Why should you read “Kafka on the Shore”? - Iseult Gillespie — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:08“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions.
2. 0:13You change direction but the sandstorm chases you.
3. 0:16You turn again, but the storm adjusts.
4. 0:19Over and over you play this out,
5. 0:21like some ominous dance with death just before dawn.
6. 0:25Why?
7. 0:27Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away…
8. 0:31This storm is you. Something inside of you.”
9. 0:35This quote,
10. 0:36from the first chapter of Haruki Murakami’s "Kafka on the Shore,"
11. 0:40captures the teenage protagonist's turmoil.
12. 0:43Desperate to escape his tyrannical father
13. 0:45and the family curse he feels doomed to repeat,
14. 0:49he renames himself Kafka after his favorite author
15. 0:52and runs away from home.
16. 0:54But memories of a missing mother,
17. 0:56along with dreams that haunt his waking life,
18. 0:59prove more difficult to outrun.
19. 1:02Published in Japanese in 2002
20. 1:04and translated into English three years later,
21. 1:07"Kafka on the Shore" is an epic literary puzzle
22. 1:10filled with time travel, hidden histories, and magical underworlds.
23. 1:15Readers delight in discovering how the mind-bending imagery,
24. 1:18whimsical characters and eerie coincidences fit together.
25. 1:23Kafka narrates every second chapter,
26. 1:26with the rest centering on an old man named Satoru Nakata.
27. 1:30After awakening from a coma he went into during the Second World War,
28. 1:34Nakata loses the ability to read and write–
29. 1:37but gains a mysterious knack for talking to cats.
30. 1:41When he’s asked to tail a missing pet,
31. 1:44he’s thrown onto a dangerous path that runs parallel to Kafka’s.
32. 1:48Soon prophecies come true, portals to different dimensions open up–
33. 1:53and fish and leeches begin raining from the sky.
34. 1:57But what ties these two characters together–
35. 1:59and is it a force either one of them can control?
36. 2:03The collision of different worlds is a common thread
37. 2:06in Haruki Murakami’s work.
38. 2:08His novels and short stories often forge fantastic connections
39. 2:12between personal experience,
40. 2:14supernatural possibilities, and Japanese history.
41. 2:18Born in Kyoto in 1949,
42. 2:20Murakami grew up during the post-World War II
43. 2:23American occupation of Japan.
44. 2:26The shadow of war hung over his life as it does his fiction;
45. 2:30"Kafka on the Shore" features biological attacks,
46. 2:33military ghosts and shady conspiracies.
47. 2:37Murakami’s work blurs historical periods
48. 2:40and draws from multiple cultural traditions.
49. 2:42References to Western society and Japanese customs
50. 2:46tumble over each other,
51. 2:47from literature and fashion to food and ghost stories.
52. 2:51He has a penchant for musical references, too,
53. 2:54especially in "Kafka on the Shore."
54. 2:56As the runaway Kafka wanders the streets of a strange city,
55. 3:00Led Zeppelin and Prince keep him company.
56. 3:02Soon, he takes refuge in an exquisite private library.
57. 3:06While he spends his days poring over old books
58. 3:09and contemplating a strange painting and the library’s mysterious owner,
59. 3:13he also befriends the librarian–
60. 3:16who introduces him to classical music like Schubert.
61. 3:19This musical sensibility makes Murakami’s work
62. 3:22all the more hypnotic.
63. 3:23He frequently bends the line between reality and a world of dreams,
64. 3:28and is considered a master of magic lurking in the mundane.
65. 3:32This is a key feature of magical realism.
66. 3:35In contrast to fantasy,
67. 3:37magic in this sort of writing rarely offers a way out of a problem.
68. 3:41Instead, it becomes just one more thing that complicates life.
69. 3:45In "Kafka on the Shore,"
70. 3:47characters are faced with endless otherworldly distractions,
71. 3:50from a love sick ghost to a flute made from cat souls.
72. 3:55These challenges offer no easy answers.
73. 3:57Instead, they leave us marveling at the resourcefulness
74. 4:00of the human spirit to deal with the unexpected.
75. 4:04While Kafka often seems suspended in strangeness,
76. 4:07there’s a tenderness and integrity at the heart of his mission
77. 4:10that keeps him moving forward.
78. 4:12Gradually he comes to accept his inner confusion.
79. 4:16In the end, his experience echoes the reader’s:
80. 4:19the deeper you go, the more you find.