When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. Eventually, he comes upon two soldiers in World War II uniforms who say they will take Kafka to a mysterious entrance. Hoping to escape, or face death, he ventures into the dark woods. Kafka is intensely lonely and feels trapped by his father’s prophecy. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. Kafka has a dream about raping Sakura which fills him with guilt. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.Īnd once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. Kafka on the Shore, published in the old country in 2002 and now translated into English by Phillip Gabriel, shares many common denominators with its wind-up predecessor, but that triad of. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. But inside our heads - at least thats where. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.Īnd you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. “Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions.

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