Kafka on the Shore

Hoshino turns up the air conditioning in Nakata’s room to slow his decomposition. He does not know how long he’ll be there, waiting for something to happen with the entrance stone. He keeps expecting Nakata to come back to life. To keep up his spirits, he talks to Nakata and he even addresses the stone. Neither answers back. He goes to sleep.

He wakes up on Thursday morning and checks on Nakata. He’s still dead. He makes coffee and toast for breakfast. He approaches the stone, which is sitting next to the sofa. He rubs it and starts talking to it, recounting all of his relationships with women.

At this point, he’s had six relationships, and he recognizes a pattern in his behavior. At the first sign of commitment he leaves the relationship, ready to move on to the next woman. He was never willing to deal with serious issues in a relationship. Realizing that he has been selfish and self-centered, he now understands how lucky he was to have so many women put up with him. Rather than dwelling on his bad choices, however, he uses his newfound knowledge of Beethoven’s music to help him get past this realization. He believes Beethoven is telling him that it’s OK and everyone makes mistakes: you’ve just got to keep going.

Hoshino sees a black and white cat on the balcony and opens the door. He says hello, and he understands what the cat says when the cat greets him in return.

The Boy Named Crow

In the form of a crow, the boy named Crow flies above the forest, looking for someone. He circles until he finds an opening in the forest canopy. He descends, alighting on a tree branch near a clearing. On the edge of the clearing sits Johnnie Walker.

This is Limbo, the transition point between worlds. Johnnie Walker is carrying his flute—constructed of cat’s souls—inside his carrier bag, but he claims he doesn’t use it because he doesn’t feel like it. He tells Crow that he knows who he is and taunts him for being powerless to hurt or stop Johnnie Walker. Crow attacks anyway, pecking out Johnnie Walker’s eyes and ripping out his tongue. Johnnie Walker laughs the entire time: even when his tongue is gone, he shakes with silent laughter that sounds to Crow like an “otherworldly flute” (434).

Kafka wakes up, still in the little house, and makes some tea. The fifteen year old girl arrives to make him breakfast. While he eats it, he asks her questions about the town. From her answers, it seems that he’s there to accept the things inside himself that he’s found difficult to accept—such as his dark shadow. In their little community, they are all part of a seamless whole. Each person is an individual form, but also part of the forest and each other, once they allow themselves to be “absorbed” (437) into the things around them. There are only recent, fleeting memories and no time.

Before long, Miss Saeki, in her older form, arrives at Kafka’s cabin. He invites her in for tea. She tells him that she had to see him before she forgets everything. She insists that he leave this place immediately and go back to the life he left; he must move quickly because the entrance will close soon.

Kafka says that there is no life for him there, no one to love him or for him to count on. She insists that he must return to that life and remember her. She wants him to have the painting, Kafka on the Shore, and to keep it with him always. She tells Kafka it’s really him in the painting, so it does belong to him. Kafka closes his eyes and remembers sitting on the beach, watching someone paint a picture of him, while next to him sits the young girl he’s in love with.

Kafka asks Miss Saeki if she is his mother. She answers that he already knows the answer to that. She then asks for Kafka’s forgiveness, explaining that it was a mistake for her to abandon him and it is something she should never have done.

They embrace. Kafka forgives her; the boy called Crow, who was born when Kafka was abandoned by his mother, forgives her. Miss Saeki removes a hairpin and stabs herself in the arm. She wants Kafka to drink her blood. He does, and his heart is united and healed. Still, he tells her that he doesn’t know how to live. She tells him to keep looking at the painting.

Kafka immediately prepares to leave the town, putting on his own clothes and his dead watch. He meets the soldiers on the edge of the forest. They are ready to guide him back to the entrance, which they tell him is still open. They tell Kafka not to look back, but he cannot help himself. He looks back and is immediately caught up in a violent sandstorm; he desperately wants to go back for just another meal with the young girl. He hears Miss Saeki’s voice telling him to go back to his world and the storm ends. He keeps going, following the soldiers through the forest.

The entrance is still open. The soldiers offer him final pieces of advice about surviving in the world he’s about to return to. He should remember that he needs to twist the bayonet in the guts of his enemies to make sure they die. He should remember what is right and what is wrong, even when it’s difficult to tell. Finally, they insist that he cannot look back, no matter what, or he won’t be able to get out.

