The Hypnotic Prophesy by Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

Days after finishing this book, my mind is still filled with questions. Kafka on the shore had me on the edge of my seat for most of my reading time. It has been an interesting read that has been stuck in my head for a few days now. I had so many questions that went unanswered that I had to get up and pace around my room, looking for the answers in my head and writing it down on a piece of paper. This enigmatic novel is for sure one of the best books I have ever read, and sharing it could be my greatest delight.

Kafka, the 15-year-old, runs away from his father’s prophesy: he will have to kill his father and sleep with both his mother and sister. This prophecy takes him through a journey of self-discovery and understanding of himself and consequently his soul, something he does not realise once he sets off. For me, Kafka is filled with guilt and fear, even if he wants to see himself as the “toughest 15-year-old”. We learn so much about this boy throughout the whole story that we don’t realise that we start to think about him without having to read the book. I started realising his thought and I started seeing what he saw. We get to know his insecurities and strengths, which usually takes me more time to grasp when reading other books. Kafka ends up in Takamatsu’s library, where his adventure starts. This book is filled with self-discovery and understanding of what it means to be alone. Kafka tried to see himself as independent but ends up boring close bonds with Oshima, Miss Saeki and Sakura.

At the same time, another story of a man that had been affected by an accident during the Second World War in the same town where Kafka is originally from unfolds, parallel to Kafka. He loses his ability to read and write and is considered now ‘dumb’. Nakata now has the ability to talk to cats as a reward for losing the other abilities. He is a cat catcher in the town and lives in a sub-city. His luck changes the moment he meets Jonnie Walker who forces him to murder him. He then feels guided by a strange force that takes him in the direction of a so-called entrance stone. The narration of this part of the story is different to kafka’s as this is seen through third-person omniscient narration. Nakata lacks the strong human emotions that the other characters possess, although he is not entirely humanless. This makes the scenes greatly appreciated, as his eyes lack a sense of fear and hatred or love and esteem. One of the best examples on this is the scene of Jonnie Walker and the terrible murder of the three cats, which were a repulsive and horrible moment in the story that had me stopping and rereading those illustrative awful crimes.

While we join both characters through their journeys, we meet other names, such as Sakura, a young girl that Kafka meets on the bus. We also meet Oshima, who is a transgender gay man that works at the library. This man is where I felt the reality was centred. I mean by this, even though Oshima focused his life on metaphors, he is the only one I would not connect with magic. He understands all that Kafka explains, but his life is more based on what he reads and believes; this stroked me, as the rest of the story is found more in magical and extraordinary things. We also meet Miss Saeki, the broken librarian who only wears blue. On the other side of the spectrum, Nakata also meets Hoshino, an enjoyable and compelling truck driver that brings words to Nakata’s thoughts.

This story takes many twists and turns that cannot be described unless you read the unsettling words Murakami writes. It is considered magical realism as a realistic narrative and neutralist techniques combined with magical and surreal dream-like elements. This technique can also be seen in other famous novels like A Hundred Years of Solitude and Midnight’s Children. This makes the story more compelling, as there is the right amount of magical description used. There is not too much on soul passing or time travelling and does not give too much importance to the surreal events such as fish or leeches rain. This is one of my favourite use of narrative, as it brings mesmerising elements to a mundane world.

We can see the real Haruki Murakami in the words that he writes. As in many of his novels, cats take an essential role in the plot of this book. We also can see the love he had for art, literature and especially music, and Western culture. This love for the arts is blended with magical descriptions of the emotions that the characters feel when meeting different art forms. One of my favourite parts is Hoshino’s first contact with classical music, which does not take much into the plot but shows how Hoshino is developing and evolving into a new person. This is, of course, the retelling of the Oedipus myth of the self-fulfilling prophecy but with the words and views of the literary Japanese genius Murakami. Like Murakami, in much of Kafka’s works, he blends unsettling and terrifying magical elements with realism to portray isolated characters dealing with modern life's absurdity.

There are three themes explored in this novel. The mind and the body in the story is also described as metaphysical due to the change in tenses and perspectives. There is only a thin gap between the unconsciousness and the actions our physical body takes part in. There is also a great deal of talk about the soul, something that brings us closer to Japanese culture and believes it is more concerned with Japan's Buddhist ideas.

Kafka's explicit use of fate and prophecy shows us how chance and beliefs can affect our lives. He is driven by his obsession with unproven prophesies his father has put upon him. However, he does not realise how this is affecting his own life and his relationships with other people as he makes his life mission to improve the prophecy. This shows the relationship between the concuss self and the unconscious that follows what life takes you or whether your beliefs take you.

There are three themes explored in this novel. The mind and the body in the story is also described as metaphysical due to the change in tenses and perspectives. There is only a thin gap between the unconsciousness and the actions our physical body takes part in. There is also a great deal of talk about the soul, something that brings us closer to Japanese culture and believes it is more concerned with Japan's Buddhist ideas.

Kafka's explicit use of fate and prophecy shows us how chance and beliefs can affect our lives. He is driven by his obsession with unproven prophesies his father has put upon him. However, he does not realise how this is affecting his own life and his relationships with other people as he makes his life mission to improve the prophecy. This shows the relationship between the concuss self and the unconscious that follows what life takes you or whether your beliefs take you.