Kafka on the Shore

by Haruki Murakami

It was after he recovered from his injuries that my father got serious about his career as a sculptor. As Miss Saeki went around interviewing people for her book, maybe she met my father. It’s entirely possible. There can’t be that many people around who’ve been struck by lightning and lived, can there?

Everything seems to be speeding up, rushing toward one destination.

It felt like I was somewhere far away, doing something else. But my head was floating and I can’t remember anything. Then I came back to this world and found out I was dumb. I couldn’t read or write anymore.”

Hoshino decided it was best to believe whatever the old man told him, no matter how eccentric it sounded.

“My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime.”

“The stone Nakata’s looking for is very special. It’s not so big. It’s white, and doesn’t have any smell. I don’t know what it’s used for. It’s round, sort of like a rice cake.” He held up his hands to indicate something the size of an LP record.

nobody can move the stone.”

“All I know is it’s about time somebody moved it.”

“I can’t read,” he said, “so this is the first library I’ve ever been in.” “I’m not proud of it,” Hoshino said, “but this is a first for me, too. Even though I can.”

Nakata had no idea they’d let you in if you can’t read.”

If you want everything to be nice and straight all the time, then go live in a world made with a triangular ruler.”

Painting, girl, and me—we form a still triangle in the room. She never tires of looking at the picture, and likewise I never tire of gazing at her. The triangle is fixed, unwavering.

“Miss Saeki,” I hear myself say. I hadn’t planned on speaking her name, but the thought welled up in me and spilled out. In a very small voice, but she hears it. And one side of the triangle collapses.

I’d feel terrible if that happened. No—not terrible, that’s not what I mean. Devastated is more like it. If she never came back everything would be lost to me forever. All meaning, all direction. Everything.

The next day, in the afternoon, a detective stops by the library. I’m lying low in my room and don’t know he’s there. The detective questions Oshima for about twenty minutes and then leaves. Oshima comes to my room later to fill me in.

the police don’t consider you a suspect. If they did, they wouldn’t send some local cop, but detectives from the National Police Agency. If that happened they would’ve grilled me pretty hard and there’s no way I could’ve outsmarted them. They just want to hear from you whatever information you can provide about the incident.”

“The police said you were a troublemaker at school. There were some violent incidents involving you and your classmates. And you were suspended three times.”

“And you hurt other people?” “I don’t mean to. But it’s like there’s somebody else living inside me. And when I come to, I find out I’ve hurt somebody.”

inside this physical body—this defective container—the most important job is surviving from one day to the next. It could be simple, or very hard. It all depends on how you look at it. Either way, even if things go well, that’s not some great achievement. Nobody’s going to give me a standing ovation or anything.”

I don’t like the container I’m stuck in. Never have. I hate it, in fact. My face, my hands, my blood, my genes . . . I hate everything I inherited from my parents. I’d like nothing better than to escape it all, like running away from home.”

inside here, this is what I think: If we reverse the outer shell and the essence—in other words, consider the outer shell the essence and the essence only the shell—our lives might be a whole lot easier to understand.”

I think about my own essence, my own shell. The essence of me, surrounded by the shell that’s me. But these thoughts are driven away by one indelible image: all that blood.

if you knew you might not be able to see it again tomorrow, everything would suddenly become special and precious, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re on a branch somewhere?” “In a manner of speaking,” she says. “And sometimes the wind blows pretty hard.”

Am I in love with Miss Saeki when she was fifteen? Or with the real, fifty-something Miss Saeki upstairs? I don’t know anymore. The boundary line separating the two has started to waver, to fade, and I can’t focus. And that confuses me. I close my eyes and try to find some center inside to hold on to.

“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.”

could you quote some more of that philosophy stuff? I don’t know why, but it might keep me from coming so quick.

think of what I’m doing to you right now. For me I’m the self, and you’re the object. For you, of course, it’s the exact opposite—you’re the self to you and I’m the object. And by exchanging self and object, we can project ourselves onto the other and gain self-consciousness. Volitionally.”

We’re talking about a revelation here,” Colonel Sanders said, clicking his tongue. “A revelation leaps over the borders of the everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all. What you need to do is move from reason that observes to reason that acts. That’s what’s critical. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about, you gold-plated whale of a dunce?” “The projection and exchange between self and object . . . ?”

“With you it’s always long stories.” “I don’t know why, but it always turns out that way.”

“So what you’re saying is you’re in some unreal place, with people cut off from reality?”

The silhouette isn’t that of the young girl. It looks a lot like her, almost an exact match. But it isn’t exactly the same. Like a copy of a drawing laid over the real thing, some of the details are off. Her hairstyle is different, for one thing. And she has on different clothes. Her whole presence is different. Unconsciously I shake my head. It isn’t the girl sitting there—it’s someone else. Something’s happening, something very important.

As if that sound is the signal, the silhouette in the chair starts to move, slowly changing its angle like some massive ship changing course. She takes her head out of her hands and turns in my direction. With a start I realize it’s Miss Saeki. I gulp and can’t let my breath out. It’s the Miss Saeki of the present. The real Miss Saeki.

a thought hits me—the axis of time. Somewhere I don’t know about, something weird is happening to time.

She’s asleep, I realize. Her eyes are open but it’s like she’s sleepwalking.

She must think I’m her dead boyfriend from long ago, and that she’s doing what they used to do here in this very room. Fast asleep, dreaming, she goes through the motions from long ago.

you can’t locate the borderline separating dream and reality. Or even the boundary between what’s real and what’s possible.

I watch from the bed as she makes her exit, still unable to move. I can’t even raise a finger. My lips are tightly sealed. Words are asleep in a corner of time.

Originally I don’t have a name or a shape.”

Since I don’t have a shape I can become anything I want.”

I don’t have a character. Or any feelings. Shape I may take, converse I may, but neither god nor Buddha am I, rather an insensate being whose heart thus differs from that of man.”

“I’m appearing here in human form, but I’m neither god nor Buddha. My heart works differently from humans’ hearts because I don’t have any feelings. That’s what it means.”

of the good and bad of man I neither inquire nor follow.”

“Since I’m neither god nor Buddha, I don’t need to judge whether people are good or evil. Likewise I don’t have to act according to standards of good and evil.”

I’m not beyond good and evil, exactly—they just don’t matter to me. I have no idea what’s good or what’s evil. I’m a very pragmatic being. A neutral object, as it were, and all I care about is consummating the function I’ve been given to perform.”

“I’m kind of an overseer, supervising something to make sure it fulfills its original role. Checking the correlation between different worlds, making sure things are in the right order. So results follow causes and meanings don’t get all mixed up. So the past comes before the present, the future after it. Things can get a little out of order, that’s okay. Nothing’s perfect. If the account book’s basically in balance, though, that’s fine by me.

I don’t have any form. I’m a metaphysical, conceptual object. I can take on any form, but I lack substance. And to perform a real act, I need someone with substance to help out.”

Some American chomping on a cheap pipe gives the order and presto change-o—God’s no longer God.

If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“This stone’s temporarily there in the form of a stone. Moving it isn’t going to change anything.”