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Kafka on the Shore - Open Discussion on the Entire Book (Spoilers Allowed) (November 2014)
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Edgarf
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Nov 10, 2014 02:40PM
This thread is for open discussion of Kafka On The Shore from beginning to end. Spoilers are allowed of course.
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It may sound crazy but I thought of Johnnie Walker as a representation of Dionysus. Here is a quote from Wikipedia"In a similar story, Dionysus desired to sail from Icaria to Naxos. He then hired a Tyrrhenian pirate ship. However, when the god was on board, they sailed not to Naxos but to Asia, intending to sell him as a slave. So Dionysus turned the mast and oars into snakes, and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes so that the sailors went mad and, leaping into the sea, were turned into dolphins."
I found there is also a book on the subject of Dionysus called The Flutes Of Dionysus Daemonic Enthrallment In Literature.
http://www.worldcat.org/title/flutes-...
I like it. It particularly makes sense in terms of the prophesy, since in at least some versions of the myths, Dionysus and Oedipus are both descended from the royal line of Thebes and are cousins of sorts (Dionysus is the grandson, and Oedipus is the great-great-grandson of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes). This makes Johnnie Walker/Dionysus a perfect stand-in for Kafka's father, who after all, (perhaps) plays the part of Oedipus in the story.
In the author's own words, "Kafka on the Shore contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It's hard to explain, but that's the kind of novel I set out to write." The article doesn't directly answer many questions, but at least sort of puts them in focus. Maybe.
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/m...
Lacewing wrote: "The article doesn't directly answer many questions, but at least sort of puts them in focus. Maybe.http://www.randomhouse.com/features/m... ..."
Thanks for the link, Lacewing.
Besides the excerpt you provide, these particularly caught my attention:
Q: What made you want to retell the Oedipus myth? Did you have a plan to do this when you started Kafka On The Shore or did it come about during the writing?
A: The Oedipus myth is just one of several motifs and isn't necessarily the central element in the novel. From the start I planned to write about about a fifteen-year-old boy who runs away from his sinister father and sets off on a journey in search of his mother. This naturally linked up with the Oedipus myth. But as I recall, I didn't have that myth in mind at the beginning. Myths are the prototype for all stories. When we write a story on our own it can't help but link up with all sorts of myths. Myths are like a reservoir containing every story there is.
Q: Before "postmodernism" became a buzzword, Franz Kafka explored that particular condition of isolation associated with a post-nuclear, new-millennium world. Did you name your protagonist after him to draw out these themes, or were there other reasons?
A: It goes without saying that Kafka is one of my very favorite writers. But I don't think my novels or characters are directly influenced by him. What I mean is, Kafka's fictional world is already so complete that trying to follow in his steps is not just pointless, but quite risky, too. What I see myself doing, rather, is writing novels where, in my own way, I dismantle the fictional world of Kafka that itself dismantled the existing novelistic system. One could view this as a kind of homage to Kafka, I suppose. To tell the truth, I don't really have a firm grasp of what's meant by postmodernism, but I do have the sense that what I'm trying to do is slightly different. At any rate, what I'd like to be is a unique writer who's different from everybody else. I want to be a writer who tells stories unlike other writers'.
Why did I create a character like him [Nakata]? It must be because I like him. It's a long novel, and the author has to have at least one character he loves unconditionally.
I don't know a whole lot about symbolism. There seems to me to be a potential danger in symbolism. I feel more comfortable with metaphors and similes.
Not quite certain Murakami is being totally and completely honest with himself in the last statement, but it is fascinating to me to read him making it.
This may be totally irrelevant, but I certainly recalled Whitney's question about the flute and its sound when I read the following this morning:"...The day began before dawn, when one nun woke the others with her kangling trumpet. Tibetans make these trumpets out of human femurs, drilled at each end. A kangling can play an extraordinary range of notes. The nun in charge of the morning call sent her long, lamenting melody out over the white-frosted fields and the rocks behind them, up to the clouds. One after another, the other nuns joined in, until a blanket of sound lay over the mountain pastures, woven from the hollow yet powerful tones. After this, the nuns spent several hours meditating in their huts....Then the nun who had heralded the day signaled the end of meditation with her kangling, and once again the other nuns chimed in with their bone horns. After that, they all walked through the wet grass to the water boiler to wash their hands and faces." p. 45, Across Many Mountains: A Tibetan Family's Epic Journey from Oppression to Freedom by Yangzom Brauen.