Kafka makes it back to Oshima’s cabin, retrieving his abandoned belongings on the way, though he has no memory of how he made it back. He falls down exhausted on the bed. Hearing Miss Saeki’s voice tell him to look at the painting and seeing the white sands of time slipping through a young girl’s fingers, he falls asleep.

Hoshino continues his conversation with Toro, the cat. Toro helps Hoshino with his problem, the stone. He tells Hoshino that he has to kill “it.” He’ll know what “it” is when he sees it, and once Hoshino kills it, it will really be dead. However, under no circumstances should Hoshino allow “it” to get into this world through the entrance. Since “it” is most likely to make its move at night, the cat recommends that Hoshino get some sleep during the day today. The cat knows that Hoshino is taking over Mr. Nakata’s role, and that he must do this to honor Mr. Nakata’s memory. The cat is rooting for him and tells him this is his chance to make up for a lifetime of not taking responsibility for anything.

Hoshino gathers weapons, including two kitchen knives and a hammer. He takes a nap and awakens as it is getting dark. He sits with his weapons, waiting.

Just after 3 a.m. he hears a rustling sound coming from the bedroom containing Mr. Nakata’s body. A slimy, white, worm-like thing about three feet long crawls out of Nakata’s mouth. Hoshino attacks the worm with a knife, a hatchet, and a hammer in turn, but nothing hurts or slows the creature. Hoshino realizes that it’s heading for the entrance, so he thinks he’d better close it up. With a tremendous effort, straining every muscle and sinew in his body, he is able to flip the stone over and close the entrance. Once the entrance is closed, the creature is doomed. Hoshino chops it up into little pieces, and the smallest pieces soon wither and die. He gathers up the rest to burn later.

Hoshino decides that it’s time to leave and go back home to Nagoya. He packs up and says good-bye to Mr. Nakata and the stone. A part of Mr. Nakata will always live inside him. He leaves the apartment, taking the corpse of the “thing” to burn on the beach, as a new day dawns.

The next morning, Friday, Kafka hears the sound of a vehicle approaching. It is Oshima’s older brother, Sada, the surfer. He’s received a phone call about urgent business for Kafka back in Takamatsu.

Sada makes some conversation, sharing that his brother must like Kafka a lot and that Oshima can be a difficult person. The peaceful retreat of the mountain cabin is one thing that the brothers share. Kafka says that he went deep into the woods, even though Oshima warned him not to. Sada asks Kafka if he saw the two soldiers. They agree that their experiences in the woods cannot really be put into words. Sada explains it the best way he can, by comparing the woods to a whirlpool in Hawaii that surfers fall into, called the Toilet Bowl. You get a chance to have a heart-to-heart conversation with death when you get caught in the whirlpool, he explains.

As a surfer, Sada is familiar with danger. He recognizes that Kafka is familiar with danger too. He invites Kafka to come visit him and learn how to surf. Kafka says that he will, after he clears up some unfinished business.

Sada drops Kafka off at the library. Oshima is waiting for him inside. He tells Kafka that Miss Saeki died on Tuesday afternoon. There will be no funeral and, according to her will, Kafka is to have the painting, “Kafka at the Shore.” Kafka tells Oshima that he’s going back to Tokyo to finish junior high school. After that, he doesn’t know. Oshima would welcome Kafka back at the library as his assistant any time; he tells Kafka, “’People need a place they can belong,’” (464). When Kafka tells Oshima that his brother invited him to visit and learn how to surf, Oshima says he’s surprised, because his brother can be a difficult person. Kafka smiles, for the first time in the story, at these two brothers who are really very much alike.

Oshima and Kafka say good-bye and Kafka leaves for the train station. From the station, he calls Sakura. He arranges to see her when she returns to Tokyo and gives her his home telephone number. Sakura tells Kafka she had a dream about him; he was alone in a huge house, like a maze, and someone was trying to find him. She tried to shout a warning to him, but it was no use. When he says good-bye, he calls her “Sister.”

He gets on the train bound for Tokyo. As he rides along, he cannot help but think about Miss Saeki. He asks himself: “Did I do the right thing?” (467). The boy named Crow, now clearly a voice inside Kafka’s head, answers that he did. Crow tells him to get some sleep, because when he wakes up he’ll be part of a brand-new world.