Summary
Nakata is dropped off by a truck driver at a rest stop in Fujigawa. Nakata doesn’t know where he is but understands he is west of Tokyo. Nakata spends a while at the rest area, looking for another driver he can hitch a ride with. Time goes slowly in Nakata’s mind, barely passing at all. At night he sees a group of bikers beating a man who lies on the ground of the parking lot. He tells them to stop and the men ignore him, making fun of his umbrella. A strange feeling wells up in Nakata, which reminds him of how he felt with Johnnie Walker. Nakata opens his umbrella and leeches start raining from the sky; the men flee. In the diner, Nakata meets a young truck driver in a Hawaiian shirt named Hoshino. He says Nakata reminds him of his grandfather. They leave, passing a police scene where cars have crashed from the leeches making the road slippery.
Chapter 21 opens with a newspaper story about the world-renowned sculptor Koichi Tamura being found stabbed to death in his study. The story says the police are searching for Tamura’s fifteen-year-old son, who the housekeeper hasn’t seen for ten days. Kafka stops reading the article, which Oshima has given to him. Kafka says he didn’t kill his father, and Oshima says he knows that because Kafka wouldn’t have been able to get back to Tokyo to do it. However, Kafka remembers that he found himself covered in blood the night of the murder. Oshima talks about how, in Greek tragedies, fate chooses man, and that tragedy ironically comes from a person’s good qualities as much as their weak points: people are drawn deeper into tragedy by their virtues. Kafka finally reveals the Oedipal curse he has been trying to escape. Years earlier, his father told him he was destined to murder his father and have sex with his mother. In addition, his father said he would sleep with his sister as well. Kafka wonders if he killed his father by accessing a “special dream circuit.” Before the chapter ends, Kafka says he sees a ghost that night.
Nakata and Hoshino arrive at five in the morning in Kobe. Over breakfast, they discuss Nakata’s inability to read or write, and his family. Nakata says he knew, as soon as they arrived in Kobe, that he had to cross a big bridge to Shikoku; he doesn’t know why. Hoshino finishes his delivery, leaving Nakata to look at the sea and reflect on his life, which involved working for a furniture maker for decades before living on a government subsidy and searching for cats. Hoshino returns with the happy news that he is going to travel to Shikoku with Nakata; he has already checked the bus schedule.
The ghost Kafka sees is a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl in dress; she sits at the desk and contemplates the wall. She is beautiful, so perfect Kafka knows she can’t be real. The girl leaves. Kafka asks Oshima the next day to find him a copy of “Kafka on the Shore,” the song Miss Saeki recorded. Oshima finds that his mother has a copy. The photo on the jacket sleeve of Miss Saeki's album when she was nineteen looks like the ghost girl. Kafka theorizes that Miss Saeki has a ghost of her younger self, even though she is still alive. He asks Oshima about the possibility, and Oshima mentions “living spirits” from The Tale of Genji, among other literary precedents. Kafka repeatedly listens to the song on the record player in his room. He begins reading The Tale of Genji and waiting for the fifteen-year-old Miss Saeki to return.
Hoshino and Nakata go to Tokushima, where they stay in a hotel. Nakata feels very sleepy and proceeds to sleep for twenty-four hours. The narrator comments on Hoshino’s history, saying that he was born into a farming family, and got into fights as a young man. When Nakata wakes up, he correctly guesses that Hoshino has back pain. Nakata says that Hoshino will have headaches and difficulty with bowel movements if he doesn’t correct it. Nakata offers to help and straddles Hoshino’s back, using his hands to straighten Hoshino’s spine. The pain is blinding, but Hoshino feels better after the spinal correction. The two take a train to Takamatsu. Nakata says that the need to find the entrance stone. Hoshino asks where it is, and Nakata says he has no idea. Hoshino shakes his head, by now used to Nakata’s enigmatic statements.
Kafka wakes in the middle of the night to find Miss Saeki’s ghost sitting at the desk. She vanishes after twenty minutes. Kafka realizes they have something in common: they are both in love with someone who is no longer of this world. Kafka goes for a walk on the beach and discusses with Crow how he is jealous of the dead boy Miss Saeki’s ghost is in love with; Kafka wishes they could trade places. Kafka asks Oshima for the sheet music to “Kafka on the Shore.” After lunch, Kafka takes over for Oshima at the front counter. Kafka speaks with Miss Saeki over coffee. She says when she was his age she was filled with ideas about escaping reality, hoping to run across the entrance to another world. A heavy rain batters the library. Before Kafka leaves her office, Miss Saeki says she just remembered that she once wrote a book about people being struck by lightning. Later that evening Kafka listens to her music and studies the sheet music. He remembers that his father was struck by lightning, just before he became serious about sculpting, and thinks maybe Miss Saeki interviewed him for her book. He feels the many coincidences around him coming together.
In the late afternoon, Hoshino and Nakata arrive in Takamatsu, where they check in to an inn. While chatting, Nakata says he was dead for three weeks once. Nakata says the entrance stone is white and scentless, about the size of an LP, and resembles a rice cake. Hoshino wonders if it is on display at a shrine. For two days in a row, Hoshino and Nakata go to the local library and read through legends to try to find information about the stone. Out alone after dinner, Hoshino meets a man who introduces himself as Colonel Sanders, the Kentucky Fried Chicken brand mascot. He is dressed in an all-white suit. Colonel Sanders tries to convince Hoshino to buy time with a sex worker, but Hoshino isn’t interested until the Colonel mentions that he knows about the entrance stone. They go off together.
