While I was packing for the Grand Canyon, I decided to forego bringing the book I was planning on bringing: "Kafka on the Shore." One night after our return, I heretofore picked it up and started reading... and couldn't put it down. It was the first modern novel at this level of bizarre and surreal. Through every chapter, I thought, "What crazy/weird thing is going to happen next?!" and "How does he blend dream and reality so well?"
I recommend it but I can't say something about this book that hasn't already been said. I liked it because I reacted almost viscerally to his storytelling through most chapters. I was spooked, intrigued, and even disgusted at times. I keep thinking about it three days later. Kafka on the Shore resembles a modern incarnation of the Oedipus mythology. It plays on themes relating to fate, the metaphysical, and emotions.
If there's something that I personally took away from it - it's this line in the beginning chapters:
"In travel a companion, in life compassion."
To which, the protagonist, Kafka, interprets as: "Chance encounters are what keeps us going. In simple terms."
I was puzzled by this and couldn't find myself to agree with the protagonist at the time I read it. The line is never quite revisited but it stuck with me throughout. Clearly, the book was about a journey, an odyssey, that Kafka was meant to fulfill. Chance encounters happened but with such dark overtones in the book, it was hard for me to grasp any sense of optimism the line connotes.
But at the end, despite how bizarre and open-ended the ending of the book was, I did feel a sense of lightness. It may not have been a happy, fairytale ending, but all felt right with the world.
I thought more about my own life. It's unlikely that I'm "fated" to any extreme destiny like murdering my father and finding lost love from a previous life. But for any destiny or any path my choices and subsequent karma would lead me down -- perhaps there is a driving force? Maybe it's analogous to the Christian verse: "All things work together for good" or the Bokonon-ism: "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."
So here's a wonderful thought: we can place our own interpretations on chance encounters, but as we go on, our certainty is that we have a friend in travel and compassion in life. Embrace it.
I recommend it but I can't say something about this book that hasn't already been said. I liked it because I reacted almost viscerally to his storytelling through most chapters. I was spooked, intrigued, and even disgusted at times. I keep thinking about it three days later. Kafka on the Shore resembles a modern incarnation of the Oedipus mythology. It plays on themes relating to fate, the metaphysical, and emotions.
If there's something that I personally took away from it - it's this line in the beginning chapters:
"In travel a companion, in life compassion."
To which, the protagonist, Kafka, interprets as: "Chance encounters are what keeps us going. In simple terms."
I was puzzled by this and couldn't find myself to agree with the protagonist at the time I read it. The line is never quite revisited but it stuck with me throughout. Clearly, the book was about a journey, an odyssey, that Kafka was meant to fulfill. Chance encounters happened but with such dark overtones in the book, it was hard for me to grasp any sense of optimism the line connotes.
But at the end, despite how bizarre and open-ended the ending of the book was, I did feel a sense of lightness. It may not have been a happy, fairytale ending, but all felt right with the world.
I thought more about my own life. It's unlikely that I'm "fated" to any extreme destiny like murdering my father and finding lost love from a previous life. But for any destiny or any path my choices and subsequent karma would lead me down -- perhaps there is a driving force? Maybe it's analogous to the Christian verse: "All things work together for good" or the Bokonon-ism: "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."
So here's a wonderful thought: we can place our own interpretations on chance encounters, but as we go on, our certainty is that we have a friend in travel and compassion in life. Embrace it.
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