Rating: 7/10
Overall Thoughts
'Kafka on the Shore' hinges on the boundaries of what exists around the characters versus what exists in their minds. The story follows a damaged fifteen year-old boy named Kafka Tamura who runs away from home and eventually finds shelter in a privately owned public library in Takamatsu, as well as an illiterate old-man named Nakata whose mind was entirely erased as a child due to a mysterious event which occurred during World War II. One person is running away from something, the other searching; one looking forward, the other looking back; one with a bright future, the other with a dark past. Two very different individuals, yet their fates are somehow intertwined in their journey of self-discovery.
Murakami definitely has a wonderfully strange and unique storytelling ability. Reading this novel left me with a lot of unanswered questions (in a good way). The flow of the storyline is made up of a patchwork of unrelated scenes and conversations - some brutal, some chaotic, and others beautiful - which is loosely tied together at the end. You would have to read one of his novels to fully appreciate his talent.
Favourites from 'Kafka on the Shore'
"I felt utterly alone, like I was the last person alive on Earth. I can't describe that feeling of total loneliness. I just wanted to disappear into thin air and not think about anything."
"You're going to be okay, I tell myself, taking a deep breath. All you can do is forge on ahead."
"All I know is I'm totally alone. Alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who's lost his compass and his map. Is this what it means to be free?"
"I remember her smell, her touch, but not her face."
"... it feels like everything's been decided in advance - that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose sense of who I am."
"Man doesn't choose fate. Fate chooses man."
"She's so perfect I know she can't be real. She's like a person who stepped right out of a dream."
"The darkness in the outside world has vanished, but the darkness in our hearts remains, virtually unchanged. Just like an iceberg, what we label the ego or consciousness is, for the most part, sunk in darkness."
"As long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else."
"If she never came back everything would be lost to me forever. All meaning, all direction. Everything. I know this, but I go ahead and risk it anyway, and call her name."
"There's a void inside me, a blank that's slowly expanding, devouring what's left of who I am. I can hear it happening. I'm totally lost, my identity dying,"
"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."
"If you remember me, then I don't care if anyone else forgets."
"Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there - to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there."
"You're going to be okay, I tell myself, taking a deep breath. All you can do is forge on ahead."
"All I know is I'm totally alone. Alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who's lost his compass and his map. Is this what it means to be free?"
"I remember her smell, her touch, but not her face."
"... it feels like everything's been decided in advance - that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose sense of who I am."
"Man doesn't choose fate. Fate chooses man."
"She's so perfect I know she can't be real. She's like a person who stepped right out of a dream."
"The darkness in the outside world has vanished, but the darkness in our hearts remains, virtually unchanged. Just like an iceberg, what we label the ego or consciousness is, for the most part, sunk in darkness."
"As long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else."
"If she never came back everything would be lost to me forever. All meaning, all direction. Everything. I know this, but I go ahead and risk it anyway, and call her name."
"There's a void inside me, a blank that's slowly expanding, devouring what's left of who I am. I can hear it happening. I'm totally lost, my identity dying,"
"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."
"If you remember me, then I don't care if anyone else forgets."
"Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there - to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there."
No comments:
Post a Comment