Kafka on the Shore
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Connections between The End of the World and Kafka on the Shore. Possible Sequel?
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I read Hard Boiled a year ago, so I don't have all the details in my mind right now, but I just finished to read Kafka on the shore.The first thing that I did was to compare the two endings. In Hard Boiled, the protagonist decides to stay and live in the dream-like dimension, whereas in Kafka on the shore he decides to leave and to go back to real life.
It is like the author wanted to show the two sides of the journey in the inner part of ourselves: we can decide whether to remain in a perpetual journey or to get stronger through what we learnt and go on.
forgive me for not putting too much thought into this reply but to state it simply... ive felt like every Murakami book i've read is maybe not the same story being told but the same world being discussed... as if maybe your are getting a different perspective of the same thing over and over again... it's all felt linked
In a certain sense yes, it is like the rewriting over and over again of his obsessions, but every book is special in its own way. How many Murakami's book did you read?
me? oh, i believe i've read 7 or 8 of them. i think thats a large part of why all his books feel so comfortable to me...
Kafka on the shore was my fourth one, but the others are on my list. I think the next one is going to be "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle"
You mean a 'prequel' right? I can see where you are coming from. On a more banal level, the basic structure of the chapters is identical as well, flipping from one part of the story to the next. The first thought that came to my mind was that this is somewhat related to EOTW, if only thematically. There is a lot in common. I immediately felt it was a rewrite of EOTW but I like your spin on kafka being a prequel to EOTW. It's open to anything that can male sense right? A hypothesis until proven otherwise.
Sibylle wrote: "INTERVIEWERIn terms of structure, is it similar to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, in that it goes back and forth, chapter by chapter, from one story line to the other?
MURAKAMI..."
Mind blown. Thanks for digging that up! It appears that I might have very well been onto something.. a remnant of a Hard-Boiled Wonderland sequel that Murakami decided to leave in. Very intriguing!
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As we know, the "End of the World" is described in great detail in that book already so I'll just briefly describe it here. The unnamed 35-year-old 'calcutec' narrator learns that the core of his unconscious mind was able to create a bizarre, yet coherent and stable manifestation as a walled area with a forest, village, and bisecting stream. The town's energy is provided by a wind-power plant hidden in the forest and there is virtually only one safe way in or out of the area - the gate, which is guarded day and night by the gatekeeper and travelers are allowed access in or out according to his discretion alone. Memories of the outside world do not exist at 'The End of the World', however there is a library filled not with books, but with stacks of unicorn skulls which contain fragments of human memories. Animal life is limited to these unicorn beasts and the occasional bird in the sky.
Now onto Chapter 45 of Kafka on the Shore onward for similarities:
Immediately before beginning the journey into the town, Kafka is separated from 'the boy named Crow' who, it would seem, is only a figment of his imagination, but also an important manifestation of his conscious mind. Similarly, people are forced to be separated from their shadows before entering 'The End of the World'.
As Kafka descends into a delusional state along his hike into the 'heart of the forest', he encounters two previously mentioned WWII soldiers who carry the post of "guard[ing] the entrance [to the special town] day and night" (451). They guide him both in and out of the hidden town.
The tall soldier explains that "there's a small wind-powered station further in the forest...the wind's always blowing there" (450).
"There's no meat here, no fish, coffee, or spirits... but you do have eggs and cheese and milk... gotta have your protein, right?" (450). This is a stretch, but it appears that the only animal life in this world are birds and dairy-producing domesticated beasts. (unicorn beasts maybe?)
"two soldiers led me through the forest to a small town next to a stream" (453). Later, "A beautiful stream runs through the hollow, small buildings line the street and electric poles at set intervals cast dark shadows on the ground" (479).
"I don't have a name, we don't have names here" says the 15-year-old Miss Saeki (455). The elderly Miss Saeki mentions earlier in the book that she sought a place beyond the constraints of time so that her love could last forever - maybe her 15-year-old self found what she was looking for? Similarly, 'The End of the World' is also an eternally unchanging land without time. The people have no names, only occupations and titles.
"There's a library far away... but there aren't any books in it" (455). When questioned about memories, Miss Saeki reveals that she doesn't have memories. "In a place where time isn't important, neither is memory... memory isn't so important here. The library handles memories" (472-3). This sure sounds similar to the memory library located in 'The End of the World'.
"She's 15 here. Eternally 15, I imagine. But what's going to happen to me? Am I going to go on being 15 here? Is age, too, not a factor here?" (457). Later on page 469, the author uses italics to say that "time's [not] much of a factor here" after Kafka's watch stops working.
"Further in the distance, blacker than the darkness, the ridge rises up, and the forest surrounding this town like a wall" (457). It's true, there isn't a magnificent, solid wall surrounding this town, but the similarities Murakami draws are uncanny.
"The most important thing" she says quietly, "is you've got to get out of here. As fast as you can. Leave here, go through the woods, and back to the life you left. The entrance is going to close soon. Promise me you will" (474). What follows is a debate on whether Kafka's life outside of this town is really worth returning too, very similar to the narrator in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
"My mind is someplace far away, though my body is still right here - just like a living spirit" (477). Later, "As I made my way through the thick forest my mind must have been elsewhere" (480). It appears that the voyage is not literal or physical at all, it is all within Kafka's inner mind. The theme of 'labyrinths' originating from the inner-self throughout the novel further suggests this point.
Clearly Murakami is hinting at themes from his earlier work to perhaps provide clues to unlocking Kafka on the Shore. Whereas Kafka on the Shore is a very ambiguous novel, Hard-Boiled actually provides a lot of explanations, especially regarding the mechanism of a split consciousness, retreating into the inner-mind, etc. What is also made clear is how the narrator was literally one-in-ten-million by creating a very coherent subconscious manifestation, not to mention the virtual impossibility of someone having the same manifestation as \someone else.
MY THEORIES: On the conservative end, I think Murakami is saying that Kafka descended into the core of his mind temporarily to meet Miss Saeki one last time to learn to cherish the value of his life. He comes out with the mindset of being "part of a brand new world" having completed the tell-tale hero's journey (the answer he was looking for was inside of himself all along, blah blah). The core of his mind is completely separate from that of the character in Hard-Boiled. The subtle differences in the town are thus explained, and the similarities were only designed to clue the reader into reflecting on his earlier work to unlock the answer. No Gatekeeper = no mechanical device implanted in Kafka's brain forcing him in or out of the town as in Hard-Boiled. The entrance stone represents the opening to Kafka's mind's core so that he can make his internal journey.
On the liberal end, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a sequel to Kafka on the Shore. Hear me out on this. The fact that both Kafka and the character in Hard-Boiled have almost identical core subconsciousness' (not to mention the ability of forming coherent and stable settings at that) suggest that there are the same person 20 years apart. The lonely 35-year-old narrator is purposefully unnamed, but his name is... Kafka Tamura. Whereas the 15-year-old Kafka lives in modern day Tokyo, the 35-year-old Kafka lives in a seemingly dystopian Tokyo set 20 years in the future in which two, mighty corporate entities engage in unending data warfare. As a teenager, Kafka never understood what happened when he descended into his mind, so it's all new to him when he starts entering the End of the World 20 years later and makes the final decision to stay there for eternity. For the sake of extra provocation, the librarian's mother from Hard-Boiled (who is mentioned to still have part of her mind left and is thus cursed to wander the forest for eternity as a lost soul) is no other than Miss Saeki herself. That is, the part of her mind that she sent into 'The End of the World' as a young girl to ensure that her love would be undying.
TLDR: Kafka on the Shore alludes to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and, for the more adventurous imaginations, may even be considered a sequel.