Kafka on the Shore

Author: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator)
Bought or Borrowed? Gift from a friend
Book Info: Paperback, 467 pages
Published January 3rd 2006 by Vintage(first published 2002)
ISBN 1400079276
Original title 海辺のカフカ Umibe no Kafuka
Literary Awards: World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (2006), PEN Translation Prize (2006)

"Time weighs down on you like an old ambiguous dream. You keep moving trying to slip through it  but  even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there-to the edge of the world. There's nothing you can do unless you get there."

Main Characters:

• Kafka Tamura


• Miss Saeki


• Sakura


• Oshima


• Kafka's Father


• Mr. Nakata

Plot:

Kafka on the Shore consists of two different yet cohesive stories that are alternately narrated from each chapter. Primarily, it’s an engaging story about a teenager Kafka Tamura, who decides to run away from home to escape a horrible oedipal prophecy made by his own father.

Armed with a few good things he deems useful – add the ever reliable Crow inside him to that – Kafka begins his quest as the toughest fifteen-year-old on Earth in search for his estranged mother and sister. In his greatest efforts to break free from the appalling curse, he travels a great distance away from Tokyo all the way to the province of Takamatsu, only to meet people that will most likely help him get into fulfilling it himself.  His path tangles along those of several interesting people who added more spice and life to his wanderlust adventure.

He meets Sakura, a girl he meets on the night bus to Takamatsu, whom he's physically attracted to, and who's old enough to be his long-lost sister.

He finds refuge in a private library run by Oshima, who was neither a he nor a she, peculiar, and yet strangely kind to Kafka all the time. The place is headed by Miss Saeki, a gracefully middle-aged woman, trapped in her own past. She develops a May-December love affair with Kafka, while Kafka falls in love with the ghost of her youth.

On the other hand, the narrative crosses over to the story of Mr. Nakata, an old man with an out-of-this- world ability to hold conversations with animals, cats in particular. This harmless simpleton who earns a living looking for lost kitties begins the journey of his life without a single clue after his grotesque encounter with Johnnie Walker. This “no read, no write” gramps finds himself alone in an unfamiliar territory away from home for the first time. He timely receives all the help he can get from random strangers he meets and ends up with the happy-go-lucky truck driver Hoshino who has grown fond of him in a short span of time.

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My Review:

This is my first take on the work of the renowned Japanese author, Haruki Murakami. Most of his works were greatly recommended to me by my friends and I must say I cannot blame them for doing so.

Kafka on the Shore is undeniably a page-turner. All at once, I felt like I was fifteen myself. All of a sudden, I was Kafka Tamura, a teenager filled with all the kinds of angst and confusion against himself and the world he lives in. He was as clueless as he can be in escaping the trappings of what his fate had to offer.

Unfortunately, I think the part of Mr. Nakata was a bit dragging and boring. Plus, I didn't quite get much of the stone and its connection between Kafka's oedipal fate, Mr. Nakata, and everything else. To be honest, I was skim reading on this part already. Even after to read it twice, I still don’t get it. I guess, it must be some reference to his previous novels or maybe it was just me, being all lazy and slow that time.

"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."

What I did understand, however, is that the story is almost a debate between what is real and what goes inside your head. I learned a mouthful of “quotable quotes” about life after finishing it. Although a little painful to read, I’d say Haruki Murakami novels are still a must-try.

"It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine."

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The Lovely Bones

Author:  Alice Sebold
Bought or Borrowed? Borrowed from a Friend
Book Info: Paperback, 328 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little Brown and Co. (first published July 3rd 2002)
ISBN 0316166685 (ISBN13: 9780316166683)

"These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections – sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at a great cost, but often magnificent – that happened after I was gone." - Susie Salmon

Main Characters:

• Susie Salmon


• George Harvey


• Lindsey Salmon


• Ray Singh


• Samuel and Hal Heckler


• Len Fenerman

Plot:

Alice Sebold's debut novel revolves around the life and death of Susie Salmon who was mercilessly raped and killed at age fourteen by her psychotic neighbor George Harvey.  After the gruesome event that ended Susie's promising life on Earth, her soul continued to live  or so it seems in heaven. Well, it's not yet the real heaven though, but somewhere "in between" where souls do their stop over's and experience blissful moments in their own idea of heaven.  It's a place where nothing is beyond grasp, except life.

