Kafka on the Shore

Author:: Haruki Murakami Tags: fiction japanese#media/book

• Summary::
  • a boy named Kafka with strange blackouts and a tie to this old man who can speak with cats finds about his life
• themes::
  • on the intangibles associated with life—the feelings, memories, and experiences that are indescribable with words
    • tries to give voice to the mystical and unknowable and intertwines that with existentially and our relationship with our life
    • how do we live in a world that is like this with so many unknowns when we are used to knowing everything?
  • how you have to figure out the most important things on your own, no one is going to give you the answers
    • stop waiting for life to happen, you have to seize life yourself
    • stepping out of the reality carved by society around you into the reality you want to make
• notes::
  • ”… Living turned me into nothing”
    • life is just a process of making one empty because you follow societal rules until you aren’t enjoying life for what it is

Author:: Haruki Murakami Full Title:: Kafka on the Shore Tags:#media/book

• themes::
  • theme 1
• Summary::
  • summary 1

* Highlights first synced by Readwise 2021-01-06

* 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. ([Location 95](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=95))
* And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People ([Location 109](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=109))
* My brain like a sponge, I focused on every word said in class and let it all sink in, figured out what it meant, and committed everything to memory. Thanks to this, I barely had to study outside of class, but always came out near the top on exams. ([Location 171](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=171))
* There’s an omen contained in that. A mechanism buried inside of me. A mechanism buried inside of you. ([Location 197](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=197))
* “that chance encounters are what keep us going. ([Location 408](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=408))
* They’re full of obscene, violent, sexual, basically outrageous scenes. Like the genie in the bottle they have this sort of vital, living sense of play, of freedom, that common sense can’t keep bottled up. I love it and can’t let go. Compared to those faceless hordes of people rushing through the train station, these crazy, preposterous stories of a thousand years ago are, at least to me, much more real. ([Location 1030](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=1030))
* was also no delicious eel, no tasty bean-jam buns. Everything is there, but there are no parts. Since there are no parts, there’s no need to replace one thing with another. No need to remove anything, or add anything. You don’t have to think about difficult things, just let yourself soak it all in. For Nakata, nothing could be better. ([Location 1558](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=1558))
* But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone. And for me, what happened in the woods that day is one of these. ([Location 1794](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=1794))
* Works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason—or at least they appeal to certain types of people. Just like you’re attracted to Soseki’s The Miner. There’s something in it that draws you in, more than more fully realized novels like Kokoro or Sanshiro. You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart—or maybe we should say the work discovers you. ([Location 2039](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2039))
* It’s all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It’s just like Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there’s no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise. Just like we see with Eichmann. ([Location 2428](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2428))
* I mean, the only plants I’ve ever really seen or touched till now are the city kind—neatly trimmed and cared-for bushes and trees. But the ones here—the ones living here—are totally different. They have a physical power, their breath grazing any humans who might chance by, their gaze zeroing in on the intruder like they’ve spotted their prey. ([Location 2472](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2472))
* All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I’ve never given them more than a passing thought before. Not just stars—how many other things haven’t I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about? I suddenly feel helpless, completely powerless. And I know I’ll never outrun that awful feeling. ([Location 2491](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2491))
* 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. ([Location 2545](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2545))
* This might seem an outrageous choice, but consider this: most choices we make in life are equally outrageous.” ([Location 2631](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2631))
* Same thing holds true for cats—it’s got to hurt. I feel sorry for the poor little things. I’m not some cold, cruel sadist, but there’s nothing I can do about it. There has to be pain. That’s the rule. Rules everywhere you look here.” ([Location 2649](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2649))
* Hello, good-bye. Like flowers scattered in a storm, man’s life is one long farewell, ([Location 2698](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2698))
* That’s the important thing—follow the rules and the woods will wordlessly accept me, sharing some of their peace and beauty. Cross the line, though, and beasts of silence lay in wait to maul me with razor-sharp claws. ([Location 2774](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2774))
