Kafka On the Shore

What is the meaning behind this again?

Magical realism is a valid literary tool.

Could you expand on this, please?

Tried reading it, didn't get it

You can write absolute trash and someone, somewhere, will inject meaning into it

i remember when i first read it, i was able to pick out a hand full of ideas of what i thought it was about. i kinda forget now what i thought, but its certainly a fun read. easy too. japanese literature is usually enjoyable, i just hate remember all the names. im reading six four now and i cant remember who is who because they are all names starting with either M, A, or H.
>minako
>murokima
>mikama
>asaha
>akama
>arakida
>ashama
>hiroshi
>hyato
>himiwamalamadingdong
good thing they did what 100 years of solitude did and write most of the names in the beginning of the book.

The story is a metaphor the the modern history of Japan, you asshole. That said, I reckon Haruki lost his way with the story.

I read the Arabic version which started with the Prologue right away.

>Arabic version
of kafka ont he shore? i think the one i read had the same, the one op posted.

>posts about Kafka on the shore
>other user replies to his post on the Kafka on the shore thread
>he asks said user if he's talking about Kafka on the shore

Are you always this retarded?

It's a very strange Bildungsroman

Murakami himself said that you need to read it multiple times to "get" it.

please expand or I will just google it i guess.

Not that guy, but he's obviously talking about the edition, dumbass

In all his books there is blatant shoved down your throat foreshadowing throughout the story. There is also a tremendous amount of stuff that is mentioned very casually and made to seem unimportant which you don't pick up on until after being through the full story once. He also has an annoying way of including concepts that are explained in his other books without any explanation. An example of this is the old man having a fainter shadow. The author uses a persons shadow as a representation of their conscious mind in his other books. In this book, the old mans shadow was faint because his mind was half with him in the present, but also half (mostly) trapped in the past/subconscious/mystery dimension.

Is Murakami actually a good writer? I've never read him and I'm unsure if he's just another meme or he's actually a notable writer. Pls respond desu senpapi's

Wind-Up Bird was actually good, everything else just seems strange, banal, and incohesive

Btw, I'm not OP, but I have read a fair bit of Murakami's oeuvre as well as some supplements

The way I read it. Nakata is supposed to represent old Japan, devastated by WWII but still clinging to elements of silly innocence (cats in Nakata's case), while Kafka represents modern Japan, a conflicted identity (Kafka reads Japanese literature troughout the story, but listens to Western music and consums western values).

You know what, fuck it, The story has way too many elements and metaphors for me to be able to decipher it.

Something about seperating the spirit and the body.
Nakatas and the womans spirit go to that one place (which is why the 15-year old version appears in the library room).

I've only read this and Norwegian Wood but I love Murakami. His books feel just like a dream. There is still a world around but the things that happen are so out of place like the colonel sanders part or the two soldiers.

Are his other books like that too?

I remember it being super comfy.

Incest mostly happens accidentally, swallowing is a norm now even your mother will swallow you cum, a creature looking like a boy can be a girl

Maybe I was imagining thing or it just felt like that because it is so easily applicable, but weren't there a big theme of identity in the book? Our two main characters have a relation with the world they live in that is broken in different ways, and there is a certain "otherness" to both of them. Kafka didn't really have any real character traits to me, and nagata lost his adult mind and by extension his identity.

Nagata's trucker-bro ended up becoming a different person after his journey with Nagata.

Kafka seems to struggle with who he is, and tries to figure out who his lost family members are.

Kafka is modern Japan, japanese but westernized.
Nakata is old Japan, halted in place by the bomb (the silver object) and needs to go away by fulfilling its purpose.
Johnny Walker is the American tyranny immediately after the war, hence why he's Kafka's father, he created modern Japanese society.
Miss Saeki and her lover are society, she needs to move on, away from the trapped paradise of nostalgia and memory (the place under Rice Bowl Hill, the opposite side of memory), and forget the past (her life's story, outdated traditions) and move into the future, away from Kafka, who she's seeing as reminiscent of the same bliss of the past.
The book is about modern Japan needing to move forward into the future by fulfilling and shedding the old, conservative elements and letting go of nostalgia. Look at Murakami's own politics and non-japanese writing style and this makes sense.

The whole book is about things coming together and being completed, things have a definite purpose and they all come together neatly almost by predestination, because Murakami sees society's purpose as being to move forward.

There's more than this but this interpretation can fill in the blanks of the little details I didn't bother to write down.