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Whitney wrote: "...Although if there is an example I've missed, I'm counting on Lily to point it out..."LOL! Come on, now, Whitney. You are usually the one who draws me up short! Or takes us someplace I haven't noticed.... :-)
Lily wrote: "This may be totally irrelevant, but I certainly recalled Whitney's question about the flute and its sound when I read the following this morning:"...The day began before dawn, when one nun woke t..."
Across Many mountains, Another wonderful book
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Casceil wrote: "I don't think it was that literal (though with Murakami, who can tell). I think Johnnie Walker was a "concept," like Colonel Sanders, that got Nakata to the right place to kill Kafka's father, and provided the motivation to kill him. But I don't think the sculptor was actually torturing cats..."
This touches on my interpretation of the book, which goes something like this: There are two different realms at work, a more objective or everyday world as well as one that can be considered more of a spirit world. There’s significant crossover between the two, largely facilitated by the opening of the entrance stone. Different realities and people stumbling between one and the other is a common Murakami theme.
The killing of the cats took place in that other realm. I think the incident was arranged by Johnnie Walker to manipulate Nakata into killing Kafka's father. Since JW later showed up the forest and he had the flute, perhaps the killing of Kafka's father allowed him to gain more of an independent existence. As I said in the previous thread, I think JW is a part of Kafka’s father that exists more in the spirit realm, Crow has a similar relationship to Kafka.
Nakata, with his half-shadow, lives is both realms, or maybe more accurately on the border of the two, since Toro the cat says something to that effect to Hoshino. Because Nakata is in both worlds, JW is able to use him to effect an event in the real world by manipulating events in the spirit world. Cats also exist on the border between worlds, which is why Nakata can talk to them, and why Hoshino can talk to them at the pivotal moment before the closing of the entrance stone.
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Why is Nakata so longer able to talk to cats after the murder of Kafka's father?
Probably due to a loss of innocence or being corrupted by blood. A lot of religions have the concept that blood, particularly the blood of a murdered human, is polluting, and after contact with blood a person needs to be ritually cleansed before they can enter a holy place or communion with the gods. Both Shinto (the Japanese native religion) and the ancient Greeks have or had versions of this belief.Before killing Johnie Walker/the sculptor, Nakata was a sort of holy fool, but afterwards he was no longer holy.
Mod
I got a certain sense from this book that almost all the characters were fated to play out their roles, except for Kafka, who is the only one who both lives out his fate but transcends it to forge a new life/identity. So, in this light, Nakata's speaking to cats was only necessary to get him to the point where he would meet and kill Johnnie Walker, and doing so changed the balance of things.
It's such a fascinating cast of characters: Nakata as the empty/memory-less fool; Miss Saeki as almost his opposite being nothing but memory (locked in the past); Oshima as this undefinable gender/sexuality who functions much like the Greek choruses in tragedies (which he explains early on in the book and makes some sort of quip how wouldn't it be nice if they existed in real life to explain things to us); Hoshino sort of seems like the everyman who's never really thought too much about life until he rubs up against something he feels has purpose for the first time in his life; and Kafka who seeks to escape his "destiny" by fulfilling it.
How did any of you read that un-numbered chapter (let's call it 46.5) where Crow attempts to attack the character-formerly-known-as-Johnnie Walker?
Marc wrote: "How did any of you read that un-numbered chapter (let's call it 46.5) where Crow attempts to attack the character-formerly-known-as-Johnnie Walker?"I think it can be read in any number of ways:
- As Kafka (Crow) coming to grips with the memories of this father.
- As Kafka's spirit guardian (Crow) trying to protect the the place on the other side of the entrance stone from a demon or evil spirit.
- As Kafka's father's spirit working out his conflict with his son before departing the world.
It does seem the tongue that Crow rips out of the former Johnie Walker is similar to, or identical with the slug-thing that came out of Nakata's mouth after he was dead and made for the entrance stone.
Casceil wrote: "Whitney, I like your interpretation. It seemed to me as I was reading that there were certain places that were special, including the shrine where Kafka woke up covered in blood, and the shrine wh..."I, too, like Casceil!s description of different realms coexisting in the novel. I am still reading (not too much more to go), but this makes sense to me. Like Whitney, I agree with her listing a some examples of where the other realm resides.
