The Boy named Crow by Haruki Murakami

THE AUTHOR

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan, on January 12, 1949. After attending college in Waseda University on 1973, Murakami ran a humble jazz bar for seven years with his wife.

Hear the Wind Sing, his first novel, won the Gunzou Literature Prize for budding writers in 1979. His success erupted with two sequels, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase, which all together form “The Trilogy of the Rat.”

Murakami is also the author of the novels: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; Norwegian Wood; Dance Dance Dance; South of the Border, West of the Sun; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; Sputnik Sweetheart; Kafka on the Shore; After Dark; 1Q84; and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. He has written three short story collections: The Elephant Vanishes; After the Quake; and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman; and an illustrated novella, The Strange Library.

Moreover, he has also written works of nonfiction. In fact, he wrote a book which was based from the Hanshin Earthquake and the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995. He interviewed both the victims and the religious group responsible for the incident. And from there, he published two nonfiction books which was combined and entitled Underground. 

His most recent accomplishment from the numerous international literary honors he received, is the Jerusalem Prize, with his work translated into more than fifty languages.

His inspirations include: Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut, and Richard Brautigan.

BACKGROUND

Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You can change direction but the sandstorm chases you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. ”

The Boy named Crow is an excerpt from Murakami's work, Kafka on the Shore, which is emphasized by two characters: Kafka Tamura, a boy turning 15 years old, and Nakata, who is suffering from post-war syndrome and is somehow drawn to Kafka. Kafka, in the excerpt, plans to run away from two possible reasons: 1. To escape his oedipal complexity, which suggests his anger or jealousy towards his parent of the same-sex (father); or 2. To search for his long long mother and sister. The later reason cannot be simply concluded from the excerpt alone, but to be deduced only after reading the book.

Kafka, in Czech, means Crow. This suggest that Crow, the character in the excerpt, could be somehow related to Kafka in terms of consciousness, reasoning and personality. This type of literary work makes use of metaphor and symbolism. The former one is because Crow was used to compare to the main character, while the latter is because the Crow represented his alternative personality. 

SUMMARY

The excerpt The Boy named Crow is a prologue to the book Kafka on the Shore. It started off with a conversation between Kafka and Crow, his alter ego. They were talking about the plan of Kafka to run away from home. On his fifteen birthday, he was planning to execute his flee. With him are the money he stole from his father, his cellphone and hunting knife. Crow then advised him how he might need more than that to survive, since great trials await in his journey. He said that he has to be the "toughest fifteen year old" if ever we wants to survive in the real world. Crow also compared fate to a sandstorm - pertaining to Kafka's conflict. What happens next is for another summary...

SETTING

• Modern Life in the South of Japan
• From to Tokyo, travelling to Shikoku to Takamatsu

THEME

• Survival - Throughout the excerpt, the main character is persistently trying to reason out, with his own self - Crow, that he would eventually run away, and maybe find his mother or sister. But to be able to withstand the cruelty that is real life, he must first learn how to survive. What will he need? How will he eat? Where will he go? Does he even know how far he will able to go? These questions were then exchange between Kafka and Crow. He has to be the world's toughest fifteen-year-old because it is the only way for him to survive.
  Kafka defines survival as the capacity of the person's physical strength and mental agility. Therefore, he conducted strict training and academic studying. After two years, he decided he was ready to leave on his fifteenth birthday. He had hope that his well built stature and intelligence was above average for his age. With the tools and materials he needed, he was set off to his fairy - tailed plan, to go to a library.

• Freedom - "I don't want to rain on your parade or anything, but I wouldn't count on escaping this place if I were you. No matter how far you run. Distance might not solve anything," Crow said to Kafka. He can run away from home, but it will not make him truly free - it will not free him from the problems and sufferings he had experienced. Throughout the novel, Crow reminds Kafka that distance will not give you freedom. It only postpones the inevitable.

