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Pedro Silva _edro_astanho — Is Your Figure Less Than Greek? Early in "Kafka on the Shore”, the 15 year old narrator, Kafka Tamura, warns us that his story is not a fairy tale. The book's title is also the name of a painting and of a song mentioned in the novel, and it describes the one photo Kafka's father has kept in his drawer. But what Kafka neglects to tell us is that his story is a myth of epic, ancient Greek proportions. Murakami has concocted a contemporary blend of Oedipus and Orpheus, East and West, Freud and Jung, Hegel and Marx, Tales of Genji and Arabian Nights, Shinto and Buddhism, abstraction and action, alternating narratives and parallel worlds, seriousness and play, not to mention classical, jazz and pop music. Conceived as a sequel to "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”, it quickly took on a life of its own, and now sits somewhere between that work and "1Q84”. If you had to identify Murakami’s principal concerns as a writer, I would venture two: the transition from adolescence to adulthood, and the dynamic encounter between consciousness (the ego) and the subconscious (the id). There are elements of both in "Kafka” . Thus, it stands as quintessential Murakami. The book I read. Search for the Other Half Like Greek theatrical masks that represent tragedy and comedy, life consists of dualities: "Light and dark. Hope and despair. Laughter and sadness. Trust and loneliness.” As hypothesised by Aristophanes via Plato, each individual is half what it once was (view spoiler). Our shadow is faint or pale. Murakami urges: "You should start searching for the other half of your shadow.” Beware of Darkness Only, it’s easier said than done. We’re all "like some little kid afraid of the silence and the dark.” We are "seeking and running at the same time.” As in fairy tales, friends warn Kafka not to venture too far into the woods. The irony is that the darkness is not so much outside, but inside. It’s in our subconscious. What terrifies us is "the inner darkness of the soul…the correlation between darkness and our subconscious”. The woods, the forest are just a symbol of darkness, our own darkness. In Dreams Begin Responsibility While we’re awake, while we’re conscious, we think we’re rational, we’re in control, we can manage what happens around us. However, we fear dreams, because we can’t control and manage them. By extension, we’re also skeptical of the imagination, because it is more analogous to dreaming than thinking. Yet, we need our imagination almost as much as our logic. Murakami quotes Yeats: "In dreams begin responsibility.” It’s in this quandary that Kafka finds himself. It’s problematical enough for an adult, let alone a 15 year old who has lost contact with his mother and older sister at the age of four, and has now run away from his father: "You're afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep, and dreams are a part of sleep. When you're awake you can suppress imagination. But you can't suppress dreams.” For the Time Being As would befit a Greek tragedy, Kafka’s father, a renowned sculptor, has prophesied: "Some day you will murder your father and be with your mother…and your sister.” This is the Oedipus myth, at once a curse and a challenge for Kafka: "You're standing right up to the real world and confronting it head-on.” We can only stand by and watch. What is happening? Does it really happen? Does it only happen in the labyrinth of Kafka’s imagination? Is the boy called Crow Kafka’s friend or his soul? (view spoiler) Is the old man Nakata a real person or his alter ego? If Kafka can only prevail, he will become an adult. If nothing bad happens to him, he’ll emerge part of a brand new world. It’s not enough for Kafka to spend the time being. He must act. Reason to Act Of course, there is a cast of surreal cats, crows and characters who contribute to the colour and dynamic of the novel. One of my favourites is a Hegel-quoting whore (a philosophy student who might both feature in and read the novels of Bill Vollmann!), who counsels: "What you need to do is move from reason that observes to reason that acts." Although the protagonists of Murakami's novels are youthful, if not always adolescent, they are rarely in a state of stasis or arrested development. They're always endeavouring to come to terms with the past and embrace the future: "The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future." We observe them when their lives are most challenging and dynamic, in short, when they're trying to find and define themselves: "Every object's in flux. The earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil - they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place for ever." My photo of the artwork on a power box I pass every day on my walk. If I Run Away, Will My Imagination Run Away With Me, Too? Murakami’s ideas about imagination, dreams and responsibility are fleshed out in a scene that adverts to the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. The character Johnnie Walker (view spoiler) kills cats, so that he can turn them into flutes. He challenges Nakata (view spoiler) to kill him to save the cats. Nakata now has a moral dilemma as to whether to kill a person to save