Thank you both; these insights will add to my continued reading experience.
I love the idea of different realms, which is a Murakami specialty. That does make sense. I read this book earlier this year and really wish I had psych powers and waited until the group read it. There is some insightful discussions going on here.
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Any speculation on the character of Sakura? She seems a little unnecessary, except to fulfill the supposed prophecy regarding Kafka's sister, which also seemed a little unnecessary.
Whitney wrote: " which also seemed a little unnecessary. ..."I'm confused (not unusual, normally, but especially when reading Murakami). Your criteria for "necessary", Whitney?
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I'm confused (not unusual, normally, but especially when reading Murakami). Your criteria for "necessary", Whitney?"
She didn't seem to play any kind of essential role in the narrative. Did adding "sleeping with his sister in addition to "killing his father and sleeping with his mother" really change the effect that the prophecy had on Kafka? Would the book have been affected in any significant way if Sakura hadn't been in it?
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Whitney: I had that same reaction to Sakura, but now you're actually making me think more about her role. I could possibly see it in two ways: 1) Sakura is sort of necessary for Kafka to believe he's fulfilled his fate because he "uses" her to stand in for his sister even though they both tend to acknowledge that she's more like a sister [cough, cough, aside from certain acts] than an actual blood relation. 2) She's seems to be sort of like an anchor or tether for Kafka to the real world/non-spirit realm. She becomes almost like a substitute mother/family member for him... a support structure he needs both to get through his destiny (since she helps him after he wakes with blood on his hands and is always there for emotional support/counsel by phone) and to start on his new life (she's the person he calls before heading back to Tokyo and he seems reassured that she too will be returning to Tokyo). Kind of a small role, but integral. Maybe?
Marc wrote: "Peter: Those all seem like valid and insightful readings of chapter 46.5. I hadn't really thought in terms of a spirit guardian protecting the other side and I totally missed the connection between..."I had said in an earlier post that I thought JW was a stand in for Dionysus. Many mythical characters do represent ideas or parts of human nature. I do go along with the theory that the 46.5 chapter showed that part of human nature at least in the case of Kafka at has not yet been destroyed.
I have finished reading this book for the second time and am no closer to an understanding than when I started. Thank you to all of you for your thoughts. This discussion has surely given me something to think about.
Linda wrote: "I have finished reading this book for the second time and am no closer to an understanding than when I started. ..."[grin!] I'm not certain the postmodern mind (where I do categorize Murakami, appropriately or not) seeks to portray "understanding." It may, maybe, seek to encourage asking "better" or "new" or "reframed old" questions.
Lily wrote: " I don't know a whole lot about symbolism. There seems to me to be a potential danger in symbolism. I feel more comfortable with metaphors and similes. Not quite certain Murakami is being totally and completely honest with himself in the last statement, but it is fascinating to me to read him making it. "
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Like any good writer, he might simply be tongue-in-cheeky (he mostly writes FICTION, after all, and the whole idea of fiction is FICTION) and/or is simply afraid of the symbolism of his own words. The novel is obviously symbolic in more than one meaning. The whole idea of the myth about Oedipus is a bunch of symbols and allusions that are used brilliantly as a pass into a new realm - a realm of dreams.
Basically, I think Murakami is asking the same question over and over again in each of his novels - What is real? Are our dreams more real than what we believe is hard-core reality? Can we unwittingly pull strings that change events in other worlds? Is our world based and governed by our own myths?
I also liked the unfinished poised nature of the novel. Nothing is definitive here, nothing is for sure, but that incompleteness makes it even more attractive, and some riddles stay riddles because certain answers would have only spoiled the pleasure of reading, would have turned the realm of myths and dreams into our very mundane world, and this would be a literary suicide for his readers because you do not read his novels to get the answers. You read his novels to ask questions and go with the flow of his very subtle, insightful style, and his literary magic.
Zulfiya wrote: " You read his novels to ask questions and go with the flow of his very subtle, insightful style, and his literary magic. "Yes. I did not see this before following the discussion here.
Thanks, everyone, for enriching my experience of this novel.
I finished reading KotS, and it has been haunting the background of my thoughts for days now. This novel was my first experience with Murakami's writing, and I am entranced by his style. I found Updike's review in The New Yorker to be enlightening - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...
