After reading this novel, the first thing I want to say is that I like this story because it allows us to experience the world, life, and destiny from the perspective of a 15-year-old boy. We have all experienced the state of being 15 years old, filled with confusion, perplexity, recklessness, anxiety, powerlessness, and emptiness. I think if I had read this book when I was 15, I might not have understood it, but I would have gained encouragement and strengthened my unstable spiritual world. Now, at the age of 22, I have read this book, neither too early nor too late. It is the beginning of independent living, standing at the door of society, also filled with confusion and perplexity, but with a stable spiritual world that provides enough security. I like the two topics discussed in the book:
1. What is the meaning of life?#
It seems that older generations rarely discuss "the meaning of life," but young people especially like to explore this topic. They always ask "why?" before everything. Why do we have to study? Why do we have to work? Why do we have to buy a house and a car? Why do we have to get married and have children? What is the purpose of our lives? These were the things I didn't understand when I was 15.
As we grow older, we realize that all the unique insights and knowledge we thought we had have been mentioned countless times by previous generations and have been deeply contemplated. So, who was the first person to think about these things? If chaos is the norm of life, why bother thinking about so many things? In the end, it might just be regretful to think about it. If you are the only one with surprising and extraordinary ideas, then you must be the only one wandering in the deep darkness.
Tamura Kafka, Saeki, Nakata, Sakura, they correspond to a son, a mother, a father, a sister, but in the novel, they are "family" without any blood relation, some of them have never even met each other. The Komura Memorial Library, which connects them, is a special, fixed, and individual place where their destinies intersect. It is not a "metaphor," it is an irreplaceable library that needs someone to guard its memories. And these characters collide in the interweaving of their destinies. Murakami seems to reveal to us through these seemingly invisible "metaphors" what the meaning of life is: when Tamura Kafka says to Saeki, "I don't know the meaning of life," Saeki's advice is "look at paintings, listen to the wind." Yes, "look at paintings, listen to the wind," the meaning of life is in them.
2. What is destiny?#
Of course, you can understand it as soon as you read it, the protagonist Tamura Kafka is not an ordinary boy you can see everywhere.
He was abandoned by his mother in his childhood and cursed by his father. He was determined to "become the most resilient 15-year-old boy in the world." He immersed himself in deep loneliness, silently exercising his body, dropping out of school and leaving home, venturing into a strange place alone.
No matter how you look at it, whether in Japan or perhaps in China, it is difficult to say that he is an average 15-year-old boy. Nevertheless, I still think that many parts of Tamura Kafka are also me and you.
Being fifteen years old means that your heart is caught between hope and despair, that the world is wavering between reality and virtuality, and that your body is hovering between jumping and sinking. We receive both warm blessings and fierce curses.
Tamura Kafka is just using extreme forms to take on the actual experiences and things we have experienced at the age of fifteen.
From Murakami's words, we already understand that Tamura Kafka is different from an ordinary boy. He was not only abandoned by his mother in his childhood but also cursed by his father. His father prophesied that "you will eventually kill your father and have intercourse with your mother."
It was to escape from this prophecy and curse that Tamura Kafka ran away from home on his fifteenth birthday, throwing himself into the turbulent waves of the adult world in a state of isolation and helplessness. Seeing this, one might be confused: why does his father's prophecy sound so absurd and terrifying? Actually, this is to show the extreme and capricious nature of destiny. Murakami drew inspiration from the ancient Greek tragedy "Oedipus Rex."
Before Oedipus was born, the king learned from the god Apollo that this child would kill his father and marry his mother in the future. So the king abandoned the newborn Oedipus in a gorge. Unexpectedly, the baby was saved by an old shepherd and adopted by another king and queen. When Oedipus grew up and learned about the terrible prophecy, he left his adoptive parents, who he thought were his biological parents, in order to avoid the prophecy. On his way to Thebes, Oedipus got into a fight with a group of strangers and killed an old man, who turned out to be his biological father. After arriving in Thebes, he defeated the sphinx, a human-faced lion-bodied monster, and was hailed as the king. Unknowingly, he married the former queen, who was his biological mother. Thus, the prophecy of "killing his father and marrying his mother" was fulfilled. After the truth was revealed, his mother committed suicide out of shame. He also blinded himself and willingly went into exile. In Oedipus, we see the extremes of destiny, the power of destiny, and the destruction of a noble hero. Destiny is powerful because, on the one hand, it is not chosen by people, but rather, destiny chooses people; on the other hand, destiny can be absurd and evil, even arranging for people to do things that violate moral norms, such as "killing their father and marrying their mother."
