Lit Analysis #1 "Kafka on the Shore"

“Kafka on the shore” follows the journey of both the fifteen year old Kafka who runs away from home on a mission to find his lost mother and sister, and the elderly Nakata who as a child slipped into a coma and came out with the strange ability to communicate with cats. The entire book is something of a modern retelling of the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex. There were two main themes that this book had one of them is breaking the molds that run your very existence allows you to live and discover the vast world around you and sometimes expectations don’t match up with reality. Haruki Murakami I believe wrote this novel to allow the reader to introspectively look and compare their own lives with the twisted nature of the characters. The tone of the novel jumps many different times thought but I think I keeps a somber yet misty tone stream lined throughout.

While introducing the two main characters the author uses two kinds of characterization, direct and indirect. Towards the beginning he explains the generally look of Kafka and Nakata.  He States ages and other features to key the reader in to who they might be imagining in their heads. But the author does something clever when it comes to how he indirectly characterizes them. With things such as when he mentions they’re in japan unless stated otherwise the reader can assume that the characters are of Asian descent, another instance can be when Kafka first reaches the library the way the character takes it all in and enjoys the literature around him really shows the reader who he is. Come to think of it both the syntax and diction changes subtly when switching between the characters. In chapters where the focus is Nakata the language is a lot more whimsical, and when on Kafka the diction is much more colorful and descriptive.  Kafka is a mix between a static and dynamic character its strange to say nut he is about 50-50 in both what I mean is he is static in his actions and reactions to things but his way of thinking and looking at things is completely changed from beginning to end. Unfortunately the way my mind works it keeps fiction fiction and reality reality so I came away from the novel only having read a character however it is one of the better things I have ever read and connected with on such an eye opening and intellectual  level.