Chapter 5

Kafka On The Shore
By: Haruki Murakami


Chapter 5
At the beginning of the book we find ourselves with the main character Kafka with the girl he met on the bus. They have finally reach their destination, so they exchange names and numbers. We find out that the girl is named Sakura and although Kafka doesn't want to, she wants to keep in touch so she gives him her phone number. Kafka remembers that Sakura wasn't his sisters name but you never know it's really easy changing your name, so he keeps that thought in that back of his head that maybe she is his sister. For the first couple of nights he's staying at the YMCA because he had gotten discount from the YMCA in Tokyo. After those luxurious nights at the Y he has no idea where he is going to stay. Trying to pass time he goes to the Komura Memorial Library where he meets Oshima, the librarian's assistant and Miss Saeki the librarian. Oshima guesses that Kafka is still in high school and questions why he isn't there right now. Kafka tells him that he decided he didn't want to go back ever and Oshima tells him about Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium. How in ancient times people weren't just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, or female/female. Or in other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. But then God took a knife and cut everyone in half. So after the world was divided to just male or female, and the rest of their lives they would spend their time finding their other half. This made Kafka ponder a lot because maybe this what he was doing? trying to find his other half? While all this thinking, he takes the museum tour where he meets Miss Saeki and he feels like she is important to him, like she should mean something to him. After the tour he goes to his hotel and wonders if his father is worried but doesn't matter he probably doesn't even notice he's gone. He falls asleep thinking of how different life is going to be.


Important Quotes

"Or maybe more like a real home, more than the place I lived in" (34).

"So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing other half" (39).

"From the chair I watch how she carries herself, every motion natural and elegant. I can't express it well, but there's definitely something special about it, as if her retreating figure is trying to tell me something she couldn't express while facing me" (43).


Questions/Comments

What if Kafka is just trying to find his other half? What if that's the whole reason for him leaving his house and going on the quest?

I think that the librarian has some signifigance in this story and she'll probably be a key for something.

I don't think thats the last time we're going to see that girl from the bus, i think she'll return....soon