His comments about Shintoism and the concept of kami are particularly relevant: "Kami exists not only in heavenly and earthly forces but in animals, birds, plants, and stones. Nakata and Hoshino spend hours trying to learn how to converse with a stone—to divine what the stone, at times easily lifted and at others heavy to the limits of a man’s strength, wants. Kami pervades Murakami’s world, in which, therefore, many Western readers will feel, a bit queasily, at sea. . . ."
This Western reader has been at sea while reading KotS, but not queasily. Instead the experience has been at times like floating on a raft on a peaceful lake, while at other times roaring and bumping along the twists and turns of white water rapids. But somehow what strikes me as most artful about Murakami's writing is that I stay afloat through it all.
I also find myself agreeing with Zulfiya that Murakami repeats the same question, "What is real? Are our dreams more real than what we believe is hard-core reality? Can we unwittingly pull strings that change events in other worlds? Is our world based and governed by our own myths?" Thank you for this insight.
I will have more to say in the future, I am sure. Let's keep exploring!
Maureen @28: That's some fine writing you did there.
Lacewing wrote: "Maureen @28: That's some fine writing you did there." Agree! (Good day, wherever you are!)
Thank you Lacewing and Lily. Murakami's writing inspires. Good day to you both as well from snowy Park City!
Whitney@11: I really like how you've put Nakata in a between place. The way you're doing it is rather architectural. I think there's more to see, but I'm not sure what vantage to take. Why, I wonder, does the story overall need Nakata's role?Eh. I don't even know what question I want to ask! But there's one in there somewhere.
Lacewing wrote:..."Why, I wonder, does the story overall need Nakata's role?..."Not really an answer to your question, Lacewing, but I love Murakami's comment about Nakata:
Why did I create a character like him [Nakata]? It must be because I like him. It's a long novel, and the author has to have at least one character he loves unconditionally.
Again, only a comment, not an answer: Nakata becomes a mediator between reality and something else. His sad history and having been touched (afflicted/damaged) by social violence places him in a unique position for the role.
Reverse questions: What would the book have been without Nakata? Does Kafka escape being considered the murderer of his father by Nakata's existence?
Lily wrote: "Lacewing wrote:..."Why, I wonder, does the story overall need Nakata's role?..."Not really an answer to your question, Lacewing, but I love Murakami's comment about Nakata:
Why did I create a ch..."
I see Nakata very much as a intermediary between one world and the other. He is unable to open the entrance way to the other place, but is able to guide Hoshino to his role and the gatekeeper and to whom Nakita passes the baton. I see Hoshino as the person that Nakita wanted to be and in the end Hoshino stands in for a full shadowed Nakata.
Whitney wrote: "Continuing from a discussion the previous thread (up to Chapter 38). Casceil wrote: "I don't think it was that literal (though with Murakami, who can tell). I think Johnnie Walker was a "concept,..."
This book was such a journey! I definitely enjoyed it, but to be honest I don’t quite like that it left me pondering over so many questions. I am glad about the discussions going over here, because they are making me understand the book better.
Thank you very much for the insight Whitney. I find the idea of two-realms-coexisting and collapsing in certain points, very appealing. I wish I read your comment before finishing the book. That would add a whole new dimension to my imagination, especially while reading the end of the book.
Stripped down to its rudiments Kafka on the Shore can be read as an oedipal story. The son is wounded by his mother’s abandonment of him and he blames his father. Covets a murderous hatred towards him. The playing out of the novel is almost like the boy Kafka under a kind of Jungian/Freudian hypnosis. Dreams or myths become the healing place, archetypes/spirit doubles/art the healers. Kafka will never be able to resolve his identity crisis with his actual parents so he has to recreate them internally. Jung differentiated the ego and the self – ego as consciousness, the entire scope of the psyche as self. So the promptings of Crow can be seen as self battling with Kafka’s limitations as purely ego. Ultimately it’s easy to read Kafka as a kind of celebration of Jungian psychoanalysis. Which for me is where it falls down. Any novel written to verify a theory is going to appear forced at times and Kafka on the Shore, behind all its riddles and imaginative bravado, did often read to me, the story within the story aspect, like an entrenched treatise rather than a free flowing, pathfinding moving story. Murakami is one of my favourite writers but this wasn't one of my favourite of his books. Sorry to be a wet blanket.
