I was reminded of Rubik’s little invention when reading Haruki Murakami’s latest opus Kafka on the Shore. Got my copy at Fully Booked at the Power Plant, Rockwell and can safely say that if you’ve never read Murakami, this is as good an introduction as you can get. Having said that, I qualify this by stating that if one has read Murakami over the years, one would have to say this isn’t the best or most inventive of his works. A sense of ennui and deja vu crept over me as I devoured the book. And yet, enough was there to make the read a diverting enough passage of time.
For those not familiar with this reclusive author’s works, Murakami is the genuine article – a pitch-perfect novelist for the last decade and so. Blending fantasy and reality seamlessly, and giving a surreal quality to his version of the mundane and everyday, Murakami defies us to even blink as he shifts from one plane to the other, and it is to his credit that we blithely accept the warping that goes on with alarming regularity.
In Kafka On the Shore, there are two main strands of the very ordinary that we follow.
The first strand is about an old man (Nakata) who, after an inexplicable X-files-type incident in his early youth, lives a humdrum existence. Having lost the capacity to read or write, he is considered by the Japanese government as mentally challenged. The only special talent he seems to possess – which of course, he keeps to himself – is that he can converse with cats.
The second strand has to do with a 15-year-old runaway (Kafka Tamura) who finds refuge in a big private library. Here, he rubs shoulders against a male librarian who isn’t male, and a woman in her late 40s whose lover died when she was in her teens. And, since a part of her died when her boyfriend was killed, a ghost of her teenage self roams the hallways of the library. These are the parallel odysseys.
And before you even think this is some weirdness going on within the pages of this novel, hold on. Mackerel and sardines rain from the sky and subsequently, leeches – like some Old Testament curse. Icons of Western consumerism invade the "reality" of these protagonists such as Johnnie Walker (yes, the same dandy we see on our bottles of scotch) comes to life as some deranged sculptor whose finds fulfillment in dissecting live cats – hence his confrontation with the old man. And we also have Colonel Sanders of KFC fame, who reveal himself to be a very helpful pimp "extraordinaire." I kid you not.
The magic of Murakami is how he yokes us into this alternate reality of his, and how the illogical and flights of fancy become natural progressions of the storytelling that’s going on. We hardly blink, disbelief is on temporary suspension, and we enter his world as willing victims. The pun would be "We are so cheap!" – in other words, "Mura kami!"
Interspersed throughout all this flighty storytelling are the little nuggets of philosophical wisdom and musings on the alienation and anomie of our 21st century lives.
Wandering aimlessly in Tokyo, the old man eventually hooks up with a company drone (Hoshino), and despite the seeming illiteracy and simple-mindedness of the old man, he becomes Yoda to Hoshino, this corporate Everyman – like a geriatric Forrest Gump. This has always been trademark Murakami, what elevates his writings above mere quasi-fantasy literature. The yearnings of his characters are human through and through; we readily relate to the problems besetting his heroes. It’s the circumstances that he throws them into that provide the singular Murakami vision. Nowhere else does that clash of cultures between East and West get such a delicious send-up, with pathos and bathos all thrown into the mix. Nowhere else does the fantastical become the unsurprising, and almost expected. Nowhere else do mythic and contemporary taboos undergo such searing scrutiny – patricide, Oedipal relationships, sibling incest – they all form the core of how Kafka Tamura finds himself.
If you’ve followed Murakami throughout his writing career, I’d venture that personally, I found A Wild Sheep Chase, and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle much stronger examples of why Murakami is bound to emerge as a writer for posterity. There is in Kafka On the Shore a sense of "going through the motions" or that "we’ve been through this territory before." This is an aside, but if you want a fresh writer who in two novels exhibits sheer virtuosity and versatility, pick up Prague and The Egyptologist of Arthur Phillips. You won’t find two more different novels and yet, both work at very high levels. Amazing to discover the two novels are by one writer.
Kafka On the Shore enjoyed tremendous advance sales – the first time Murakami has achieved this. If this means the world has finally caught up with this writer and readers will discover his earlier novels, then Kafka On the Shore will have more than served its purpose.