After three days, Oshima picks up Kafka from the cabin. Driving home, he informs Kafka about the librarian Miss Saeki's younger life, her 1970's hit record of 'Kafka on the Shore', and her unfortunate, life-altering love affair, while nurturing him with wisdom about living and announcing that Miss Saeki and he have accepted Kafka to be part of the library, i.e. his living there as caretaker.

Chapters18-19

Has Nakata lost his ability to understand feline conversation? Why isn't there any blood over his person and clothes and over Goma and Mimi after the knifing? Why does the police officer dismiss Nakata's voluntary confession and Nakata's prediction of raining fish?

In Kafka's thread, Kafka moves into the guest room of the Komura Memorial Library, which has portrait of a young boy at the seashore, and learns his job responsibilities. A pair of library patrons and Oshima have words with each other about the library. Oshima startles everyone with a surprising announcement. Aferwards, Oshima waxes literary, comparing lacking imagination to the "hollow men" of T.S. Eliot's eponymous poem.

"But what disgusts me...are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot called hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of that they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Like that lovely pair we just met."

An analysis of Eliot's poem http://aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors... suggests Eliot's sources for the poem's title (right column, top).

Warning: do not read chapter 16 right after eating!

Ditto. No guarantee that you won't be disgusted with Johnnie Walker.

Chapters 20-21.

The older man Nakata hitchhikes with a series of truckers, occasionally being given advice, and at one rest stop saves a life with a timely rainfall of large, black, slimy leeches like he'd saved Mimi and Goma from Johnnie Walker.

"Things change every day, Mr. Nakata. With each new dawn it's not the same world as the day before. And you're not the same person you were, either. You get what I'm saying?...Connections change too. Maybe that's why you can't speak to cats anymore.

In the library of the next chapter, Oshima displays a news announcement about Kafka's father Koichi Tamura, who had recently been murdered at his home. Kafka has an alibi for that night. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember the few hours when he'd fallen unconscious except that he had awoken outdoors with bloodied hands and shirt.

In exchange, Kafka shares with Oshima the reason for his running away from Tokyo--to escape his father's Oedipal prophecies in which Kafka murders his father and is with his mother and sister. Oshima counters that "everything in life is metaphor", a more likely scenario than those events actually happening, a surrealism pointing to the irony of the human condition.

Oshima points to another news announcement, which possibly bears connection to the murder--a rainfall of salmon and mackerel near Tamura's house on the day after the murder. The two of them hypothesize whether Tamura's great creativity connected the sculptor to the cosmic "source of power", "to something beyond good and evil".

I love Kafka's descriptions of his relationship with nature while he is at the cabin...walking in the forest, staring at the flames of his fire, looking at the abundance of stars, listening to all the sounds, laying in the sunlight with his eyes closed and feeling the sensation, washing himself in the rain. I want to be there to experience it all.
And he has tea and books too...what more could you want? :-)

Julie,
Totally relaxing images. A place and a frame of mind in which he can think, act, and stretch out in total freedom. He pares away inner fear and outer trappings. I wonder whether the forest is a metaphor for a basic level of being, which doesn't happen to be good or evil.

Chapters 22-24.

At a truck stop, Nakata and the young trucker Hoshino become friends, both of them going someplace else. Hoshino decides to help out Nakata, who is headed to Shikoku.

After his childhood accident left him illiterate, Nakata graduated from a normal school then learned woodworking, practicing that trade for thirty-seven years before his retirement.

In the next chapter, Kafka awakes during the night, observing the silhouette of a fifteen-year-old girl, or her ghost, at his desk. Kafka and Oshina discuss whether "living spirits" also bring love and friendship besides evil.

"The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together...those living spirits all spring up out of negative emotions."

He cites the harmful, living spirit of the possessed Rokujo Lady in The Tale of Genji. Yet, Oshina isn't sure. He remembers Ueda Akinari's Tales of Moonlight and Rain. In its story "The Chrysanthemum Pledge", a dead character's spirit fulfills his promise of friendship to a blood brother. From the library's storage room, Kafka borrows a 1960s stereo and Miss Saeki's 1969 LP of her song "Kafka on the Shore", finding current associations with her words.

Nakata's chapter follows. In his mid-twenties, Hoshino talks about his life, regretting his having never thanked his grandfather, who unconditionally cared for him. Hoshino is surprised by Nakata's "sleep marathon", likening the older man to Snow White. He feels the benefit of Nakata's healing power and learns of Nakata's search for the "entrance stone". Unbeknownst to Nakata and Hoshino, Miss Saeki mentioned that stone in the lyrics of her song.

Does this novel's title Kafka on the Shore have something in common with the writer Franz Kafka? The relation immediately comes to mind when initially considering this title. The answer is Yes, for in chapter 23 Murakami refers to him:

"And the name Kafka. I suspect Miss Saeki used it since in her mind the mysterious solitude of the boy in the picture overlapped with Kafka's fictional world. That would explain the title: a solitary soul straying by an absurd shore."

That passage prompts a connection, imo, between the author Murakami and a character like Miss Saeki, whom the teenaged Kafka suggests to the librarian Oshima is a "living spirit" (as opposed to a dead one), who does not commit the traditional evil acts from negative feelings as in The Tale of Genji but who does the good act (her spirit imbued in the words and music of the love song 'Kafka on the Shore'). Murakami generates, sometimes in the same character, characters with negative and positive emotions which are released in actions.

Just noticed this thread - ages since i read this book but remember it as a great read

Sheila wrote: "Just noticed this thread - ages since i read this book but remember it as a great read"

Kafka On the Shore is one of my favorites, as well. The number of coincidences in time, among characters, of place don't give unalterable stability to anything because the recognized laws of reality are inapplicable. With so much surrealism, with the pairing of past and present time, and with the alternate chapters, the story yet is one of the smoothest to read I have run across. It's similar to All is One.