猫

Interwoven fates

經緯

chaîne & trame

warp & woof

The threads in a woven fabric, composed of the warp (threads running lengthwise) 

& woof (threads running crosswise) to create the texture of the fabric.

(by extension) The fundamental structure of any process or system.

Also ― 經緯 ― longitude & latitude

a. back beam

b. front beam

c. harness or shaft

d. pulleys

e. treadles

f. heddle

g. lease sticks

h. beater

i. shuttle

緯書 (historical) Confucian esoteric literature (occult writings based on the body of Confucian classics) 

世稱緯書，仲尼之作也，臣悅叔父故司空爽辨之，蓋發其偽也。 

Shì chēng wěishū, Zhòngní zhī zuò yě, chén Yuè shūfù gù sīkōng Shuang biànzhī, gài fā qí wěi yě.

From: c. 2nd century, Xun Yue (荀悅), Shenjian (《申鑒》)

"People believe that the occult literature were authored by Confucius. My uncle Shuang, the former sikong, has written critically about them in the hope that their falsehood may be laid bare."

緯書 ➭ So-called because of their relationship with the 經書 (“canon; classic”): whereas the canons were like the warp (經) in the fabrics of classical literature, the 緯書 were purported to be based on them and complement them like the weft.

You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you are worth.

『海辺のカフカ』

大島（おしま）Ōshima, clearly sees this struggle within Kafka (田村カフカ):

“‘You’re seeking something, but at the same time running away for all you’re worth’”1

(「君は何かを強く求めているのに、その一方でそれを懸命に避けようとしているって」2).

What Kafka is searching for is his identity.

However, he will not be able to reach it while denying and running away from a part of his identity: his subconscious (omen). 

1 Murakami Haruki (村上春樹) Kafka on the Shore, 153

2 Murakami Haruki (村上春樹) Umibe no Kafuka jō 海辺のカフカ上 (Tokyo: Shinchōsa Publishing Co., Ltd. 新潮社版, 2005), 325.

Murakami Haruki (村上春樹) Nejimaki-dori Kuronikuru Dai Ichi bu ねじまき鳥

『海辺のカフカ』（うみべのカフカ）は、村上春樹の10作目の長編小説。

Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ, Umibe no Kafuka) 

Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between both plots, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters.

The story begins with a prologue in the form of a dialogue between 田村カフカ Tamura, a self-governing narrator, and the "boy named Raven", his "winged double"3 who is familiar with him. This form of diegesis* is found in the chapters featuring Tamura, alternating with the extradiegetic chapters concerning ナカタNakata. Following a paranormal event at the end of World War II, the latter can no longer read or write, and speaks of himself in the third person. The chapters relating to his accident are presented as "top secret" reports from the Military Intelligence Service, declassified and archived by the United States National Archives and Records Administration (chapters 2, 4 and 8). These documents are supplemented by a letter from the former teacher of Nakata, addressed to the professor of psychiatry who had followed the child with amnesia during his hospitalization (Chap. 12). An interlude between chapters 46 and 47 extradiegetically** describes the final meeting between the "boy named Raven" and the hero's father.

🢣 The odd-numbered chapters tell the 15-year-old 田村カフカ Kafka's story as he runs away from his father's house to escape an Oedipal curse and to embark upon a quest to find his mother and sister. After a series of adventures, he finds shelter in a quiet, private library in Takamatsu, run by the distant and aloof 佐伯（さえき）Miss Saeki and the intelligent and more welcoming 大島（おしま）Oshima, a 21-year-old, intellectual, haemophiliac, and gay transgender man. He is a librarian and an owner of a cabin in the mountains near Komura Memorial Library who becomes close to Kafka throughout the course of the novel. He becomes the mentor of Kafka as he guides him to the answers that he's seeking on his journey. In 高松 Takamatsu, Kafka spends his days reading the unabridged Richard Francis Burton translation of One Thousand and One Nights and the collected works of 夏目 漱石, Natsume Sōseki, until the police begin inquiring after him in connection with a brutal murder.

🢣 The even-numbered chapters tell ナカタ（ナカタサトル Nakata Satoru）Nakata's story. 

Due to his uncanny abilities, he has found part-time work in his old age as a finder of lost cats (Murakami's earlier work The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle also involves searching for a lost cat). Having finally located and returned one particular cat to its owners, ナカタ, Nakata finds that the circumstances of the case have put him on a path which, unfolding one step at a time before him, takes the illiterate man far away from his familiar and comforting home territory. He takes a gigantic leap of faith in going on the road for the first time in his life, unable even to read a map and without knowing where he will eventually end up. He befriends a truck driver named 星野（ほしの）Hoshino, who takes him on as a passenger in his truck and soon becomes very attached to the old man. What appears to be random and irrelevant occurrences and situations are actually crucial to the final outcome for all.