Eventually Franny, her intake counselor in heaven shows her a way to still watch over the now twisted lives of her family and the people she care about the most. This includes Ray Singh, Susie's almost but not quite boyfriend and first kiss back in school. A guy who she still aches to kiss once more.

Susie watches helplessly as her dad breaks into million little pieces each day while trying to pretend survive for her other siblings, Lindsey and Buckey. Both of which, although badly hurting continues to get by each day with the help of new friends Samuel and Hal Heckler.

She achingly endures seeing her mom who's inability to cope up with her child's death decides to plunge into a fleeting affair with Len Fenerman who was then the detective assigned to her daughter's case. With all of these things happening Susie isn't ready to let go, not just yet...

My Review:

The greatest mistake before leafing through the pages of this book was reading the reviews online. Most reviews gave brutal tirades that started on the author's use of absolutely confusing metaphors like:

“The tears came like a small relentless army approaching the front lines of her eyes. She asked for coffee and toast in a restaurant and buttered it with her tears.” and ended on the conclusion of the latter's incapability to even write a book.

Although I do agree that I was quite irked with some play on words that were used, I must say that I was very much affected with the story. This, I think matters more than being very clinical with the technicalities in writing

Reading The Lovely Bones was indeed a very heart-felt experience. I felt my heart pound when Mr. Harvey began talking to Susie in the creepiest manner, when Lindsey broke into the his house and when I thought Samuel and Lindsey won't make it home after graduation. Also, I felt like being on the verge of tears and can just imagine Susie still hearing her mom in the background calling her for dinner and even saying something about Buckley's new drawing posted on the fridge, when the unspeakable was happening to her.

In the book, when Ruth made a connection with Susie it just happened in a snap. Susie had an opportunity to be with her childhood love Ray, not because she planned it, but she was just given "the chance" to be with him again. Not that it was a requirement just so she can move on and crossover to the "real heaven".

I was relieved that the story was not delivered in a way that she'd have to dwell on hunting down Mr. Harvey, because that would have felt quite a burden to read. She was focusing more on the people she loves rather than her violator. People must understand that for a typical fourteen-year-old, life is just that simple, I guess.

The conclusion of the story was not epic at all, but was not bad either like what I have expected based on the reviews. The fact that the Salmon family moved on and started putting the broken pieces together by themselves, without needing the help of Susie's apparition or soulful intervention makes it very realistic. The book made us see how a family will be torn to pieces after a sudden tragedy and how they go through certain stages of denial, rage, and finally, acceptance.

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The Next Best Day of My Life

Someday there will come a time when you'll be able muster all the guts you can muster and throw your worries away off to a place where you can never hear of it again. No bills, deadlines, or people to worry about. For once, life will just be about you.

Imagine getting up in the morning looking ten years younger than you really are without all the wrinkles caused by too much anxiety. The sun gently touches your face that would have perhaps launched a thousand ships. Only happy thoughts swirling inside your head. 

You just wake up on the right side of the bed every single day. And right there and then you decide that you are going to go to some exotic never-heard country no matter what it takes.  You dust off your trunk and start grabbing random clothes from without even considering if you're to face bitter wintry nights or scorching summer days. A few steps more and your loading your camera and all the wires that should come with it. Of course, you won't forget your colorful chunks of pastels and the watercolors that all dried up over the years. I bet you barely remember the day you bought them.

Next thing you know, you’re standing on your front door fixing the crease of your Boho peasant skirt, all smiles with nothing in mind but that boldest plan to just wander, paint, and write. A Eureka moment to set foot anywhere possible, get inspiration in things you see from the usual grind to the never before seen. You dilly dally and kill time people watching in parks and streets, saying, “Hi,” to random tourist blondes or sun-kissed natives.

All day, you’ll write. No minimum words. No limits. No boundaries. No matter how silly. No matter how senseless.

Most days, you’ll paint. Do your thing in every medium you want – oils, watercolors, pastels, gouache, et al. Use boards, paper, canvas – primed, gessoed, ungessoed, or whatever. No rules. No standards. No expectations. For all you care, whatever they call it, your work is ART.

You grin, you look around and in your head without second thoughts, you define that day as the next best day of your life.