* As Oshima locks up the cabin, I turn to look one last time. Up till a minute ago it felt so real, but now it seems imaginary. Just a few steps is all it takes for everything associated with it to lose all sense of reality. And me—the person who was there until a moment ago—now I seem imaginary too. ([Location 2805](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2805))
* But nature is actually kind of unnatural, in a way. And relaxation can actually be threatening. It takes experience and preparation to really live with those contradictions. ([Location 2815](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2815))
* Noisy reality starts to surround us. The hiss of eighteen-wheelers’ air brakes, horns, and exhaust. Everything near me until now—the fire in the stove, the twinkle of the stars, the stillness of the forest—has faded away. I find it hard to even imagine them. ([Location 2868](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2868))
* There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. ([Location 2905](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2905))
* “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.” ([Location 2984](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=2984))
* The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to. ([Location 3352](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=3352))
* Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it’s important to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. ([Location 3361](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=3361))
* “You build up relationships like that one after another and before you know it you have meaning. The more connections, the deeper the meaning. ([Location 3494](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=3494))
* “Connections change too. Who’s the capitalist, who’s the proletarian. Who’s on the right, who’s on the left. The information revolution, stock options, floating assets, occupational restructuring, multinational corporations—what’s good, what’s bad. Boundaries between things are disappearing all the time. Maybe that’s why you can’t speak to cats anymore.” ([Location 3532](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=3532))
* A theory is a battlefield in your head—that ([Location 3781](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=3781))
* might have savings, but he’d never seen it. They just told him, “This is how much you have in your account,” and told him an amount, which to him was an abstract concept. So when it all vanished he never had the sense that he’d actually lost something real. ([Location 3989](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=3989))
* You might call it an outpouring of energy. Nothing showy, it’s colorless, transparent, like fresh water secretly seeping out between rocks—a kind of natural, unspoiled appeal that shoots straight to your heart. That brilliant energy seeps out of her entire being as she sits there at the piano. Just by looking at that happy smile, you can trace the beautiful path that a contented heart must follow. Like a firefly’s glow that persists long after it’s disappeared into the darkness. ([Location 4136](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=4136))
* “The world of the grotesque is the darkness within us. Well before Freud and Jung shined a light on the workings of the subconscious, this correlation between darkness and our subconscious, these two forms of darkness, was obvious to people. It wasn’t a metaphor, even. If you trace it back further, it wasn’t even a correlation. Until Edison invented the electric light, most of the world was totally covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two. They were directly linked. ([Location 4177](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=4177))
* Symbolism and meaning are two separate things. I think she found the right words by bypassing procedures like meaning and logic. She captured words in a dream, like delicately catching hold of a butterfly’s wings as it flutters around. Artists are those who can evade the verbose.” ([Location 4528](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=4528))
* I’m pretty dumb, so I’m used to asking people questions.” “My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime.” ([Location 4743](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=4743))
* “The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” ([Location 5099](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5099))
* necessity is an independent concept. It has a different structure from logic, morals, or meaning. Its function lies entirely in the role it plays. What doesn’t play a role shouldn’t exist. What necessity requires does need to exist. That’s what you call dramaturgy. Logic, morals, or meaning don’t have anything to do with it. It’s all a question of relationality. Chekhov understood dramaturgy very well.” ([Location 5378](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5378))
* “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. You’re not the person who discovered that feeling, so don’t go trying to patent it, okay?” ([Location 5566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5566))
* Wind blows through the pine forest, sounding like a crowd of people sweeping the ground at the same time. ([Location 5593](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5593))
    * **Tags**: [[blue]]
* It falls to the beach and, like lost time, becomes part of what’s already there. ([Location 5595](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5595))
    * **Tags**: [[blue]]
* Words have all died in the hollow of time, piling up soundlessly at the dark bottom of a volcanic lake. ([Location 5618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5618))
    * **Tags**: [[blue]]
* Like fog from the sea, that blankness wends its way into your heart and remains there for a long, long time. ([Location 5621](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5621))
