"Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine."
In this passage, the boy named Crow makes an analogy that compares fate to a storm inside Kafka. Although Kafka is leaving home in order to escape his fate, Crow tells him that his fate is inescapable. It is like a storm inside Kafka that he cannot outrun: the sand, whipped by the wind, confronts him any way he turns and tries to run. This passage is significant because it establishes the major theme of fate while simultaneously hinting at how Kafka's story will end: because he cannot outrun fate, he has to confront and embrace what is inside him.
The black cat slowly stretched out a leg, then narrowed its eyes and gave the old man another good long look. With a big grin on his face, the man stared right back. The cat hesitated for a time, then plunged ahead and spoke. "Hmm... so you're able to speak." "That's right," the old man said bashfully.
Although this passage is written in a casual tone, it depicts one of the most surprising revelations of the book: Nakata can speak with cats. The cat does not react with any alarm, treating Nakata's ability as though it is something he is quite used to. This passage is significant because it reveals the first of what will be many peculiarities associated with Nakata, who gained this ability after entering a coma as a child. The passage is also significant because it introduces the symbol of talking cats, who exist on the border between this reality and the parallel reality of the dead and the unconscious.
After a while, though, I noticed one little boy walking toward me with something in his hands. It was the boy named Nakata—the same boy who didn't regain consciousness and was hospitalized. He was holding the bloody towels I'd used. I gasped and couldn't believe my eyes. I'd hidden them far away, out of sight, where the children wouldn't go. You have to understand that this is the most embarrassing thing for a woman, something you don't want anybody else to see. How he was able to unearth them I have no idea. Before I realized what I was doing, I was slapping him. I grabbed him by the shoulders and was slapping him hard on the cheeks.
From this passage, taken from a letter Nakata's ex-teacher writes in the 1970s, the reader learns more of Nakata's origin story. Although the declassified military documents detailed the Rice Bowl Hill Incident thoroughly, in this letter the teacher reveals that she was too ashamed to admit she hit Nakata on the day of the incident because he discovered the period towels she had hidden in the woods. The passage is significant because it contributes to the mystery of how Nakata entered a coma that seemed to separate his soul from his body.
The hands of the clock buried inside her soul ground to a halt then. Time outside, of course, flows on as always, but she isn’t affected by it. For her, what we consider normal time is essentially meaningless.
In this passage, Oshima attempts to explain to Kafka the peculiar aura Miss Saeki gives off. Unlike most people, Miss Saeki does not seem to belong to standard time, and Oshima theorizes that time stopped for her when she was a young woman and her boyfriend died. The passage is significant because it introduces Miss Saeki as a figure in the story who, like Nakata, lost some part of her soul because of a traumatic incident. Both figures have weak shadows and exist in this world as shells of their former selves.
To be honest about it, I'm not trying to die. I'm just waiting for death to come. Like sitting on a bench at the station, waiting for the train.
While speaking over coffee with Kafka in her office, Miss Saeki admits that she is not well-situated or engaged in her life. Ever since her boyfriend died when she was young, she has been waiting to join him in death. However, she clarifies that she is not actively suicidal. Rather, she is calmly waiting for death as inevitability, which she illustrates by comparing her attitude to that of a train passenger waiting at a station for the train to arrive.
“Truthfully, I'm sick and tired of this life. I've lived a long, long time. I don't even remember how old I am. And I don't feel like living any longer. I'm sick and tired of killing cats, but as long as I live that's what I have to do—murder one cat after another and harvest their souls. Following things in the correct order, step one to step ten, then back to one again. An endless repetition. And I've had it! Nobody respects what I'm doing, it doesn't make anybody happy. But the whole thing's all fixed already. I can't just suddenly say I quit and stop what I'm doing. And taking my own life isn't an option. That's already been decided too. There're all sorts of rules involved. If I want to die, I have to get somebody else to kill me. That's where you come in. I want you to fear me, to hate me with a passion—and then terminate me. First you fear me. Then you hate me. And finally you kill me.”
A self-described "metaphysical" entity, Johnnie Walker reveals his peculiar reason for luring Nakata to his home: to kill him. In this passage, Johnnie Walker explains that he has reached the end of his life as a concept who takes human form in order to collect cat souls, but he doesn't have the capacity to kill himself. This is why he needs Nakata. This passage is significant because it goes at least some of the way to explaining how beings from the other parallel world operate. Although he possesses supernatural powers, Johnnie Walker is still bound by rules and limitations. In scenes such as this, Murakami shows the boundaries between this reality and the parallel reality becoming more porousness. Nakata seems to exist halfway between the worlds, making him the ideal person to end Johnnie Walker's existence in both.
"There's another world that parallels our own, and to a certain degree you're able to step into that other world and come back safely. As long as you're careful. But go past a certain point and you'll lose the path out."
When he drops Kafka off at the cabin in the woods, Oshima warns Kafka not to venture too deeply into the forest. Oshima speaks of the forest in mystic terms, likening its depths to a parallel world. This parallel world is the world of dead souls and the unconscious. Oshima's words will resonate later when Kafka goes deep in the forest and visits the village that exists in limbo—the space between life and death. In this parallel world, Kafka is able to confront what fears and resentments live in his unconscious. He manages to take "the path out," but is tempted to stay with Miss Saeki in the realm of the dead.
“So maybe I murdered him through a dream," I say. "Maybe I went through some special dream circuit or something and killed him.”
After Oshima shows Kafka the newspaper article that details Kafka's father's grisly murder, Kafka confesses that on the same night he woke up covered in blood. Although Kafka couldn't feasibly have been in Tokyo the night of the murder, he wonders if he might have killed his father through accessing a "dream circuit." This passage is significant because it speaks to the metaphysical "other world" that features of the story. Kafka believes he must have played some part in his father's murder, having used his dreams—associated with unconscious fears and desires—to have travelled through to the other world and made a physical impact on both realities.
When the Haydn concerto was over Hoshino asked him to play the Rubinstein-Heifetz-Feuermann version of the Archduke Trio again. While listening to this, he again was lost in thought. Damn it, I don't care what happens, he finally decided. I'm going to follow Mr. Nakata as long as I live. To hell with the job!
Having upended his life to assist Nakata in traveling to Takamatsu, Hoshino wanders the city and contemplates when he should return to work as a trucker. As Nakata sleeps soundly and for an extended period, Hoshino finds himself mesmerized by Beethoven's Archduke Trio, which he hears in a café. Although classical music has never appealed to Hoshino, he discovers that transformative power of music, which stirs up something in his soul. In this passage, Hoshino has a moment of epiphany, deciding on the spot that he will not return to work but dedicate himself to assisting in the quest of the peculiar old man he picked up at a truck stop.
"You have to overcome the fear and anger inside you," the boy named Crow says. "Let a bright light shine in and melt the coldness in your heart. That's what being tough is all about. Do that and you really will be the toughest fifteen-year-old on the planet. You following me? There's still time. You can still get your self back. Use your head. Think about what you've got to do. You're no dunce. You should be able to figure it out."
While venturing deeper into the forest around Oshima's cabin, Kafka speaks with the boy called Crow. The prophecy still haunts Kafka, and Crow encourages him to stop running from his problems and face them head on. Crow believes that real toughness doesn't come from making one's heart cold, it comes from accepting the fear and anger inside him. Crow speaks in cryptic terms but is prompting Kafka to continue into the forest and into his subconscious. Once he does so, he will be able to forgive his mother for abandoning him and no longer fear his father's prophecy.
