Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

Kafka on the Shore is my most unforgettable Haruki Murakami novel because of:

1. The metaphors, which Murakami said actually don’t have meanings, they’re just there to make you think.

2. It is the first from him that I read, and it made me fall in love with him instantly.

3. It is also the novel that I wrote a report about in my Fiction subject back in college.

4. Murakami’s thoughts about things in this book are great!

So here are some of its quotes, which was originally posted in my Multiply, that I love so much:

 

Sometimes fate is like a 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 isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. 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, walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you should imagine.

–The Boy Named Crow

… Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what’s going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.

–Johnnie Walker (Koichi Tamura)

… Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.

–Oshima

Kafka, in everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.

–Oshima

Things change everyday, Mr. Nakata. With each new dawn it’s not the same world as the day before. And you’re not the same person you were, either.

–Hagita

Distance won’t solve anything.

–The Boy Named Crow

My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime.

–Hoshino

God only exists in people’s minds. Especially in Japan, God’s always been a flexible concept. Look at what happened after the war. Douglas MacArthur ordered the divine emperor to quit being God, and he did, making a speech saying that he was just an ordinary person. So after 1946 he wasn’t God anymore. That’s what Japanese gods are like—they can be tweaked and adjusted. Some American chomping on a cheap pipe gives the order and prestochange-o—God’s no longer God. A very postmodern kind of thing. If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t…

–Colonel Sanders

… But I think where a person is born and dies is very important. You can’t choose where you’re born, but where you die you can—to some degree.

–Miss Saeki

Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s just a natural feeling…

–Oshima

… The more you think about illusions, the more they’ll swell up and take on the form. And no longer be an illusion.

–Kafka Tamura

Listen up—there’s no war that will end all wars. War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.

–The Boy Named Crow

You have to overcome the fear and anger inside you. Let the bright light shine in and melt the coldness in your heart. That’s what being tough is all about.

–The Boy Named Crow

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.

–Miss Saeki

Cops are just gangsters who get paid by the state.

–Hoshino

Everyone of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads—at least that’s where I imagine it—there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live forever in your own little private library.

–Oshima

… But things in the past are like a plate that’s shattered to pieces. You can never put it back together like it was, right?

–The Boy Named Crow