Kafka on the Shore
Original title: 海辺のカフカ · First published 2001 · 576 pages · about 10 hours to read
Won: World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (2006)
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About this book
A boy trying to escape a gruesome oedipedal prophecy, a simple man who can talk to cats, a mysterious librarian, and a woman waiting for a long-dead lover.
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Quotes
“It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It's just as Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibility. Turn this on its head and you could say that where there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise.”
Chapter 15
More quotes
“Listen, every object's in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil-they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box.”
Chapter 30 “Works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that you're attracted to Soseki's The Miner. There's something in it that draws you in, more than more fully realized novels like Kokoro or Sanshiro. You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart-or maybe we should say that work discovers you.”
Chapter 13 “It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.”
Quotes from Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0), chosen with AI.
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