Kafka on the Shore

by Haruki Murakami

Nakata never felt afraid of anything. But after meeting Johnnie Walker I got very afraid.”

once you open the entrance stone, all sorts of things will naturally settle back where they’re meant to be, right? Like water flowing from high places to low places?”

“The stone is everywhere. Not just in Shikoku. And it doesn’t have to be a stone.”

“Something might happen, but then again maybe nothing. I haven’t opened it yet, so I don’t know. You can’t know until you open it.”

“Well, at least we’re having the same dream.”

He got a good grip, carefully tightened it, then took a huge breath, let out a gut-wrenching yell, and all at once lifted the stone, holding it in the air at a forty-five-degree angle. That was the limit of his strength. Somehow, he was able to hold it in that position. He gasped, his whole body aching, his bones and muscles and nerves screaming in pain, but he wasn’t about to give up. He took in one last deep breath and gave out a battle cry, but couldn’t hear his own voice. He had no idea what he was saying. Eyes shut tight, he managed to drag out a strength he never knew he had, strength that should have been beyond him. Lack of oxygen made everything go white. One after another his nerves snapped like popping fuses. He couldn’t see or hear a thing, or even think. There wasn’t enough air. Still, he inched the stone upward and, with a final yell, tipped it over. He lost his grip, and the weight of the stone itself flipped it over. A massive thud rattled the room as if the whole building was shaking.

“The entrance opened up, thanks to you.”

“It better have opened up. Otherwise I killed myself for nothing.”

Miss Saeki comes in to work late in the morning, and I don’t want to run into her. I need some time to get my head together before I see her again.

the whole confused mess swirls around in my brain, and my head feels like it’s about to burst.

But I know I can’t go anywhere. “But you can’t go anywhere, you know that very well,” the boy named Crow says.

“Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.”

“Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real bind. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free.”

The people who build high, strong fences are the ones who survive the best. You deny that reality only at the risk of being driven into the wilderness yourself.”

“So you’re Crow.”

“There must be a limit to that kind of lifestyle, though,” she says. “You can’t use that strength as a protective wall around you. There’s always going to be something stronger that can overcome your fortress. At least in principle.”

“The strength I’m looking for isn’t the kind where you win or lose. I’m not after a wall that’ll repel power coming from outside. What I want is the kind of strength to be able to absorb that outside power, to stand up to it. The strength to quietly endure things—unfairness, misfortune, sadness, mistakes, misunderstandings.”

something’s happening. The air pressure, the way sounds reverberate, the reflection of light, how bodies move and time passes—it’s all transforming, bit by bit. It’s like each small change is a drop that’s steadily building up into a stream.”

I decided not to force myself to judge anything.

“A lot of things were stolen from my childhood. Lots of important things. And now I have to get them back.”

People need a place they can go back to. There’s still time to make it, I think. For me, and for you.”

You tell her she must know who you are. I’m Kafka on the Shore, you say. Your lover—and your son. The boy named Crow. And the two of us can’t be free. We’re caught up in a whirlpool, pulled beyond time. Somewhere, we were struck by lightning. But not the kind of lightning you can see or hear.

Just a few hours was all it took, it seemed, for him to have aged terribly.

I’ve always been a great fan of the Chunichi Dragons, he thought, but what are the Dragons to me, anyway? Say they beat the Giants—how’s that going to make me a better person? How could it? So why the heck have I spent all this time getting worked up like the team was some extension of myself?

I’ve hardly ever noticed this before, but it feels kind of nice to be helpful to someone. . . . I don’t regret any of it—skipping out on work, coming over to Shikoku. All those crazy things happening one after another.

One day the Buddha said to him, “Myoga, you’re not very bright, so you don’t have to learn any sutras. Instead, I’d like you to sit at the entrance and polish everybody’s shoes.” Myoga was an obedient guy, so he didn’t tell his master to go screw himself. So for ten years, twenty years, he diligently polished everybody’s shoes. Then one day he achieved enlightenment and became one of the greatest of all the Buddha’s followers.

