Critical Analysis by Jhanine R. Adona of XII - Animation

"The Boy Named Crow"

by Haruki Murakami

 ( Excerpt from kafka on the Shore)

Critical Analysis by:  Jhanine R. Adona

                                     

The story of Kafka on the Shore is structured around the alternating stories of Kafka Tamura, a 15- year-old boy who runs away from home to scape an awful oedipal prophecy,and Nakata, an aging and illiterate simpleton who has never completely recoverd from a wartime affliction. Kafka’s journey brings him to a small private library in the provincial town of Takamatsu and to a mountain hideway where the ordinary laws of time no longer apply . But, like Oedipus, the more Kafka tries to avoid his fate, the closer he comes to fulfilling it. Nakata also sets forth on a quest for an enigmatic rntrance stone, the significance of which he does not understand these narratives push relentlessly forward like trains running on parallel tracks we know the tracks will converge at some point but not knowing when or where or how creates the suspense the makes the novel so compelling and drives it to its astonishing conclusion along the way kafka on the shore invesgates and sometimes cahllenges our conceptions of time, fate, chance, love , and trhe very nature of human reality the novel offers up a rich array of  extraordinary characters and outrageous happenings fish falling from the sky conversations between  man and cat a supernatural Colonel Sanders ghostly but deeply sensual lovers a philosophical prostitute word war II soldiers untouched by time and much else both stanger and wonderful but more than metaphysical fun is at stake in Kafka on the shore There is a vicious murder to be solved complex and possibly incestuous relationships to be untangled and the very nature of reality itself hangs in the balance intellectually ambitious,emotionaly intense,and beautifully written  Kajka on the Shore bristles with Murakamis unique brand of imaginative brio.