Kafka on the Shore

by Haruki Murakami

“The stone itself is meaningless. The situation calls for something, and at this point in time it just happens to be this stone.

necessity is an independent concept. It has a different structure from logic, morals, or meaning. Its function lies entirely in the role it plays. What doesn’t play a role shouldn’t exist.

“The stone you’re carrying there is Chekhov’s pistol. It will have to be fired. So in that sense it’s important. But there’s nothing sacred or holy about it. So don’t worry yourself about any curse.”

“So I should put it next to my pillow,

just doing my job. Just consummating my function.

By the time Hoshino laid the cloth-wrapped stone next to Nakata’s pillow it was already past one a.m. He figured putting it next to Nakata’s pillow instead of his own lessened the chance of any curse.

At five that morning, Nakata woke up and found the stone beside his pillow.

I haven’t had time to get bored,

“When I was young I did. I was dying to get out. To leave here and go someplace else, where something special was waiting, where I could find more interesting people.” “Interesting people?” Miss Saeki shakes her head slightly. “I was young,” she says. “Most young people have that feeling, I suppose. Haven’t you?”

“Nogata, Nakano Ward. Where I was born and grew up.” At the sound of this name something flashed across her eyes. At least it looked like it.

I think where a person is born and dies is very important. You can’t choose where you’re born, but where you die you can—to some degree.”

Whether you come to a place to live or to die, the things you do every day are about the same.”

“My father was in love with you, but couldn’t get you back. Or maybe from the very beginning he couldn’t really make you his. He knew that, and that’s why he wanted to die. And that’s also why he wanted his son—your son, too—to murder him. Me, in other words. He wanted me to sleep with you and my older sister, too. That was his prophecy, his curse. He programmed all this inside me.”

“In your theory, then, I’m your mother.”

“You mean in theory you desire me.” “No, apart from the theory. I want you, and that goes way beyond any theory.”

I know you when you were fifteen. And I’m in love with you at that age. Very much in love. And through her, I’m in love with you. That young girl’s still inside you, asleep inside you. Once you go to sleep, though, she comes to life. I’ve seen it.”

you—and your theory—are throwing a stone at a target that’s very far away. Do you understand that?”

“Actually getting closer to a metaphorical truth? Or metaphorically getting closer to an actual truth? Or maybe they supplement each other?”

“To be honest about it, I’m not trying to die. I’m just waiting for death to come. Like sitting on a bench at the station, waiting for the train.”

I wound up hurting myself, and that made me hurt others around me.

“Miss Saeki, would you sleep with me?” I ask. “You mean even if I were your mother in that theory of yours?” “It’s like everything around me’s in flux—like it all has a doubled meaning.”

“I found those chords in an old room, very far away. The door to the room was open then,”

close the door when you leave,”

“Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s just a natural feeling. You’re not the person who discovered that feeling, so don’t go trying to patent it, okay?”

No matter how long I gaze at it, though, it doesn’t look like the place in the painting. I tell her that.

“Did you know that I did this exact same thing a long time ago? Right in this same spot?” “I know,” you tell her. “How do you know that?’ Miss Saeki asks, and looks you in the eyes. “I was there then.”

You know you should say something, but don’t have any idea what. Words have all died in the hollow of time, piling up soundlessly at the dark bottom of a volcanic lake.

That blank, silent interval between leaves you sad, so terribly sad.

beyond any of those details of the real, there are dreams. And everyone’s living in them.

Nakata wasn’t particularly surprised to find the stone there. His mind adapted immediately to the new reality, accepted it, didn’t question why it happened to be there. Figuring out cause and effect was never his strong suit.

As if reading a map, he ran his hand over every part of the stone, memorizing every bump and cranny, getting a solid sense of it. Then he suddenly reached up and rubbed his short hair, searching, perhaps, for the correlation between the stone and his own head.

the cat didn’t appear to hear him, didn’t even turn around, just continued its languid walk and disappeared in the shadows of the building.

pictured the faces of all the cats he’d seen in the book in the library two days before. Unable to read, he didn’t know the names of the cats, but a clear picture of each and every cat’s face was etched in his memory.

His first-ever visit to a library had made him painfully aware of how little he knew.

How nice it would be, he thought, to be able to talk with each and every cat in there. There must be all kinds of cats in the world, all with different ways of thinking and talking.

“There’s going to be thunder today,” he pronounced to no one in particular. He may have been addressing the stone.

“There’s going to be a lot of thunder soon. Let’s wait for that.” “You’re telling me the thunder’s going to do something to help with the stone?” “I don’t know for sure, but I’m starting to get that feeling.”

Before long, though, the raindrops grew larger, and it was soon a regular downpour, wrapping the world in a wet, stuffy smell.

“All of a sudden I was wondering—what am I, anyway? What is Nakata?”

I know you’re an okay, honest guy. You’re out of kilter big-time, but you’re somebody I trust. That’s why I came with you all the way to Shikoku. I may not be so bright, either, but I do have an eye for people.”

“It’s not just that I’m dumb. Nakata’s empty inside. I finally understand that. Nakata’s like a library without a single book. It wasn’t always like that. I used to have books inside me. For a long time I couldn’t remember, but now I can. I used to be normal, just like everybody else. But something happened and I ended up like a container with nothing inside.”

My grandpa used to say that things never work out like you think they will, but that’s what makes life interesting, and that makes sense. If the Chunichi Dragons won every single game, who’d ever watch baseball?”

Nakata doesn’t have anybody. Nothing. I’m not connected at all. I can’t read. And my shadow’s only half of what it should be.”

“If I’d been my normal self, I think I would’ve lived a very different kind of life. Like my two younger brothers. I would have gone to college, worked in a company, gotten married and had a family, driven a big car, played golf on my days off. But I wasn’t normal, so that’s why I’m the Nakata I am today.

Up until now there was never anything in particular I wanted to do. I always did what people told me as best I could. Maybe that just became a habit. But now I want to go back to being normal. I want to be a Nakata with his own ideas, his own meaning.”

I guess you’re saying you need this stone to do whatever it is you need to do.” “That’s right. I have to get the other half of my shadow back.”

I’m the one who’s gone in and come out again.”

“I left here once, and came back again. It happened when Japan was in a big war. The lid came open, and I left here. By chance I came back. That’s why I’m not normal, and my shadow’s only half of what it was. But then I could talk with cats, though I can’t do it well anymore. I can also make things fall from the sky.”

“Being empty is like a vacant house. An unlocked, vacant house. Anybody can come in, anytime they want. That’s what scares me the most.

“Johnnie Walker went inside Nakata. He made me do things I didn’t want to. Johnnie Walker used me, but I didn’t have the strength to fight it. Because I don’t have anything inside me.”