On my fifteenth birthday I'll run away from home, journey to a far-off town, and live in a corner of a small library. It'd take a week to go into the whole thing, all the details. So I'll just give the main point. On my fifteenth birthday I'll run away from home, journey to a far-off town, and live in a corner of a small library.
Kafka on the Shore (Japanese: 海辺のカフカ, Umibe no Kafuka) is a 2002 novel by Haruki Murakami that features two distinct plots. The first is about fifteen year-old Kafka who has run away from home in order to avoid fulfilling an Oedipal prophecy. The second follows Nakata, an older, mentally slow man who has the ability to talk to cats. Things only get stranger from there.
This novel contains examples of:
Arc Words: Cryptic references to an "entrance stone" start showing up about halfway into the book.
Asleep For Days: When Hoshino and Nakata arrive in Shikoku, Nakata promptly goes to sleep for 34 hours. He pulls this off at least two more times.
Astral Projection: Discussed by Oshima and Kafka when Kafka realizes that his ghost girl is probably the still-alive Miss Saeki. The conversation also opens Kafka to the possibility that he killed his father via astral projection.
Author Appeal: As usual in the case of Murakami, music, especially classical music and opera.
Bishōnen: Oshima is described as "pretty, rather than handsome" with a clean look and a charming smile.
Blood-Splattered Innocents: A few days after running away, Kafka blacks out for about four hours and wakes up with his shirt stained with someone else's blood. Despite apparently no one being around for him to have attacked, Kafka comes to fear that he may have killed his father via Astral Projection.
Blue and Orange Morality: Colonel Sanders claims to not know what "right" or "wrong" are and only cares about keeping the timeline in order.
Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: When Nakata is describing Johnnie Walker, he makes some general observations about his clothes before adding that Johnnie Walker is collecting cats so he can steal their souls.
This really isn't that "squicky", except the reader knows how Johnnie Walker gets those souls.
Brought Down to Normal: Nakata loses the ability to talk to cats after killing Johnnie Walker. Ultimately subverted for a possible Discard and Draw—he may have already had these abilities, but after that incident he displays the ability to make it rain animals, the ability to speak to the entrance stone, and some kind of sixth sense that allows him to find the stone and the Komura Library.
Catchphrase: Nakata, with "[food item] are one of Nakata's favorites."
Chekhov's Gun: Discussed by Colonel Sanders and Hoshino.
Discard and Draw: Nakata loses the ability to talk to cats but gains the ability to summon animal-based rain, to talk to the entrance stone, and to detect the stone and the Komura Library.
Dogs Are Dumb: "Cats know everything" says one cat, "unlike dogs."
Dream Land: Near the end of the book, Kafka infiltrates a dream of Sakura's.
Dude, She's Like, In a Coma!: Near the end of the book, Kafka initiates sex with a sleeping Sakura in a mutual dream. She wakes up during and informs him that even if they're dreaming, this is definitely rape. Kafka continues anyway.
Or, if you take the magical realism angle, it's the influence of the shiny thing in the sky. After all, blunt trauma usually doesn't qualify people to speak to cats, does it?
Two words: Johnnie. Walker.
Like Brother and Sister: Whether Kafka and Sakura actually are siblings or not, Sakura sees their relationship this way.
Magic A is Magic A: Johnnie Walker and his quest for a cat soul flute are bound by very strict and specific rules.
He must kill the cat in a way that would have it experience pain.
He cannot cover his clothes from the blood splatter.
Dives headlong into this with Johnnie Walker's introduction. He's collecting the souls of cats to craft from them a human soul-stealing flute, which will escalate from there into a flute "big enough to rival the universe". He goads Nakata into killing him, after which Nakata passes out. Nakata wakes up back in the vacant lot conspicuously not splattered with blood and apparently having lost the ability to talk to cats. As he tries to turn himself in, he successfully predicts that it will rain fish. And when they finally find a body, it's nude and belongs to Kafka's father.
With the exception of the first time, whenever Kafka has sex with Miss Saeki, the narration switches to second-person, with inconsistent use of the boldface type that comes in whenever Kafka is normally talking to himself/the boy named Crow. The effect is rather confusing.
Missing Mom: Kafka's mom left when he was very young, taking his sister with her.
Mrs. Robinson: Miss Saeki, who might also be Kafka's mother.
Ravens and Crows: Kafka's alter-ego is "The boy named Crow"; the name "Kafka" itself also means "crow".
The Runaway: Kafka runs away from his dad's home because he is afraid of fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother and sister.
Selective Obliviousness: Saeki's lover was killed by student revolutionaries who mistook him for a university official and refused to listen to his denials of this.
Shout Out: Oshima quotes Macbeth and Electra and makes references to several other pieces of literature.
Shrug of God: Murakami specifically states in his blog that the interpretation of Saeki and Kafka being related, as well many other parts of the novel, are all up to the reader.
Sibling Yin-Yang: Oshima is charming, well-read, and physically weak. His older brother is an asocial surfer. Subverted when Kafka finally meets Oshima's brother. Oshima is really just as asocial, but Kafka is somehow able to tease conversation out of both brothers.
Starfish Alien: Johnnie Walker's true form is something like a living blob of dough.
Strange Minds Think Alike: When Kafka encounters a ghostly girl in his room, he likens the atmosphere to being at the bottom of a crater lake. "Kafka on the Shore"'s lyrics also mention of a crater lake.
Straw Feminist: Two of them show up at Komura Library to inspect how woman-friendly the facilities are. They complain about the lack of gendered bathrooms and the card catalog.
Up for debate since the encounter doesn't follow the usual model (Straw Feminist(s) launches rhetorical volley, Man/Society slaps them down or discredits them, Straw Feminist(s) slink away or recant), and actually leads to a discussion on how narrow-mindedness is a destructive state of mind.
And bear in mind that the two women are not asking for anything inconceivable or exaggerated. Their requests are very reasonable actually and they seem like nice enough people otherwise.
Surprise Incest: Kafka has sex with two women who might be his mom and sister.
Suspiciously Apropos Music: In-universe; Kafka finds "Kafka on the Shore"'s lyrics to be oddly prescient.
Thanatos Gambit: This may have been Johnnie Walker's plan - get killed by Nakata to hitchhike a ride with him so he could get to the entrance stone. The book is rather vague.
"First of all, I'm not a male," Oshima announces. A dumbfounded silence follows on the part of everybody. I gulp and shoot Oshima a glance. "I'm a woman," he says.
Your Soul Is Mine: Johnnie Walker is killing cats so he can take their souls and make a flute from them, which he'll use to steal human souls and continue from there.
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