Reflections after reading "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami

Douban introduction: The protagonist of the novel is a man who calls himself Tamura Kafka - the author has never revealed his real name - — young man. He ran away from home alone on the eve of his fifteenth birthday and took a long-distance night bus to Shikoku. The reason for running away was to escape the prophecy made by his father that was even more terrifying than King Oedipus: You will kill your father and have sex with your mother and sister. When Kafka was four years old, his mother suddenly disappeared and took away his sister, who was four years older than Kafka and was actually the adopted daughter of the Tamura family. For some reason, she abandoned her biological son. He had never seen a picture of his mother and didn't even know her name. As if guided by fate, he accidentally came to a private library and took up residence there. The curator, Ms. Saeki, is an elegant and beautiful woman in her forties with a mysterious life experience with twists and turns. Kafka suspected that she was his biological mother, but Saeki refused to comment. Kafka fell in love with Saeki and had a physical relationship with him. The novel also has another sub-line. The protagonist of the sub-line is the old man Nakata. When he was in elementary school during World War II, he experienced a mysterious coma and lost his memory. He completely forgot all the knowledge he had learned and could not even read. Counting, but gained the mysterious ability to talk to cats. Nakata lost control of his mind and killed a madman who called himself Johnny Walker and dressed up like the British gentleman painted on the famous whiskey label. He also hitched a ride here. The novel is divided into 49 chapters. The odd-numbered chapters basically use realistic techniques to tell Kafka's story, while the even-numbered chapters use magical techniques to show Nakata's adventures. The two techniques are used interchangeably to weave a modern fable with strong fictional color, fantasy and treachery. Saeki is the connecting point that connects the two stories into one, and the prophecy of patricide seems to have not been avoided in the end, because the madman Joni Voka turned out to be Kafka's biological father in disguise, and the real murderer was not Nakata... …

The chapter begins with a topic. "Under certain circumstances, fate is like a local sandstorm that keeps changing its direction. You change your steps to try to avoid it, but the sandstorm changes its steps as if to cooperate with you. You change your steps again, and the sandstorm also changes its steps - like this It repeats itself countless times, just like an ominous dance with death before dawn. This is because the sandstorm is not something unrelated coming from somewhere in the distance. That is to say, that guy is you, something within you. . So all you can do is to step straight into the sandstorm obediently, cover your eyes and ears tightly to prevent the dust from entering, and walk through it step by step. There is probably no sun, no moon, and no direction. Sometimes there is even no time, only the fine white sand like broken bones hovering in the sky - just imagine a sandstorm like that

"So we learned how cruel the world is, and at the same time we learned about the world. It can also become gentle and beautiful. "Kafka on the Shore" attempts to depict such a world through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old boy. Forgive me for repeating myself, but Kafka Tamura is myself and you. Time to read this story. If you can see the world through such eyes, as an author, you will feel extremely happy. ”

——The end of the preface of this book