As my friends know, Haruki Murakami's work is almost always in the same tone. He likes to "play Yin". "Yin", that is, the opposite side of the light, or the place where the light has not yet reached. These parts form a special kind of field, where reality and illusion are indistinguishable, at least in his writing. It makes you feel heavy to read and a sense of being poked and prodded, because those dark parts are there for you and me. Some of my friends say that those unspoken, unspeakable, private things, if there is no Haruki Murakami, who else is there to talk about them? Well, that's what makes this writer so unique.
It took me four days to finish Kafka on the Beach, a 300,000-word tome. In addition to being long, there are so many abstract concepts, philosophies, and intersecting points in it that reading it is not a simple task. I dare not say that I understand it very well, a good work, 100 people read 100 kinds of understanding.
Kafka is the Czech word for crow, and the main character of the book is a teenager named Kafka, 15 years old. I have followed this teenager to the edge of the world and back in the past few days. You know, when you enter the field of a novel, it's quiet, just you and the characters. Whenever I read a good novel, I always take a few days away from the world. The night I finished reading, I went to the extremely noisy square. The grandmasters and grandmothers were playing ear-splitting square dance music, but I didn't feel annoyed at all. Instead, I felt like I needed the noise, while still maintaining an inner peace that wasn't eroded by it. Ha! A marvelous experience.
And what exactly did I appreciate in this novel?
First: the marvelous way the story is told
The story is introduced by two seemingly unrelated people - the young Kafka and the old man Nakata. The two parts could be a novel entirely on their own. If the teenager is A and the old man is B, then the order of the entire book's narrative is ABABAB..... intertwined, synthesizing first person, second person, third person, and three different perspectives. The point of view is complex, yet it always revolves around these two central characters, which of course requires careful attention to realize. Without enough concentration, it's easy to get confused. Because of the combination of ABAB, when reading it, you always want to skip the B stuck between A and A, or you want to skip the A stuck between B and B, and you want to learn the story's antecedents and consequences a little more freely. However, there is something subtle about it that makes you patiently follow the order of ABAB as you read on. At the end of the day, it is realized that this A and B cannot exist separately, they are connected and tightly linked. a with the help of B to do things, B unreservedly let A borrow, to realize A some kind of longing or desire.
In the novel, both A and B are human beings, only B is a special person.
These two people are like two points scattered randomly in the universe, but walking and coming together, and inevitably coming together.
Second: Representation of Abstract Concepts
Concept 1: Empty Shell = Idea = Neutral = Nothing
This abstract concept is embodied in B - Old Man Nakata. This is my favorite character. One might even say it's one of my favorite characters after reading so many novels, (including books by other authors). As Hoshino says in the novel:
"Nakata's manner of speaking was quite distinctive, and the content was even more distinctive than ever, but there always seemed to be something appealing in that distinctive manner."
What is that something? I think it's an "empty shell", an empty box without an ego. It can also be said that he is a conceptual thing, no form, no substance, no self-awareness, just an existence, so it can be "neutral". Any phenomenon in front of him is just a phenomenon, he will not make a judgment. For example, if he sees a woman who is as beautiful as heaven, he will not describe her as "as beautiful as heaven", and he will not have sexual desire for her, for him, she is just a person, and she does not have any effect on him. Everything can go in and out of this empty box, and the empty shell remains intact without any interference. Nakata is such an empty box.
Because of this, he is so different that even if he is just a fictional character, he will attract countless people. This is the literary power of a writer, what should he (Haruki Murakami) be like in that box of his own to create such an empty box? Very interesting!
The reason why we are attracted to such a character is that no one around us is an empty box, we are filled with all sorts of self-consciousness, full to the brim. Once near such an empty box, we are naturally drawn to it. To put it another way, he's kind of like a "god". God doesn't comment on anything. What you do is what you do, and what you do has no meaning for God. It's like this quote from the novel: "That which is about to transcend the boundaries of good and evil, it is not wrong to call it the source of power."
