Description
“Kafka on the Shore” tells two interconnected stories:
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Kafka Tamura, a 15-year-old boy, runs away from home to escape an Oedipal prophecy and find his long-lost sister and mother. He’s intelligent, fiercely independent, and haunted by his father’s dark predictions.
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Satoru Nakata, an aging man left mentally impaired by a childhood accident during World War II, has the ability to talk to cats. As he searches for a lost feline, he ends up on a strange journey filled with supernatural occurrences.
As the narratives alternate, they become increasingly surreal, involving:
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A talking cat named Otsuka
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A mysterious figure resembling Johnnie Walker
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Fish falling from the sky
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Soldiers who never age
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A metaphysical library where lost souls rest
The novel doesn’t provide clean-cut answers but invites readers to interpret the story’s mysteries through themes of identity, memory, fate, and consciousness.
Murakami uses dream logic and symbolic storytelling to reflect on emotional trauma and self-discovery, resulting in a work that is deeply open to interpretation.
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