CHARACTERS

1. Kafka Tamura - a fifteen-year-old runaway living in Shikoku. Kafka decides to run away on his fifteenth birthday and trains for the big day for two years. He works out to build strength and bulk, which makes him look older than he really is. He also reads voraciously, spending most of his time in the library, and pays attention in class. He isolates himself from other people, never laughs or smiles, and prefers to be alone.
2. Crow - is sometimes a voice in Kafka's head, Kafka himself or an actual crow. Sometimes he appears to Kafka; other times Kafka only hears his thoughts. The boy named Crow functions as Kafka's alter ego, giving Kafka advice, cheering him on, and narrating present and future events.

CONFLICT

• Man versus Himself - Kafva is continuously exchanging reasons with Crow, which is technically himself. 

POINT-OF-VIEW

• First person point-of-view - The narrator is Kafka himself.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM

Murakami admits that he is heavily influenced by the World War II during the American occupation. "I have drawers in my mind, so many drawers. I have hundreds of materials in these drawers. I take out the memories and images that I need. The war is a big drawer to me, a big one…. My father belongs to the generation that fought the war in the 1940s. When I was a kid my father told me stories—not so many, but it meant a lot to me. I wanted to know what happened then, to my father's generation. It's a kind of inheritance, the memory of it." This is why the post-war history of Japan can be reflected in Murakami's works. Although in The Boy named Crow, this can't be hardly deduced, but according to the history of the excerpt, it can also be justified. 


LOGICAL CRITICISM

Crow represented a non-existential being, and yet existing in the form of Kafka. It is a contradictory in its own way, but somehow makes sense. The main character was basically struggling and in conflict with his own self - if whether he would choose to stay, or leave. 

MYTHOLOGICAL CRITICISM

This literary work was mainly based on the Greek mythology, Oedipus, son of Laius and Jocasta, where he was fated from birth to kill his father and marry his mother. Laius was fearful that the prophecy would come true, so sent his son to the wilderness to die. A servant took pity on young Oedipus, gave him to a shepherd who handed the child over to King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth. They raised Oedipus as their own. Years later, Oedipus quarrels with a man on a mountain road and kills him. The man turns out to be Laius. When Oedipus correctly answers a riddle posed by a mystical creature terrorizing the city of Thebes, he saves the city and is granted the hand of the widowed queen, Jocasta. Soon after, pollution and misfortune fall upon the city and the source of the curse is discovered. Jocasta commits suicide and Oedipus blinds himself.

Murakami alters the myth slightly, but its inclusion in the novel, as well as references and allusions to other Greek tragedies, makes the point that myths are touchstones for a variety of human experiences and the stories that explore them. In an interview at RandomHouse.com, Murakami explains, "Myths are the prototype for all stories…. Myths are like a reservoir containing every story there is." It becomes a device that allows Murakami to examine Kafka's emotions and the decisions he makes.

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM

1. Crow - Representing the inner self or conscious we all have. The "no" to our "yes," and the "wrong" to our "right." He portrayed the voice inside us, in the body of a fifteen year old. How the boy struggled to either accept his faith or rebel against it. Crow may be the true self we want to express, or the hidden voice we dread to release.
   
2. Sandstorm - Represents the challenges and problems we face in our journey - life. It is ever-so-unpredictable and undetermined. And yet, we have no choice but to keep moving forward and face them head-on. In the excerpt, fate was defined as something we cannot control, but subjectively, according to Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Man creates his own destiny." We determine what we can and cannot control.
   
3. "Like a Fairy Tale" - The phrase was used to describe the somehow improbable situation a child, such as the main character, will do in real life. Obviously, a child cannot survive without the supervision of an adult or guardian. Things like food, and shelter are the basic necessities, but without it, it could be a threat to own's own survival.

CONCLUSION

The Boy named Crow by Haruki Murakami depicts the burden a child has when their future is determined by their parents. This can be observed from way back before, up to this  modern era. The complexity within only the excerpt itself is mind-boggling. It enables the reader to experience a new perspective, no matter how strange or unusual the concept may seem. By connecting the author's background, history, and culture, one can narrow down the message portrayed in their work. In Murakami's work for example, made fiction a little more closely related to the real world. 

REFERENCE

https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/kafka-shore