Is Kafka on the Shore Truly Kafkaesque?

Kafka on the Shore was first published in 2002 by one of Japan’s most acclaimed authors, Haruki Murakami. A summary of the story can either be boiled down or heated up, depending on one’s preference. Boiled down, the story revolves around Kafka Tamura, a fifteen years old boy who fled his Tokyo’s home to tumble into a soul-searching adolescent odyssey at the city of Takamatsu. Its basic premise followed familiar tropes of modern Japanese story that focuses on a youth-centered struggle and acknowledgement, with the subject being thrown into the real world at a sudden pace. Heated up, Kafka Tamura’s story is intertwined through many strange occurrences which breaks the boundary between the vastly accepted objective reality and absolute idealism of dreamlike physical and metaphysical planes. From the man who can talks to the cat, the man who seeks cat’s souls, the ghostlike entity who handles prostitution, the philosophically forward-thinking prostitute, to a second running of the Oedipus’s tragedy. There are many aspects of the story which would not make sense without the readers peeling the layers of Murakami’s vision. Though many brilliances can be analyzed from this book, this article will focus on its influence on Franz Kafka’s signature writing style and mode widely known as, Kafkaesque. 

A Kafkaesque refers to literature that resembles the characteristics of Franz Kafka’s works, commonly a complex web of absurdities that pervades the main character’s life to struggle in problems that may be found by many other people similar to themselves but extended and not easily understood due to the present absurds that they are fated for. Therefore, a format to Kafkaesque can be split into two parts: one concerns the connection to reality, and the other concerns the connection to absurdity. A prominent example of a Kafkaesque is in Kafka’s own work with The Metamorphosis. The story portrays the struggle of a man dismissed from his worth by his family, work, and society in general because they had found him turned into a cockroach therefore not able to function as someone in human’s society. 

In Kafka on the Shore, the reality is presented with the adolescent struggle of Kafka finding a life worth living. His struggle to be a youth who does not know if life means anything to them is something many could easily relate to. It is not difficult to be anxious about what the future holds when throughout the past, nothing significant could be weighed as considerations. In addition, the lack of a father or mother figure that leads to an Oedipus complex does happen in real life. But, the story must introduce absurd qualities to distinguish how reality could be separated, to allow literary devices to be introduced as sources for answers. The existence of Nakata and his stories that are interrelated to Kafka is the blurring absurdity, added on top of that, the actual Oedipus tragedy to Kafka’s Oedipus complex, the veiled spirit world, him substituting the Kafka from times ago, and more. These parallel what Franz Kafka achieved with The Metamorphosis, both converging and splitting of the connections that acknowledge the reader’s realities.

While a form of Kafkaesque can certainly be argued to be present in Kafka on the Shore, not all of Franz Kafka’s signature Kafkaesque are necessarily found in the book. With Franz Kafka, although his works provide a mirror for the readers to address themselves toward his stories, the mirror does not centrally function in a manner of banal soul-searching like Murakami intended. Franz Kafka in his works serves as a mirror that voices the voice of the people against the faulty functions that gear society, such as the labor bureaucracy as intended in The Metamorphosis. Murakami is not such an extreme writer as Kafka, therefore his take on the master’s writing forms follow the same. But, Kafka on the Shore is also not wrong in not following Franz Kafka to the maximum possibility. It is a literary piece much more suitable for the audiences of its time, the new generation of millenials of the early 2000s, instead of the harsh-living hard-working commoners of the early 20th century. 

Overall, Kafka on the Shore stems to be greatly inspired by Franz Kafka and Kafkaesque, but it is not truly Kafkaesque, yet it does not have to. Nineteen years after its publication, the book is still widely read and found a special place in many readers’ minds and hearts. It is a suitable must-read that is also an alternative to Franz Kafka’s works which could be very difficult. Kafka on the Shore, on the other hand, can be enjoyed by average readers and literary enthusiasts for more than a one time read. It is worth exploring, and everyone explores it differently.