Miss Saeki’s ghost visits Kafka again. In the morning, a detective arrives at the library. The police investigating Kafka’s father’s death have tracked the stolen cell phone. Oshima lies and claims he hasn’t seen Kafka since May 28. Oshima relays the information to Kafka, and they discuss how Kafka would blackout in school and hurt people. Oshima observes that Kafka has a lot of issues to work out. Kafka says he hates the “container” of his body, with his father’s cursed genes. Oshima says he doesn’t like the container he is in either. Kafka brings Miss Saeki coffee in her office; he flatters her when she says she must look old when she’s tired. He says he is in love with someone, but they don’t discuss who. He asks if she has children, but she says she can’t answer the question with a yes or no at the moment. She says she’s tired and that a strong wind is blowing. Kafka goes to his room and wonders whether he is in love with the young Miss Saeki or the fifty-something Miss Saeki who is alive and who he sees every day.
Hoshino follows Colonel Sanders to a Shinto shrine. Colonel Sanders phones a sex worker and says that he will tell Hoshino about the entrance stone after he has sex with the woman. In a “love hotel,” the gorgeous sex worker makes Hoshino orgasm three times. She is a philosophy student and quotes Hegel to Hoshino, which he finds relaxing. Hoshino goes to meet the Colonel at the shrine again and they set off for the entrance stone.
Kafka uses the library phone to call Sakura and apologize for not having been in touch since he left her apartment days earlier. Sakura encourages him to leave where he is and come stay with her. She says he feels like a little brother to her. He says he can’t leave because he’s in love. That night Kafka wakes up to find the real, middle-aged Miss Saeki is in his room. As if she is sleepwalking, she removes her clothing, gets into bed, and initiates sex with him. He knows he should wake her but feels as though he is being “sucked into a time warp.” She rides him and he ejaculates inside her. Still asleep, she puts on her clothes and leaves the room quietly. He expects to hear her Volkswagen Golf start in the carpark, but he never hears it. He lies awake until dawn, staring at her chair.
Analysis
Obeying commands from the parallel world, Nakata is compelled to leave Tokyo for reasons he does not understand. More surreal, supernatural phenomena occur in his presence: this time, instead of fish raining from the sky, Nakata opens his umbrella and then leeches begin falling from the sky. Nakata does not have any reaction to the event. As a being who exists between worlds, he perceives standard reality and metaphysical occurrences that seem to be issued from an alternate reality as being no different.
Nakata enlists the help of Hoshino, a young truck driver, on his strange but fated journey. Hoshino develops a fondness for Nakata, in whom he sees a resemblance to his grandfather. Unlike the police officer Nakata tried to confess to, Hoshino doesn’t judge Nakata as a crazy old man. Nakata’s peculiar way of speaking, and his inexplicable need to cross a large bridge to Shikoku, don’t faze Hoshino. Hoshino finds himself so interested in Nakata that he decides to stay with him, taking some time off from work. At least for the time being, Hoshino is oblivious to how the invisible hand of fate has brought the two men together.
Meanwhile, an eerie—or rather fated—coincidence shows the two storylines beginning to converge. In a newspaper story, Kafka learns that his father Koichi has been stabbed to death with a steak knife—the same murder weapon Nakata used on Johnnie Walker. With this detail, Murakami suggests that Johnnie Walker and Koichi Tamura may be the same person—that Johnnie Walker is Koichi’s parallel-world alter ego. The timing of the murder lines up with Kafka waking up covered in blood, making Kafka believe that maybe he killed his father by accessing a “dream circuit.” With this possibility, Murakami braids together the themes of souls separating from bodies, subconscious desires, and the existence of a parallel world that Kafka can potentially access through dreams.
While staying in Miss Saeki’s boyfriend’s bedroom, Kafka discovers that the ghost of her fifteen-year-old self has taken to visiting him at night. The more he observes her contemplative pose at the desk, the more he falls in love with her. His feelings of love are complicated by daytime interactions with the real-life Miss Saeki, a woman in her fifties who Kafka believes could be his mother.
Hoshino follows Nakata’s lead as he speaks of the need to locate the entrance stone—a physical manifestation of the porousness between alternate realities. Nakata reveals yet another peculiar habit: sleeping for twenty-four hours at a time. While Nakata sleeps, Colonel Sanders—a metaphysical entity like Johnnie Walker who exists between worlds—says that he can bring him to the entrance stone. Strangely, Colonel Sanders first insists that Hoshino have sex with one of the sex workers who work for him. Only once Hoshino submits to Colonel Sanders’s wishes and engages in taboo sex with a woman who studies philosophy does he show Hoshino the entrance stone.
The fateful coincidences around Kafka accumulate to a climax when the adult Miss Saeki comes into his room, removes her clothes, and takes his virginity. Returning again to the theme of taboo sex, Kafka knows he ought to wake her up, as he believes she is sleepwalking. However, he feels that a power greater than himself—fate—is pulling him into a time warp. He cannot resist her, just as she cannot seem to resist him. In this way, Miss Saeki acts as a surrogate for Kafka’s subconscious desires to fulfill his prophecy by sleeping with his mother. Similarly, Kafka is the surrogate for the boyfriend Miss Saeki lost when she was young.