the lives of others (view spoiler). Eichmann was the builder rather than the architect behind the design of the Holocaust. He was an officious conformist who lived and worked routinely without imagination. Hannah Arendt would describe him and his capacity for evil in terms of its banality. Others would call him a “Schreibtischmörder” or “desk murderer”. In Murakami’s eyes, responsibility is part morality, but it also reflects an empathy with others, a transcendence of the self. Eichmann was too selfish and too conformist to empathise with the Jews he was trying to exterminate. A Catastrophe is Averted by Sheer Imagination After an accident in World War II, Nakata realised that he could talk to cats. Ultimately, he empathised with them enough to kill Johnnie Walker. In Shinto, cats might be important in their own right. However, Murakami frequently uses cats in his fiction. Perhaps they represent other people in society, people we mightn't normally associate with or talk to, (view spoiler) but who watch over us and might perhaps be wiser than us, if only we would give them credit? Murakami also criticised two women bureaucrats who visited the library for their officious presumption and lack of imagination, albeit in a good cause. For Murakami, the imagination is vital to completing the self, bonding society and oiling the mechanisms by which it works, but it is also an arena within which the psychodrama of everyday life plays out and resolves. Inside the Storm So what can I tell you about Kafka’s fate? Only what Murakami tells us on page 3: "Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction, but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm...is you. Something inside of you. "So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in...There's no sun..., no moon, no direction, no sense of time…[in] that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm… "And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.” Unless you’re a total Murakami sceptic, when you close this book for the last time, you too won’t be the same person who walked in. http://www.deviantart.com/fanart/?vie... VERSE: Kafka in the Rye (Or Catcher on the Shore) Kafka sees a ghost, One he’ll soon love most, Somehow he has learned She has just returned Home from sailing by Seven seas of Rhye. If only Kafka Could one day catch her, Dressed, in the rye or, What he’d like much more, How his heart would soar, Catch her on the shore, Idly walking by, Naked to the eye. Swept Away [In the Words of Murakami] I am swept away, Whether I like it or not, To that place and time. Where There Are Dreams [In the Words of Murakami] The earth moves slowly. Beyond details of the real, We live our dreams. Metaphysician, Heal Thyself [In the Words of Murakami] You can heal yourself. The past is a shattered plate That can't be repaired. The Burning of Miss Saeki's Manuscript [In the Words of Murakami] Shape and form have gone. The amount of nothingness Has just been increased. Look at the Painting, Listen to the Wind [In the Words of Murakami] You did the right thing. You're part of a brand new world. Nothing bad happened to you. SOUNDTRACK: Strummer - "Kafka on the Shore" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iM2z... Prince - "Little Red Corvette" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDduq... Prince - "Sexy Motherfucker" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d2Vb... R.E.M. - "I Don't Sleep, I Dream" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WReb... Cream - "Crossroads" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-6OW... Cream - "Crossroads" [Live] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OLK_... Cream - "Crossroads" [Live at the Royal Albert Hall 2005] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX6J5... The Beatles - "Hello Goodbye" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkH3P... Otis Redding - Sitting on the Dock of the Bay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCmUh... Duke Ellington - "The Star-Crossed Lovers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg4MP... Johnny Hodges on Alto Sax John Coltrane - "My Favorite Things" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWG2d... Stan Getz - "Getz/Gilberto" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KpIV... Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II - "Edelweiss" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYSw0... Frank Churchill & Larry Moery - "Heigh-Ho" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzjXR... Puccini - "Si, mi chiamano Mimi" from "La Boheme" [Marija Vidovic] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDc0v... Mozart - "Serenade in D major, K. 320 "Posthorn" [Mackerras] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS5YC... Haydn - Cello Concerto in C Major [Han-na Chang] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8uCT... Franz Schubert - "Piano Sonata in D major" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh6ax... Beethoven - "Piano Trio No.7 in B Flat Major, Op.97" ["Archduke Trio"] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWPdl... Kashfi Fahim - "Life in Technicolor" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go_Z1... A short film that features the sandstorm quote.