🦋 Kafka on the Shore by Murakami Haruki

Karma: 

things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence. (39)

According to Aristophanes in Plato’s The Banquet...in the ancient times people weren’t simply male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female or female/female. In other words each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everyone in half, right down in the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around to locate their missing other half. (48)

I’m free, I think. I shut my eyes and think hard and deep about how free I am, but can’t really understand what it means. All I know is I’m totally alone. All alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who’s lost his compass and map. Is this what it means to be free? I don’t know, and I give up thinking about it. (55-56)

The term “spirit projection”: 

Japanese folks are full of this sort of thing, where soul temporarily leaves the body, goes off a great distance to take care of some vital task and then returns to reunite with the body. The sort of vengeful spirits that populate The Tale of Genji May be something familiar. The notion of the soul not just leaving the body at death but - assuming the will is strong enough - also being able to separate from the body of the living is probably an idea that took root in japan in ancient times. (84-85)

This world is  terribly violent place. And nobody can escape the violence. Please keep that in mind. You can’t be too cautious. The same holds true for cats as for human beings. (105)

That bottomless world of darkness, that weighty silence and chaos, was an old friend, a part of him already. Nakata understood this well. In that world there was no writing, no days of the week, no scary Governor, no opera, no BMWs. No scissors, no tall hats. On the other hand, neither were there delicious eel, no tasty bean-jam buns. Everything is there, but there are no parts. Since there are no parts, there’s no need to replace one thing with another. No need to remove anything, add anything. You don’t have to think difficult things, just let yourself soak it all in. (108-109)

Each of us is extremely isolated, while at the same time we are all linked by a prototypical memory. (124)

Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through, is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit about our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. New styles, new information, new technology, new terminology . . . But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with yea for ever, like a touchstone. (126)

Works that have a certain imperfection to them gave an appeal to certain types of people. (144)

A dense, artistic imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keep you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of - that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. (145)

The trees in the forest have physical power, their breath grazing any humans who might chance by, their gaze zeroing in on the intruder as though they’ve spotted their prey. As though they have some dark, prehistoric, magical powers. Just as deep-sea creatures rule the ocean depths, in the forest trees reign supreme. (175)

...follow the rules and the woods will wordlessly accept me, sharing some of their peace and beauty. Cross the line, though, and beasts of silence lie in wait to maul me with razor-sharp claws. (198)

[sexual desire] It’s like beasts that never tire, tracking you everywhere you go. They come out at you deep in the forest. They’re tough, relentless, merciless, untiring, and they never give up. You might control yourself now, and not masturbate, but they’ll get you in the end, as a wet dream. You might dream about raping your sister, your mother. It's not something you can control. It's a power beyond you - and all you can do is accept it. (180) 

”I'm sure you enjoyed living all alone with nature like that, but it's not easy to live there for a long time, ” Oshima says.

”In theory it's not impossible to live like that, and of course there are people who do. But nature is actually unnatural, in a way. And relaxation can be threatening. It takes experience and preparation to really live with those contradictions.” (201)

”Kafka, in everybody’s life there's a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can't go forward any more. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That's how we survive.” (212)

”You build up relationships like that one after another and before you know it you have meaning. The more connections, the deeper the meaning. Doesn't matter if it's eel, or rice bowls, or grilled fish, whatever. Get it?” (249)

”Things change every day, Mr Nakata. With each new dawn its not the same world as the day before. And you're not the same person you were, either. You see what I'm saying?” (251)

”Connections change too. Who’s the capitalist, who’s the proletarian. Who's on the right, who’s on the left...Boundaries between things are disappearing all the time.” (252-53)

Man doesn't choose fate. Fate chooses man. This is the basic world view of Greek drama. And the sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist’s weak points but from his good qualities. [...] People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex being a great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of laziness or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results. (262-263)

Sex: the pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring into the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory. (357)

Hegel believes that a person is not merely conscious of self and object as separate entities, but through the projection of the self via the mediation of the object is volitionally able to gain a deeper understanding of the self. All of which constitutes self-consciousness. (358-9)

Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have found memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s only a natural feeling. (389)

“Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free.” (412)