Kafka on the Shore

The boy named Crow has two chapters to himself in this novel: the Prologue and a chapter between Chapter 46 and 47. He functions as both a protective guardian for Kafka, and his conscience. Born on the day that Kafka was abandoned by his mother, Crow takes his role seriously and Kafka depends on him throughout his journey. At times, Crow supplies Kafka with the right words to say, guides him in his relationships with others, and Kafka consults Crow about major decisions and turning points.

Even though it is futile, Crow’s attack on the evil being Johnnie Walker in the “other world” evinces his protection of and care for Kafka. It doesn’t matter that he cannot kill Johnnie Walker, he has to try. He’s the one who can confront things directly, and he teaches Kafka to be strong. Like an older brother, he explains things to Kafka and helps him to understand the world around him. 

As a nine-year-old war evacuee from Tokyo, sent to live in a remote mountain village, during World War II, Satoru Nakata suffers a hideous accident that leaves him in a coma for several weeks. When he wakes up, his memory has been wiped clean, his mind “the proverbial blank slate” (68). Kindly and polite, he is now over 60 years old.

Nakata is drawn into confrontation with his own fate and Kafka’s through his side-job: looking for lost cats. While searching for a lost cat, he comes into contact with the cat-killer, Johnnie Walker. Johnnie Walker takes advantage of Nakata, taunting him and making him watch the torture and dismemberment of several cats, to incite Nakata to kill him. Nakata does, and we learn that Johnnie Walker is really Kafka’s father, Koichi Tamura.

Completely driven by intuition—or fate—Nakata begins his journey toward Takamatsu, and Kafka, not knowing what he will do once he gets there. Chosen to make things right in this world, he completes most of his mission before he dies. Because Nakata never questions what he is asked to do, the reader doesn’t either. However, Nakata’s part of the story is disturbing, poignant, and sad: robbed of a normal life due to events beyond his control, he seems completely at the mercy of fate, which is apparently just using him as a tool to help others. The final indignity is that he realizes before he dies just what he has been missing; contact with the entrance stone makes him self-aware for the first time since his accident. The narrative does not reveal whether Nakata’s wish to be “the normal Nakata” comes true in the next world. Hoshino takes over, or inherits, his mission when Nakata dies.

Sakura may be Kafka’s missing sister, and she befriends Kafka on the bus trip to Takamatsu. About five years older than Kafka, she seems drawn to him and offers him help and her phone number the first time they meet. She acts like an older sister, offering him a place to stay and her emotional support. Though Kafka is attracted to her, the sisterly aspect of their relationship confuses his feelings for her, even before she performs a sexual act on him. In a dream sequence, she tells him that it doesn’t matter if they are blood-related or not, they are brother and sister. Near the end of the novel, as he is returning to Tokyo, he calls her and gives her his Tokyo telephone number so that they see each other. As he hangs up, he calls her “Sister.” 

Kind, philosophical, didactic, and talkative, the transgender gay man, Oshima, befriends Kafka when he first arrives in Takamatsu. Oshima also has a rare form of hemophilia. He works at the Komura Memorial Library for Miss Saeki, his mother’s best friend from childhood. He provides knowledge, protection, and sanctuary to Kafka. Kafka discusses music, literature, and philosophy with Oshima. Among other stories, Oshima tells Kafka the Greek Aristophanes’ theory of the split souls/three genders, which explains why many people spend their lives in a desperate search for their missing other half. Oshima offers Kafka refuge in the mountain cabin located in the forest that ends up being the entrance to another world out of time.

Somewhat didactic and an obvious device of the writer at times, Oshima offers the intellectual view of every situation confronting Kafka. Without Oshima’s non-judgmental friendship and support, Kafka could never have completed his journey.

The enigmatic figure of Miss Saeki provides the link between Kafka’s story and Nakata’s. The director of the Komura Memorial Library, she allows Kafka to work and stay there. For much of the novel, she sits in her office writing, and eventually she reveals to Nakata that she has written down all of her memories in an attempt to put her life into perspective.

A singer and musician in her youth, at age 19 she wrote and performed a hit song, called “Kafka at the Shore.” The song depicted her longing for her love while they are apart. However, the song’s mysterious and mystical lyrics have hidden meaning for Kafka. The song bears the same title as the painting that hangs in Kafka’s room at the library, which depicts a young boy sitting on the beach. That young boy is Miss Saeki’s love, the eldest son of the Komura family, who own the library. Miss Saeki’s life ended when she was 20 years old, when her childhood sweetheart was murdered.

Since then, she seems to have given up on life. Many clues in her life story lead Kafka to believe that she is his mother. Like Nakata, she only has half a shadow. In her case, she found and used the entrance stone to enter the “other world” to try to prevent the loss of her love. Her selfish behavior has changed reality and generated much pain and destruction, for herself and others. She is simply waiting to die when Kafka arrives in the library.

Through some magical manipulations of time and space, she and Kafka come together—she appearing in his room as her 15 year old self, and Kafka speaking as though he is her lost love. They make love, as if in a dream but also in reality, seemingly fulfilling one part of the Kafka’s oedipal curse. She admits that she is Kafka’s mother, when they meet in the “other world” cabin after her death. She asks for his forgiveness and helps him heal his heart.

A kind, but generally clueless, young man in his mid-twenties, Hoshino offers Nakata a ride in his truck as Nakata is hitchhiking. Hoshino agrees to help Nakata because he reminds Hoshino of his grandfather, whom Hoshino loved but whose help and love he took for granted. By the middle of their journey together, Hoshino affectionately calls Nakata “Gramps.”

Hoshino’s optimism and strength greatly assist Nakata. For example, Hoshino’s youthful strength is required to open and close the entrance stone. Through knowing Nakata and this journey, Hoshino becomes interested in having meaning in his life, including developing an appreciation for reading and music. He becomes self-aware, realizing the depths of his selfish, ungrateful, and self-centered behavior towards others. His remorse, especially concerning his grandfather, drives him to want to change. He completes Nakata’s mission to honor his memory, and he does it with courage. He also inherits Nakata’s ability to talk to cats.

Johnnie Walker is an evil non-corporeal being who assumes the form of the British Scotch whiskey brand icon. Johnnie Walker captures, tortures, and kills cats. He says that he’s capturing the cat’s souls to make a flute that he can then use to capture larger—human—souls. His stated goal is to capture all souls. However, he also claims that he wants to die and forces Nakata to murder him. Later, he is attacked by the boy named Crow in the “other world,” and Hoshino kills him when he takes the form of a worm, to prevent him from using the entrance stone as a portal. Though he says he exists “beyond good and evil,” and may be a “concept,” his actions have consequences in the real world and others are able to act upon him. He is truly dead, at least in this world, at the end of the novel.

Jolly, profane, and helpful; a pimp and procurer, Colonel Sanders is almost too good to be true. Like Johnnie Walker, he is a non-corporeal being, who assumes the form of the Kentucky Fried Chicken mogul, Colonel Harland Sanders. In a narrative full of surprising twists and turns, typically dark and dangerous, he is a “straight ahead, no nonsense type of guy” (262), who provides a beautiful prostitute, pleasure, and knowledge to Hoshino in his quest for the entrance stone. He is also a Greek Pan figure: Hoshino dreams of him with hairy shins and playing a pipe. He describes himself as neither god nor Buddha and, like Johnnie Walker; he may also be a “concept”. He omnisciently appears at two crucial points to keep Nakata’s journey on track: he guides Hoshino to the entrance stone, and he provides a safe haven for Nakata and Hoshino when the police pursue them, so that they can finish their task.