Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore illustration [source - http://bit.ly/1PYOK3w]

While reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, I came across an excerpt from Plato's Symposium in which Aristophanes describes an ancient world of myth where there were three types of people - instead of just male or female, they were actually built out of the components of two people: male / male, male / female, female / female. This was the way of that mythic world until god took a knife and cut everybody in half; presumably as some sort of punishment because the now male and female humans spent their lives trying to locate, quite literally, their other half.

This is obviously the stuff of myth but Aristophanes' story resonates with our constant need for companionship in various forms. In a recent conversation I had, somebody was musing about the inherent fault in the institution of marriage. It's easy to imagine how a marriage might bring two individuals too close for comfort so I wonder how this convention came to be in the first place - I can only assume that it was / is for the purpose of security. Maybe we want to call someone our own and know that they are [legally] bound to stay by our side, 'in sickness and in health'. Or maybe we want to touch someone's life in a way that truly matters and will be remembered, even if it is only to justify everything else that we must do - "Just one thing ... I want you to remember me. If you remember me, then I don't care if everybody else forgets."

Rousseau described civilization to occur when people build fences around themselves. So it makes sense that we live with the security of monogamy in developed societies. His theory is that most people do not actually want freedom, and although I lie safely in the thick of 'most people' and appreciate strictly traditional / monogamous relationships I wonder what compels us to enter into relationships at all, sometimes even knowing that they are doomed to fail.

Freedom is a major theme in the novel and this quote sums it up nicely - "Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents." We associate freedom with the ability to make our own choices but in reality, most of those choices are tied to our previous experiences / current and future responsibilities / anticipations / and expectations. True freedom is probably nothingness. The novel presupposes its existence and asks, "can nothingness increase?", but I wonder if it can exist at all. It describes a metaphysical place where time / relationships / health / and even food are not factors at all. But this sort of freedom becomes limiting in itself, sort of like limbo. The place also seems to have a magnetic pull to it, almost like a dangerous living entity that might swallow you. So maybe real freedom is an inconceivable utopian concept and we need a specific version of faux freedom to move forwards. However this necessity of 'moving forward' is also a shackle of our own making. At the risk of sounding tautological, I would say that intelligent / creative / imaginative people can never truly be free because like Yeats said "In dreams begin responsibilities", so our responsibility begins with the power to imagine, and with responsibilities we are invariably restricted.

I am also very intrigued by the concept of labyrinths, especially because I run into figurative ones of my own making, within my head, almost everyday. Every time I want to write a blog post I get lost in translation of my own ideas and struggle to tie them up with a takeaway. I wonder if everything worth reading and writing must have a point - probably? But you can imagine why I enjoyed this quote in the novel, originally by Hegel - "At the same time that 'I' am the content of a relation, 'I' am also that which does the relating." Hegel believed that a person is not conscious of the self and object as separate entities, but through the projection of the self via the mediation of the object, is able to gain a deeper understanding of the self. How I understand it is that our self-consciousness depends on not just our experiences but also on our interaction with inanimate objects and vice-versa, our perception of the most basic things is colored by the understanding of our self. Murakami brings this idea home by explaining that - "Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside. Most definitely a risky business."

This was my first Murakami novel and I think the best part was its conversational narrative style. Most of its development occurs through dialogue. Despite the abundance of magical realism, the drama lies in the growth and self-discovery of its characters. The two protagonists also partake in a real journey, individually, throughout the novel, which serves as a metaphor for their spiritual one. I didn't want to write a traditional review because there are plenty of those around but thank you for reading my thoughts and here are some of my favorite quotes -
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"A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert... a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect."

"Schubert's music challenges and shatters the ways of the world. That's the essence of Romanticism, and Schubert's music is the epitome of the Romantic." "People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring." "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. You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart-or maybe we should say the work discovers you."

"From my own experience, when someone is trying very hard to get something, they don't. And when they're running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them. I'm generalizing, of course." "Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting."

"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."

"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 judgement 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"

"The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory."

"Anton Chekhov put it best when he said, 'If a pistol appears in a story, eventually it's got to be fired.'" The concept is better described in the novel as "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."

"War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being."