"That which has no boundaries between good and evil", (that empty shell) has a great inclusiveness, neutrality, impartiality, without distinction, living in the present moment, anything can be tolerated. It is also called "nothing", which is a bit like "emptiness is color, color is emptiness". Because there is nothing, there is everything.
It's like when Nakata asked Hoshino:
"Is nothing something that can be increased?"
Yes, I think so.
The author has a dialog so simple that there are only so many sentences: "Nakata I'm not in my right mind. Probably is. It must be. Nakata I'm relieved. Nakata I don't know. Nakata I can't read. Nakata I like to eat eel rice. Nakata I'll probably sleep for a long time. Nakata I'll probably know when I get there ......" Cleverly planted amongst all sorts of complex information, it really just comes across as, "Is nothing something that can be increased?" The flavor of it.
So, who among us wouldn't love such a pure, infinitely inclusive empty shell? He makes you feel infinitely "there", and then your "finitude" is revealed. Any finite thing that comes close to this infinite "there" is attracted into it. You first feel his difference and then look at yourself. He is like a spotless mirror. Standing next to him, you see yourself, all sorts of yourself, and then you start looking for the original one, the one who is just like Nakata.
In fact, Nakata is the original self of each of us.
Of course, he plays many different roles in the novel, which we'll discuss in the "Metaphors" section below.
A hypothesis is possible without a disproof of the hypothesis.
This problem is the basis of the conflict between Junior and Zobel in the novel. It is also the basis that pushes the teenager into the tipping point of what happened. It's a logical formulation, and one without an answer. Nowhere in the novel does it tell you that Zoe is the teenager's mother, but each reader has to experience it for themselves. And the fact that the teenager and Zoe copulate leaves the teenager with no answer as to whether Zoe loves him or not, either in terms of love or affection, and pushes him over the edge. Abandoned since the age of 4 to again at 15, if he doesn't bounce back, it's death. As a result, he bounced back and finally shed the first tears of his life.
Third: Metaphors and Symbols
Those who have read The Fantastic Voyage of the Shepherd Boys will have felt the powerful shock of symbols and metaphors. In Kafka by the Sea, metaphors and symbols are omnipresent throughout the book. The character Nakata alone has many metaphors. Let me summarize them:
Nakata - the empty shell, the pure existence, the existence without self-consciousness, the purity that probes everything, the what is beyond good and evil
The cat - those who are beyond the information of human beings. In the novel, Nakata is able to talk to cats and get information about the world that is different from what he gets from people. That is to say, there is a good chance that the information conveyed by a human is no better than that of an animal or a plant.
Crow, Crow Boy - an inner being that is in strong conflict with a real entity. As it says in the novel: "The so-called strange world is the darkness of our own hearts."
Sakuya - the central force that harms the teenager, the mother, the source of abandonment
Sakura - the family member the teenager desperately longs to talk to and the means of soothing his adolescent flesh
Entrance stone. -- A tipping point where things begin or end, could be anything. It's just that in the novel, with the piano piece "Kafka by the Sea," and the poem, and the poem has the "entrance stone" in it, so the entrance stone is used. If it wasn't the song or the poem, the entrance stone could have been anything else. As it happens, when the writer writes here, it is the song, the poem, and the stone. This is called the language of the gods that appears when the writer creates.
The depths of the forest - the edge of the world, the bottom of the darkness, the bottom where there is no way out, where to go further is death. The young man has experienced intercourse with his mother, intercourse with his sister in his dreams, and is still unsure whether his mother (Zobel) is in love with him, even though he is her son. Thus, he pushes himself into the very source of darkness - the mother does not love her son (himself) . The origin of all the pain and darkness comes out - because of abandonment - actually because of not being loved. (Alas ...... It took the author a long time to get here. In fact, the truth is very simple ah, but to create such a tortuous process to get here to seem wonderful, is a novel!)
Soldier in the forest - leading the teenager to analyze the darkness of the bottom of some kind of power, can also be said to be his own body's power, when you fall into the lowest level, there is the ability to self-help rebound.