The power and beauty of music as a communicative medium is one of the central ideas of the novel—the very title comes from a song Kafka is given on a record in the library4. The music of Beethoven, specifically the Archduke Trio is also used as a redemptive metaphor. Metaphysics is also a central concept of the novel as many of the character's dialogues and soliloquy are motivated by their inquiry about the nature of the world around them and their relation to it. Among other prominent ideas are the virtues of self-sufficiency, the relation of dreams and reality, the threat of fate, the uncertain grip of prophecy, and the influence of the subconscious.

ナカタ（ナカタサトル Nakata5 (Nakata Satoru)）who has lost most of his mental faculties when he was a child; as one of sixteen schoolchildren on a mushroom-gathering field-trip toward the end of World War II, that were rendered unconscious following a mysterious flash of light in the sky (although it is later revealed that the light wasn't the main cause). This event is referred to in the novel as the "Rice Bowl Hill incident". Unlike the other children, who recovered shortly after, Nakata remained unconscious for many weeks and, upon finally awakening, found that his memory and ability to read had disappeared, as well as his higher intellectual functions (i.e. abstract thinking), essentially making him a "blank slate". In their place, Nakata found he was able to communicate with cats, and from now on, he always referred to himself in the third person. It is hinted that Nakata and Miss Saeki have been through the 'alternate reality' before and it's where they left a 'part' of their 'soul', leading to their shadows being irregular compared to normal people's.

3 カラスと呼ばれる少年 A boy called 'Crow'

カフカにアドバイスを与える謎の少年。この人物のセリフは太字で書かれることが多い。

A mysterious boy who gives advice to Kafka. This person's lines are often written in bold.

4 By a woman,  佐伯（さえき）Miss Saeki who is the director of the Komura Memorial Library. She is over 50 years old. When she was 19, her song "Kafka by the Sea" was a big hit. She had her lover killed in a college conflict in Tokyo at the age of 20. She seems to be Kafka's mother and she has a physical relationship.

甲村記念図書館の館長をしている女性。50歳を過ぎている。19歳のときに自作した曲『海辺のカフカ』が大ヒットした。20歳の時に恋人を東京の大学紛争で殺されている。カフカに母親ではないかと思われるとともに肉体関係を持つようになる。

5 Q: Nakata, the other main character, is a lovable victim of the school disaster who is unlike everyone around him. What led you to create this sort of character?

A: (村上春樹) I’m always interested in people who’ve dropped out of society, those who’ve withdrawn from it. Most of the people in Kafka on the Shore are, in one sense or another, outside the mainstream. Nakata is most definitely one of them. Why did I create a character like him? It must be because I like him. It’s a long novel, and the author has to have at least one character he loves unconditionally.

* autodiegetic (masculine, narratology): applied to the narrator of a story: who is the protagonist of it;  pertaining to a narrator who is also the protagonist. Autodiégétique = homodiégétique (Narratologie) Dans une narration, désigne un personnage qui raconte un récit dans lequel il figure lui-même ; le personnage est la personne de son propre exposé de faits. C'est un narrateur qui ne voit qu'à travers un seul personnage et qui n'a accès qu'aux pensées de celui-ci.

Dans “L'Étranger” d’Albert Camus, Meursault est un narrateur homodiégétique.

** extradiegetic (male and female identical)

• Who is outside the storytelling.― The omniscient narrator is extradiegetic.
• Who is outside the diegesis (space-time in which the story proposed by the fiction of a story, of a film) takes place, that is to say who is not part of the action or who is unrelated to events in a work of fiction. 

Cats:

オオツカ Otsuka, an elderly black cat with whom Nakata easily communicates

年老いた大きな黒猫。ナカタの影の濃さが半分になっていることを指摘する。

ゴマ Gum (Goma) lost cat owned by Mrs Koizumi

行方不明の猫。三毛猫で1歳のオス。この迷い猫の捜索からナカタは数奇な運命へ導かれる。

Missing cat. A calico cat, a 1-year-old male. This search for a lost cat leads Nakata to a strange fate.

ミミ Mimi,  intelligent Siamese cat

上品なシャム猫。名前の由来はプッチーニのオペラ『ラ・ボエーム』の中の「私の名はミミ」より。

Elegant Siamese cat. The name comes from "My name is Mimi" in Puccini's opera "La Bohême".

トロ Toro, a black cat that temporarily became an 'abstract concept'

高松で星野と出会う黒猫。星野に対し、入り口の石に入りこもうとするものを「圧倒的な偏見でもって強固に抹殺するんだ」と諭す。

The black cat who meets Hoshino in Takamatsu. He tells Hoshino that anything that tries to get into the stone at the entrance is "strongly eradicated with overwhelming prejudice."