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I’ve recently been asked by quite a few people what I personally think Kafka on the Shore is about. What is Murakami truly getting at? What is the overall meaning of the play?

Honestly, that’s something I’m still trying to figure out. Despite living and breathing in this show for two months, new discoveries are being made with every performance.

The novel is complex, to say the least, and the play does little to subdue this complexity. Murakami brings up question after question along Kafka’s journey and seldom provides answers. It is therefore up to the audience to come up with their own conclusions. Based on the experience of the individual, the play will mean something different to everyone. How one chooses to interpret the events on stage will greatly be influenced by the events of their own life. Some people will agree with what I think the play represents, and some won’t.

One thing I think everyone can agree upon though is that throughout the show, the question of why we are here on this earth is constantly brought up. What’s the point of it all? In other words, what is the meaning of life? Once again, Murakami leaves this mystery unsolved.

Coming from someone still in school this is something that I ask myself all the time. And no matter how hard I’ve tried, I’ve yet to find an answer. Maybe I never will. It was reassuring to hear from Frank Galati that regardless of all his experience, he continually asks himself that question to this day.

If there is anything that I have learned from working on this play, it’s that there are more questions in life than there are answers. Perhaps the reason why Murakami leaves so many questions unanswered is because those answers are simply not available to us. For the time being at least.

What is God? What does God look like? What does He do? What is the purpose of a human life? No one knows, and no one can ever fully claim to know one hundred percent. But maybe not knowing is the natural order of things. Maybe not knowing is okay.

As Hoshino simply states: You eat, take a dump, do your crummy job for your lousy pay, and get laid occasionally, if you’re lucky. What else is there? Still, you know, interesting things do happen in life. Like with us now. I’m not sure why.

Neither am I. And that’s okay.

This entry was posted by Christopher Larkin on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Kafka on the Shore. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.