“The world would be a real mess if everybody was a genius. Somebody’s got to keep watch, take care of business.”

As long as I was alive, I was something. That was just how it was. But somewhere along the line it all changed. Living turned me into nothing. Weird . . . People are born in order to live, right? But the longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve lost what’s inside me—and ended up empty. And I bet the longer I live, the emptier, the more worthless, I’ll become. Something’s wrong with this picture. Life isn’t supposed to turn out like this! Isn’t it possible to shift direction, to change where I’m headed?

In the feudal time he was born in, though, he was compelled to skillfully cloak his ego in submissiveness and display a smart, happy exterior. Otherwise he would have been crushed. A lot of people compare him unfavorably to Bach and Mozart—both his music and the way he lived. Over his long life he was innovative, to be sure, but never exactly on the cutting edge.

Listen to that chord—hear it? It’s very quiet—right?—but it has a persistent, inward-moving spirit that’s filled with a pliant, youthful sort of curiosity.”

Damn it, I don’t care what happens, he finally decided. I’m going to follow Mr. Nakata as long as I live. To hell with the job!

“Miss Saeki . . . ,” he begins, searching for the rest. “What I mean is, she’s dying. I’ve felt it for a long time.”

I don’t know anything about her health. For all I know she might be saddled with a disease like that. I think it’s more of a psychological issue. The will to live—something to do with that.” “You’re saying she’s lost the will to live?” “I think so. Lost the will to go on living.” “Do you think she’s going to kill herself?” “No, I don’t,” Oshima replies. “It’s just that very quietly, very steadily, she’s heading toward death. Or else death is heading toward her.” “Like a train heading toward the station?” “Something like that,” Oshima said, and stopped, his lips taut. “But then you showed up, Kafka. Cool as a cucumber, mysterious as the real Kafka. The two of you were drawn together and, to use the classic expression, you have a relationship.” “And then?” For a brief moment Oshima lifts both hands off the wheel. “That’s it.” I slowly shake my head. “I bet you’re thinking I’m the train.” Oshima doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Exactly,” he finally says. “That’s it, exactly.”

She’s bright, and tough. She’s managed to put up with a terrible kind of loneliness for a long time, a lot of painful memories. She can make whatever decisions she needs to make alone.”

“Just keep your ears open, Kafka,” Oshima replied. “Just listen. Imagine you’re a clam.”

It’s like the old guy came to Shikoku to attend some Sleep Festival or something.

I’m neither a god nor a Buddha, not a human being. I’m something else again—a concept. So

it,” Hoshino said. “Things that are open have to be shut. Things you have, you gotta return the way they were.

‘Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all.’”

“At any rate, somebody’s been murdered, and murder’s not something you just shrug off.

I’m doing because I must. But I have no idea what will happen because of what I do.

If the cops heard your crazy story, they’d just blow it off and make up some convenient confession, something anyone would believe. Like you were robbing the house and you heard somebody, so you grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed him.

That’s what love’s all about, Kafka. You’re the one having those wonderful feelings, but you have to go it alone as you wander through the dark. Your mind and body have to bear it all. All by yourself.”

“There’s another world that parallels our own, and to a certain degree you’re able to step into that other world and come back safely. As long as you’re careful. But go past a certain point and you’ll lose the path out. It’s a labyrinth.

the ancient Mesopotamians. They pulled out animal intestines—sometimes human intestines, I expect—and used the shape to predict the future. They admired the complex shape of intestines. So the prototype for labyrinths is, in a word, guts. Which means that the principle for the labyrinth is inside you. And that correlates to the labyrinth outside.”

The more you think about it, the more you hate being fifteen.

The last thing you want is to let her leave like this. You want to hold her, and know what each and every movement of her body means. But you’re not there. You’re all alone, in a place cut off from everyone.