Week 9: 海辺のカフカ - Kafka on the Shore 🏖

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海辺のカフカ - Kafka on the Shore :beach_umbrella: Home Thread

Week 9

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Start Date: July 23rd
Previous Part: Week 8
Next Part: Week 10

Reading:

Week Start Date Chapters Page Count
Week 9 July 23rd 17, 18 44

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2 Likes

Omg, we have finally got to the bit where it rains fish! :fish: That is one of the few things I had heard about going into this book. Do love me some fun weirdness. I am kind of worried about Nakata though…a few very foreboding sounding bits in this chapter. It also made me surprisingly sad that he can’t talk to cats anymore :crying_cat_face:. It seems like maybe Johnny Walkers and Nakata are linked somehow and now that one is dead the other one is also impacted? Or something like that. Anyway, I’m worried!

5 Likes

Whew all done! Chapter 17 took me ages for some reason :joy: It was interesting finding out more about the head of the library though, she sure has some backstory huh :sweat_smile: I’m slightly sketched out by how 大島(おおしま) presents the library sometimes, he kept talking about how カフカ would be like a piece of the library and I absolutely do not trust a concept like that in this book :joy: Maybe he just means it as kind of a found family thing, but I’m hesitant lmao. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s something more to it :eyes:

Chapter 18 made it all worth it though, absolutely wild; that poor policeman :joy: can you imagine?? He’s just trying to finish up paperwork before he’s off and here comes ナカタ talking about how he killed a guy who had cat heads in his fridge because he needed to collect their souls to make a space flute :joy: And then the fish?? Yeah absolutely no idea what to make of that, just more evidence there’s something bigger going on, though who knows what. I’m definitely noticing the possible connections between ナカタ’s situation and when カフカ woke up in a bush, particularly how ナカタ somehow ended up completely clean when he should’ve been covered in blood, while カフカ had bloodstains and no idea where they came from :eyes: I feel like they have to be connected somehow, but I’m not sure what all the practicalities of that are.

Same :cry: I do wonder what the deal with that is, like did (someone? something?) give him that ability just so he could deal with Johnny Walker? My other suspicion is that maybe now カフカ can
talk to cats, I feel like these incidents have to be connected so maybe that too? And he did interact with a cat not too long after waking up covered in blood :eyes:

4 Likes

Yes, so much this! So it seems like the timelines are just slightly off? If we assume the „switching“ happened at the same time for both. I hope Kafka gets to interact with a cat in the near future so we can confirm his possible newfound talent. But you say there was a cat when he woke up… I don’t remember it in such detail but maybe that cat just didn’t say anything… :zipper_mouth_face:

3 Likes

Absolutely! That previous evil grin of his, mentioning that he is a special person, and now placing his hand on Kafka’s knee are all very creepy omens, I’d say…

Oh wow this is pretty mindblowing! My first thought was that somehow Johnny Walker was the soulmate of Nakata because his death took something away from Nakata as well…
But maybe Johnny Walker actually exerted control on Nakata since the Rice Bowl Hill incident, and now that control wanes as he’s dead. I mean, Nakata gave a very long report to the policeman although he previously said that he is not very good at these things, and he even thought afterwards that it was the first time he had talked for so long. Maybe his mind is getting repaired now that Johnny Walker is dead?

3 Likes