I’m a big fan of Haruki Murakami and just finished reading Kafka on the Shore. Like all his fiction, I find it kind of impossible to describe. It’s everything, all at once, I guess?! I find it wonderful, but I realize it’s not for everyone. Do you know what it is, though? Fiction. If you aren’t open to reading fiction, you should be.
There is a passage, late in Kafka on the Shore, that sums up how I feel about this specific work:
“And I doubt I’ll ever tell anybody about it. Even you. And I don’t think you’ll ever talk about it to anyone, either. Even to me. You know what I’m trying to say?”
“I think so,” I tell him.
“What is it?”
“It’s not something you can get across in words. The real response is something words can’t express.”
“There you go,” Sada replies. “Exactly. If you can’t get it across in words then it’s better not to try.”
“Even to yourself?” I ask.
“Yeah, even to yourself,” Sada says. “Better not to try to explain it, even to yourself.””
I’ve been researching a bit more about what Murakami said about the book, and this is both bewildering and awe-inspiring:
Kafka on the Shore contains several riddles, but there aren’t any solutions provided. Instead several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It’s hard to explain, but that’s the kind of novel I set out to write.
Murakami can be an acquired taste. People surely will find it disturbing, ridiculous, and confusing. But the cool thing about Murakami, and fiction in general, is how it reveals truths that can’t be seen in traditional non-fiction.
Here is Murakami on what makes fiction amazing:
…by telling skillful lies – which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true – the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
To make judgments about right and wrong is one of the novelist’s most important duties, of course.
It is left to each writer, however, to decide upon the form in which he or she will convey those judgments to others. I myself prefer to transform them into stories – stories that tend toward the surreal.
You don’t need to dive into the magical surrealism of Murakami to realize the benefits of fiction (although I recommend it).
You just need to try it and see.
Comments welcome!