THE BOY NAMED CROW
(Excerpt from Kafka on the Shore)
by: Haruki Murakami
I.
A fine literature gives us thrilling actions and adventure, gives us different places to travel, give us different vibes, either happy or scary tension. Literature may consist varies of genre, such as romantic in a lyrical form, realistic adventure in a science fiction and many more. But have you read a novel which both compromises realistic events that sounds surreal? A writer in Japan known as Haruki Murakami is consider as the experimental Japanese novelist and also the most popular, with sales in millions worldwide. He's famous for creating novel having different transitional phases or boundary known as Liminal. This kind of novel consist a realistic events, phantasm, mysteries, and science fiction. The Kafka on the Shore is one of his works, sublimes to the liminal technique. He writes it realistically with a twist of surrealism. Basically, Kafka on the Shore tackles about the story of a fifteen years old boy name Kafka Tamura who runs away from his home, it represents the one person who truly seeks wisdom and knowledge for himself. A good example is the storm described in the excerpt 'The Boy Named Crow'. Storm is the struggle of a one person that he needs to surpass,control, and fight, enable to know his direction and for his attainment of wisdom.
A fine literature gives us thrilling actions and adventure, gives us different places to travel, give us different vibes, either happy or scary tension. Literature may consist varies of genre, such as romantic in a lyrical form, realistic adventure in a science fiction and many more. But have you read a novel which both compromises realistic events that sounds surreal? A writer in Japan known as Haruki Murakami is consider as the experimental Japanese novelist and also the most popular, with sales in millions worldwide. He's famous for creating novel having different transitional phases or boundary known as Liminal. This kind of novel consist a realistic events, phantasm, mysteries, and science fiction. The Kafka on the Shore is one of his works, sublimes to the liminal technique. He writes it realistically with a twist of surrealism. Basically, Kafka on the Shore tackles about the story of a fifteen years old boy name Kafka Tamura who runs away from his home, it represents the one person who truly seeks wisdom and knowledge for himself. A good example is the storm described in the excerpt 'The Boy Named Crow'. Storm is the struggle of a one person that he needs to surpass,control, and fight, enable to know his direction and for his attainment of wisdom.
"And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you wont be the same person who walked in. That's what this storms all about." The only one thing Haruki Murakami wants to emphasize is the capabilities of a person to change. Change means the ability of a person to attain wisdom by coping up or fighting his own fear, and challenges in life, by overcoming it, the person changes and become more knowledgeable, powerful, and has more potential compare to his old life. According to Haruki Murakami, he created Kafka on the Shore to linked up with the Oedipus Myth, He wrote it in a realistic form. He most likely to make novels on his own style.
II.
The story revolves when a 15 years old boy named Kafka Tamura run away from his home in order to flee from his parents and search for his true self and attain wisdom. His alter ego, Crow, become his guide to it. For my interpretation of Kafka, despite the fact that they had different conscious, the two have different personalities. As we can visualize in the excerpt of Kafka on the shore, The Boy Named Crow. Kafka shows childish personality and timid nature, in contrast to Crow, who has a mature and cool personality. In order for Kafka makes decision, Kafka and Crow must merge, in able to have one consciousness.
III
The only thing I can say is that, the novel depicts existentialism, where an individual person is free to determine their own development through the acts of will. That will may be Crow, as he speaks important details and choices for Kafka. He act like the inner voice or conscience. Crow might be Kafka's protection, adviser, and fore-sighting warning. But Crow also enters into dangerous scheme. Reading it first is quite confusing. But sooner or later you'll get the gist of the story. Reading this kind of Novel reminds me of Dan Brown's Novel Book 'The Lost Symbol.' "To live in the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books." To understand others, we must understand ourselves first. Just like Socrates told his students eons ago " Know Thyself". And according to bible, Luke 17:21 " The Kingdom of God is Within You."