Violet wrote: "Stripped down to its rudiments Kafka on the Shore can be read as an oedipal story. The son is wounded by his mother’s abandonment of him and he blames his father. Covets a murderous hatred towards ..."your post is not a wet blanket at all, Violet. I rated the book 5 stars, but your post gives me a lot to think about. I will have to admit I am not up on Jungian psychoanalysis and think of Freud as an influential quack. Although I am versed in the Oedipus story I have read Sophocles since I was in my 20s I picked up a copy of Oedipus The King at a bookstore a few days ago an will be reading it again in the next couple weeks. I have have KOTS to thank for that. I've also pick up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; I have no idea when I will have a chance to read it. My to read list has been getting a bit long lately.
Mod
John Updike’s take was fascinating and obviously there are quite a few Japanese nuances that we as western readers fail to appreciate. However the novel is essentially a fable - of the healing process and rehabilitation - and as such has to have a treatise as part of its engineering. I’m not saying Murakami used Jungian theory as any kind of model (we all unconsciously do that at times as Jung was an observer, not an inventor); only that it CAN be read in Jungian terms. Still feel though that, howsoever you read it, it ultimately feels a bit forced and a bit flat. Murakami has written much better novels. Just my opinion.
Casceil wrote: "Violet, I think you may be trying a little too hard to force Murakami into a western literary model. I think it's a very Japanese book, and has much more to do with Japanese literary traditions an..."I was talking to a young co-worker, who just returned from a vacation in Japan, when I told him about the Colonel Sanders character he told me that KFCs were ubiquitous in Tokyo and in from of everyone was a statue of the KFC founder. I do not how or if you can imbed images into posts here, but a google image search on 'Colonel Sanders in Japan' brings up some interesting pictures.
I read the book a while ago (years) and liked it enough to recommend it to others. Although it's the type of story that leaves images in your mind (I'm seeing a library and a love scene as I write this), I admit I otherwise don't recall much about it. I like his non-fiction work on running and writing. Anybody read that?
It's called What I Talk About When I Talk about Running.
Edgarf wrote: "I do not how or if you can imbed images into posts here, but a google image search on 'Colonel Sanders in Japan' brings up some interesting pictures...."Edgar -- If you are interested in trying to embed a picture, try "some html is ok" in the upper right corner. Running a mouse over a picture will usually allow you to capture its image location. I seldom bother with the sizing info any more -- used to fool around with it a lot, but now only if unsatisfied with automatic adjustments, so usually just delete or copy over those fields.
Here is one Colonel Sanders in Japan image per your suggestion:
Thx to Marc Keen, living and working in Japan: http://highpoly.blogspot.com/2006/12/...
For another background article on Col Sanders in Japan -- does Murakami play on this story?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/0...
Not really relevant, but caught my eye on KFC:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/09/inves...
Mod
I loved this book, it was my first Murakami and it was like nothing I had read before.
It made me very curious about Japanese culture too. It just so happens that next week there's a big cultural festival about Asia in a city not terribly far from where I live. Kots has made me curious to go there, maybe I'll find some enlightening conference about Japanese spiritualism.
It made me very curious about Japanese culture too. It just so happens that next week there's a big cultural festival about Asia in a city not terribly far from where I live. Kots has made me curious to go there, maybe I'll find some enlightening conference about Japanese spiritualism.
Mod
It feels like there's a deeper story about Japan itself--the war creating a kind of collective amnesia... leading Japan to be caught somewhere amidst frozen in its past, split/fragmented by modern Western influences, and needing to shrug off destiny/fate in order to forge a future."Yep, that's a really interesting perspective. I already like it better through that lens.
Mod
Kafka on the Shore is sometimes considered a spiritual sequel to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, in which the theme of choosing to remember vs choosing to forget is a very major element (and, those who choose to forget lose their shadows).
Wind-up Bird Chronicle, with its Manchurian episode, and KotS, with its mushroom eating calamity and interviews with Murakami linking that incident to the subway gassing each have always led me to believe Murakami is asking me, as reader, to see more than I see. Marc's and Peter's comments add to being able to grasp the puzzle picture Murakami is creating as he story-tells. Thanks, both of you. Keep such tidbits coming?
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (other topics)Across Many Mountains: A Tibetan Family's Epic Journey from Oppression to Freedom (other topics)