    * **Tags**: [[blue]]
* But beyond any of those details of the real, there are dreams. And everyone’s living in them. ([Location 5624](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5624))
* The clouds floating above the building were like hard clumps of dirt from a vacuum cleaner no one ever cleaned. Or maybe more like all the contradictions of the Third Industrial Revolution condensed and set afloat in the sky. ([Location 5639](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5639))
    * **Tags**: [[blue]]
* all civilization is the product of a fenced-in lack of freedom. The Australian Aborigines are the exception, though. They managed to maintain a fenceless civilization until the seventeenth century. They’re dyed-in-the-wool free. They go where they want, when they want, doing what they want. Their lives are a literal journey. ([Location 5911](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5911))
* The people who build high, strong fences are the ones who survive the best. You deny that reality only at the risk of being driven into the wilderness yourself.” ([Location 5915](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5915))
* “The strength I’m looking for isn’t the kind where you win or lose. I’m not after a wall that’ll repel power coming from outside. What I want is the kind of strength to be able to absorb that outside power, to stand up to it. The strength to quietly endure things—unfairness, misfortune, sadness, mistakes, misunderstandings.” ([Location 5939](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=5939))
* That’s a story Hoshino always remembered, because he’d thought that had to be the crappiest kind of life, polishing shoes for decades. You gotta be kidding, he thought. But when he considered it now, the story started to take on a different undertone. Life’s crappy, no matter how you cut it. ([Location 6104](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=6104))
* “The world would be a real mess if everybody was a genius. Somebody’s got to keep watch, take care of business.” “Exactly. A world full of geniuses would have significant problems.” ([Location 6116](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=6116))
* Just live each day as it came. As long as I was alive, I was something. That was just how it was. But somewhere along the line it all changed. Living turned me into nothing. ([Location 6146](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=6146))
* We all die and disappear, but that’s because the mechanism of the world itself is built on destruction and loss. Our lives are just shadows of that guiding principle. Say the wind blows. It can be a strong, violent wind or a gentle breeze. But eventually every kind of wind dies out and disappears. Wind doesn’t have form. It’s just a movement of air. ([Location 6301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=6301))
* ‘Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all.’” ([Location 6345](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=6345))
* Soon I no longer know if what I’m following is a path or not. It looks like a path, is shaped like one—but then again it doesn’t, and isn’t. In the middle of all this stuffy, overgrown greenery all definitions start to get a bit fuzzy around the edges. What makes sense, and what doesn’t, it’s all mixed up. ([Location 6889](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=6889))
* We have an experience—like a chemical reaction—that transforms something inside us. When we examine ourselves later on, we discover that all the standards we’ve lived by have shot up another notch and the world’s opened up in unexpected ways. ([Location 7123](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=7123))
* The forest doesn’t scare me anymore. It has its own rules and patterns, and once you stop being afraid you’re aware of them. Once I grasp these repetitions, I make them a part of me. ([Location 7449](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=7449))
* I’m walking by the shores of consciousness. Waves of consciousness roll in, roll out, leave some writing, and just as quickly new waves roll in and erase it. I try to quickly read what’s written there, between one wave and the next, but it’s hard. Before I can read it the next wave’s washed it away. All that’s left are puzzling fragments. ([Location 7475](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=7475))
* Symbols guide us to the roles we play.” ([Location 7581](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=7581))
* all sounds disappeared. How the real sounds around him steadily lost their reality. Meaningful sounds all ended up as silence. And the silence grew, deeper and deeper, like silt on the bottom of the sea. It accumulated at his feet, reached up to his waist, then up to his chest. He watched as the layers of silence rose up higher and higher. ([Location 7675](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=7675))
* “It’s like when you’re in the forest, you become a seamless part of it. When you’re in the rain, you’re a part of the rain. When you’re in the morning, you’re a seamless part of the morning. When you’re with me, you become a part of me.” ([Location 8204](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=8204))
* “That’s another thing that words can’t explain. One of those things that’s neither a yes or a no answer.” ([Location 8640](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=8640))
* “Every one of us is losing something precious to us,” he says after the phone stops ringing. “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 private library.” ([Location 8722](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=8722))
* Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on 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 something you can’t do unless you get there. ([Location 8791](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FC2ROU&location=8791))