Radical Human

This book, kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami, has been in my cabinet for a whole year and it has even traveled with me, half way through the sphere. Though, never have I ever thought of it to be the one that’d compel me to ponder so deeply over all that’d just been a bunch of absurd questions otherwise. It gave me, not just a fresh but an unconventional perspective on reality, life and cats. I remember my friend, having this note written for me on the last page before she gave me that book.

I’m not sure of the connection I had with this book at that time, but I definitely felt something. It was this sort of apprehension that fluttered through me for a reason – some reason that I’m not exactly aware of. While attempting to explain that feeling, I realized that a single blog post won’t do the depth of the book any justice. Hence I would keep making more posts about it until I feel that I have poured my heart out, or atleast speak my mind off about it.

Of course, you may argue that many books claim such an insight on life, and you’d have all your reasons to do so. But, before you decide to disagree – that which many people would rightly do, I’ll admit that there were some parts that defy, or I daresay, even rebel against the construct of modern morality with more emphasis on the construct part here. And then there were instances that surpassed the horror and almost made me abandon this book, for I am a person of questionable emotional stability.

(Who in the world would make a flute with cat souls and keep chopped cat heads in their fridge… WTF MURAKAMI! )

But as they say, never judge a book by its first few chapters. Yeah, all right, nobody has ever said that. It’s just one of those things that I’ve always wanted to say. But I believe it should be an established rule for reading magical realist literature for these are the works that go beyond the senses of our pigeon-like minds and gorilla-like souls and the limitations brought forth in terms of comprehension of reality at face value. It revives the old debate raised by philosophers regarding reality and how it is perceived – if it is something we can even theoretically or, in the future, accurately perceive and understand in absolute terms. Or is reality just a mere construct of an evolutionary process that only helps the very survival of ourselves and our species, which would in fact mean that there possibly exists, infinite ways to access reality (fancy multiverse stuff), and ours is merely the best so far that evolution could produce.

I believe Murakami breathes life into such subjects once again but in a rather unique way, leaving readers in awe. This raises a question, a more pressing one; if other dimensions, which now with the help of science (string theory), are proven to exist, a reality unto themselves. And if that is the case, it portrays that we are prohibited by our hunter-gatherer senses, which may serve us well but at the same time, deny access to the world of infinite possibilities that may exist in other or should I say in higher dimensions. Haruki Murakami made an exceptional attempt to perceive the existence and the sentient agents that would live in such dimensions. So is true for his characters like Mr. Nakata, Ms. Saeiki, the 15 years old boy Kafka and the guy ironically named Johnny Walkers. Through these characters, he challenges the consciousness beyond the classical debate on its definitions and limitations. And one can argue but cannot prove it to be a fantasy.

Anyways!

I found some details precious but at the same time, amusingly absurd. Murakami always had this thing of making simple stuff a little complicated but I think that’s his specialty, and what makes his writings so exceptional and mesmerizing – an epitome of beauty. He is a concept in himself, defined by the way with which he treats the thin lines between fantasy and reality and the fluidity of dimensions through which his characters travel, but without the sci-fi element.

Miss Saeki, for instance, wanted to burn the papers that were ever there with the details of all the things she did in her life, in order to remove her traces from this world. But she still wanted Kafka to remember, every last bit of it. It made no sense to me at first glance, but then I recalled a Disney movie, Coco. The movie sends a message that even the dead still hope someone remembers them as if they still have some feelings or emotions left in them. It is the beauty of his philosophy, which proposed that the only things that last forever are emotions. Although, I think Miss Saeki regrets whatever she has done in her whole life, she still wants someone to remember that she once ever existed; she still wants to leave behind something about her, that is in this case, Kafka’s memories of her. And I think that is the ultimate subconscious purpose of our life, to leave something about ourselves in this world; one that would remain even if we died. I apologize if I might sound like the girl who played for the movie Lucy, I know it’s hard to admit but it is what it is.

Moving on.

His work sure is as complex as the mind of a corporate lawyer. But once you start realizing the pure magic, or rather abstraction in reality, either you start moving towards nihilism or create a separate branch of human thought, with the following being more or less like a cult. I don’t have any statistical evidence or proof written by post-doc for all these statements are based on the weird, vivid, and the eerie feeling I’ve had, or any normal reader would probably get while reading it. But that’s the beauty of this book, that you can’t explain reality, especially human experience, on purely epistemological terms.

Trust me, I know what epistemological means but whenever I pronounce it in my head, I just get embarrassed. I mean who in the hell would pronounce such a **** word.

Back to the point.

There is this weird thing, that bothers me a lot. When you are reading a book, you often have this sublime feeling coupled with rather an unexplainable form of self-insight. You enjoy the moment for a brief period of time before abandoning that feeling and continue to read because you don’t want to lose the pace and the rush of the journey that the book is taking you at, along with itself. I have experienced something similar. When Kafka was riding the train from Tokyo to Kyoto, as he pondered over all that he had done and reconsidered his actions, I stopped there and considered myself on the same train, living that moment exactly as Kafka did, and perhaps an eternity later…

I was still Kafka, living and enjoying life. I think that’s the reason why it normally takes me months to finish a piece. : /

I don’t think if this should be a part of it or not, but I have a friend who is stiff-necked or too stubborn to be a human. I was having a conversation with her the other day.

She is also a Murakamian

I repeat… MURAKAMIAN !

“What if”

“Murakami”

“And Makoto”

“Are actually”

“The same people”

“One person”

“Who writes as Murakami”

”And also films as Makoto Shinkai”

“OMG YES” “THIS CAN BE TRUE”

“Do you see the resemblance in Murakami and Shinkai’s works??”

“No”

“Even the settings are so similar”

I don’t know what to say. I mean they might seem similar to the noobs but their perceptions about life and even reality, and the way they approach things is completely different. Shinkai is always working on the thin line between reality and fiction, it feels like he doesn’t have anything to do with the deeper meaning. I was once explaining the same thing to a 13 year old young girl and for some reason I used the word ‘logicless’ for his work. I know I use a lot of words which does not make any sense but back then it was the only word describing his absurdly amazing animations.

And for Murakami, in comparison he is searching for a deeper meaning and as far as debate between reality and fiction is concerned, at times he is more inclined towards reality than fiction and at the very next plot there are eels falling from the sky. But if a fictional story is told realistically, it is a reality. And then there are times when there is no boundary between reality and fiction.

“Both work on similar themes”

“Human connection”

“But with a fictional touch”

“They are potential soul mates if not same people”

“OMG WHAT IF THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE BUT HAVE SWAPPED THEIR BODIES LIKE MITSHUA AND TAKI, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”