Book Blog #1 - Kafka On The Shore

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change directions but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that had nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do it 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 (page 5)."

This passage exemplifies the essence of fate. There is no way anyone can avoid it, and yes, in some ways fate is a sandstorm. It can be good, and it can be bad. This passage also exemplifies the essence of Kafka on the Shore. The book is about fate; how so many characters, throughout the world of fiction, try to avoid their given fate yet no matter what they do, no matter how the reach it, their fate will come true. After reading further into Kafka on the Shore I realize that this passage, as told from 'a boy called Crow', does a good deal of foreshadowing. The fact that fate is a constant resonates through the characters because they are all tied to one fate that will eventually, and inevitably, bring them together by the end of the book. This passage also teaches the reader about fate. Haruki Murakami's style of writing has an extreme philosophical twang in which emanates through this passage. His style leaves out mundane details that allow the reader to further the though for themselves. The character of a boy called crow parallels that of the angel and devil that sit on everyone's shoulders. The voice in the back of everyone's mind telling them what to do. This voice peaks through in this passage because the boy called Crow is telling Kafka, the main character, what fate is and how it is unavoidable. Learning the characteristics of fate it a valuable lesson for the reader of this book as well as the characters inside of it. We are all fated to something, and whatever it is we have to deal with it.