So, returning to Murakami's novel, did the protagonist Tamura Kafka escape from his destiny? Did he break free from his father's curse? In terms of killing his father, about ten days after Tamura Kafka ran away from home, his father was killed in his own study in Tokyo, while he was in Takamatsu, far away from Tokyo. But strangely, his T-shirt was sticky and covered in someone's blood. So he suspected that he might have remotely killed his father through dreams. So, did Tamura Kafka really kill his father? According to Murakami's design, the answer is yes. Murakami says: In the world I imagined, things like remotely killing one's father are naturalistic and realistic, that is to say, they can exist and happen in reality. So, for example, in the novel, another character, Nakata, kills someone, but Kafka's hands are covered in blood, which is not surprising at all. Why is it like this? I can't say for sure, but it is something that should happen.
However, why did this happen? Murakami's answer is: Because stories/novels are meant to express things that cannot be explained by ordinary words.
This may seem difficult to understand, but what Murakami wants to express is that the purpose of a novel is not to express things that happen in our daily lives, things that we can easily understand. Instead, it should express something deeper. This can be said to be an important aspect of understanding Murakami's works. In other words, we need to abandon the standards of reality, abandon the basis of objective things, and completely immerse ourselves in our own inner and subconscious kingdom in order to truly understand these seemingly strange things. Once we make this attempt, we will find that these things are not strange at all, but natural and normal.
However, luckily, Kafka met many people who believed in him. Kafka's awakening of self-consciousness was the opportunity for him to face the curse and attempt to betray his destiny. After fulfilling the curse one after another, he tried to escape from his destiny by actively conforming to it, but he didn't realize that this would only increase the weight of his destiny. The crow is still calling behind him, and the unknown lies ahead. He finally understands that evil cannot be eliminated with evil. He chooses to face malice with an empty shell. He abandons all tangible things, so that no malice can harm him anymore.
As the crow says, he finally becomes the most resilient 15-year-old boy. Even if it is only half a shadow, they still bring light to the world. Like Kafka meeting Oshima, like Nakata meeting Hoshino. Oshima is a complete person, but not in the conventional sense of completeness. His minority sexual orientation makes him have a sincere tenderness towards all things in the world, without prejudice, and he uses the emotions and rationality of men and women in a balanced way. It is his unreserved acceptance and guidance that gives meaning to Kafka's remaining shadow. He uses music, a small cabin, and the library to establish a real connection between Kafka and the real world.
On the other hand, Nakata saves Hoshino. This young and ordinary truck driver, after helping the old man Nakata, suddenly finds meaning in his monotonous shell-like life. Whether it is searching for the entrance stone or doing something that sounds absurd, he is needed as a real person. Nakata's half-shadow did not dissipate with his death but continued in Hoshino. In fact, even earlier, when Hoshino first heard the Trio of the Great Public, or when he first thought of his grandfather, the fusion of life had already begun.
So, Kafka on the Shore's world is so pure. The June wind, the distant sea, the boy and the painting, the girl and the beach hat. I never knew summer could be so beautiful. Its heat is diluted, in the white, fine sand, the saturation decreases with time, turning into tangible tenderness.
So, I gradually understand here, everything is for Kafka's redemption. In order to fill the void he lost, Nakata fulfilled his duty and opened the entrance, Saeki filled the memories and repaired the wounds she left behind, Oshima provided shelter for the boy to find a place, and Hoshino ended the evil, finally leaving Kafka with no worries. Perhaps they don't know what they have done. But destiny arranged for them to work together, to pull a 15-year-old boy with defects from the edge of destruction back into the physical world, to inherit all the memories, and to stand at the forefront of reality, becoming the most resilient 15-year-old boy.
It is precisely because of this that we don't need to give each character or object a specific real meaning. Isn't this what magical realism is all about? Father, Johnny Walker, Johnnie Walker, the white snake, what species are they, and what kind of relationship they have, are not important matters. To find reality in nothingness, we cannot find it by giving the essence of nothingness a representative of reality. They are shadows of the soul, the evil of the spirit, the cat's cry in the wind, and everything that is intangible and ready to slip into the entrance at any time. They are the things that Kafka and Nakata try to escape from and defeat.
So how can redemption be achieved?
Only at the end did I realize: it is love after all. The task of redeeming the evil in the world is ultimately condensed into redeeming a 15-year-old boy. It is the love of 15-year-old Saeki for her lover that redeems the soul in her memories. It is the love of 50-year-old Saeki for her son that redeems the living boy.
There are people in this real world who hope that you will live well. Therefore, you must break free from nothingness and return to the sunlight. Memories may have attachments, but the future exists in reality. I feel that it is meaningless to describe my current feelings with words. Just like Kafka's reconciliation with his mother. He doesn't need to call his mother out, but by believing and persisting, redemption finally gains power. This power supports the most resilient 15-year-old boy, who bravely walks on the path of reality, on the destiny opened by Nakata, carrying memories of Saeki, with no worries.
"You who escaped from the sandstorm are no longer the same as when you entered the sandstorm."
"Soon, you will fall asleep. When you wake up, you will become a part of the new world."
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