Umibe no Kafka (Kafka on the Shore) by Haruki Murakami
1. A fifteen year old boy named Kafka Tamura is on a runaway from home seeking his lost mother and older sister. As Kafka meets many new people in Shikoku, Japan, he starts unveiling mysteries about his father's death and his mother and sister's whereabouts. A concurring story is about a senior citizen, Nakata, who has the ability to communicate with cats and who is not very bright. When the story continues at a mystifying pace, these two protagonists get closer for a fateful encounter.
2. Stupid as this may sound, I do not, or cannot come up for a major theme for Kafka on the Shore. Sure, I understand the plot and the characters' actions, however I cannot decipher/ figure out the theme for this odd book. Perhaps "life is a journey" is a typical cliche for themes. A book filled with magical realism and glimpses of reality is surely perplexing.
3. The author's tone is puzzling and mystique (just like the story itself). Some parts of the book is genuine genius, for example, his quotes and personal reflection. Sometimes I wonder if this book is some sort of philosophy.
'With a jolt of panic I remember my backpack. Where could I have left it? No way I can lose it -- everything I own's inside. But how am I going to find it in the dark?...'
'Sometimes fate is like s small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You can change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again but the storm adjusts."
'Over and over you play this out, like some omnious dance with death before dawn. Why? ... Something inside of you. .. There's not sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time.'
4. Through syntax, diction, mood, <countless> metaphors and similes, I sensed a bit what the theme is, although I'm clueless right now.
"No matter how metaphysical of symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too."
' "You got your restrooms and your food. Your fluorescent lights and your plastic chairs. Crappy coffee. Strawberry jam sandwiches. It's all pointless-- assuming you to find a point. We're coming from somewhere heading somewhere else." '
'It wasn't even a metaphor, even. If you trace it back further, it wasn't even a correlation. Until Edison invented the elcetric light, most of the world was toally covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two. They were directly linked.'