Oshima - one of the leading forces that Junior encounters, those in the community who are experiencing the same difficulties as Junior.
White anonymous living things - the various human selves that are revealed through the empty shell (Nakata). The fact that this element appears at the end is significant. It makes Nakata's role as an empty shell more graphic, and gives the reader some more cryptic explanations. Of course it is not explicitly stated, but must be felt with the heart, and my feelings may not be correct. The white living thing - a forest of egos - has no form, is swept away, chopped and reorganized, and after reorganization, spreads out, and never ends. In the end, the entrance stone is the "result", that is to say, any ego will disappear when it reaches a critical point, and the result must be repaid by the cause. The symbolism is implanted in a way that could not be better!
There are many more symbols in the book, so I won't list them all. Some of them need to be savored to be interesting.
So, what did this novel inspire me?
Techniques in novel writing
I have to say, this is a more complex novel, not super complex, at least I can make sense of it. It's skill is shown in the blending of reality and non-reality, the connection between the subconscious and the conscious, the complexity of the perspective, and the simplification of abstract concepts. You have to be fully engaged, and certainly have that much life experience to read it.
The characterization in this novel, especially Nakata and Hoshino, is unique and different from any of his previous novels. There are many writers who talk about "God" and abstract and unknowable concepts, but his approach to abstract concepts is really grounded in dialogues and scenarios that are like family life.
Reading experience
Mr. Murakami is very shy about "warmth", as is the case with all his works, most of which are cool, unfeeling, dark, and satirical. This one, however, is somewhat warmer, focusing entirely on the interaction between Nakata and Hoshino. I actually wasn't a big fan of the main character, Kafka the teenager. I was rather intrigued by the character of Nakata. I laughed at that part of his story, and it's the first time I've ever laughed at a Haruki Murakami work. This empty shell of a man is as innocent as can be. Whether he's a god or an unabashed simpleton, in short, it's a great way to present him. It's not easy to depict abstract concepts with such humor. In this regard, I admire the writer's creativity.
In fact, reading his books does not move me to tears, because most of my attention is spent on thinking, on inferring the progress of the story, and because the atmosphere he creates has a kind of depressing feeling, and I want to cry but I can't. But often, in the end, no matter how hard it is, I don't want to cry. But often, in the end, no matter how dark it is, there's always a glimmer of light that starts to come through. Just a little bit, and then it ends abruptly and immediately afterward. It's a bit of a, "Leave it to you (my readers) to compose the world of light!" The rhyme. This line from the novel: "Mom! I say, I forgive you. What's frozen in your heart makes a sound." The only place where the word "mom" is used brings light and tears.
The element of the white nameless living thing at the end was something I didn't expect. It's similar to a small crescendo in the final movement of a symphony. It's a symbolic ending that holds up the entire work and carries enough weight. The entire work felt like reading with this teenager who wandered off to the heavens and back again, and slept through it to somewhat return to normal. (Into the theater too deep)
There is another profound metaphor in the book, hidden deeper than all. That is, Nakata tells Saki: "The entrance to the Entrance Stone is open and about to close, so if you don't act, you won't have a chance." The foreshadowing is that the teenager is at the tipping point, the edge of death, and if he steps in a little further, he won't be able to come back. Zobel died at this moment, and he met Zobel there. Zoe's words give evidence to his hypothesis that "you could be my mother". It can also be argued that only after his death can he transcend dimensions and repent and be forgiven for the harm he has done to those he has hurt in a way that goes beyond three dimensions. Satsuki borrowed the empty shell of Nakata, the "entrance stone" as it is called in the book, to do a lot of harm to other people (as it is called in the book: to cause damage to people around her), including the teenager, her own son, and to make up for the damage by borrowing this empty shell. The effect needs the cause to pay for it.
And Nakata's empty shell has been borrowed by anyone, including you and me.
The Nightingale
A bird that awakens people with words~