Kafka on the Shore

Nakata has been staking out the vacant lot every day for a week in his search for little Goma. The cat Okawa warns him that terrible things happen in the vacant lot and tells him that he should forget about finding Goma. Nakata briefly wonders about, but quickly dismisses, the cat’s fears. What could a cat-catcher do to Nakata?

In the early evening, a huge, black dog appears and telepathically demands that Nakata stand up and follow him. Nakata does.

The dog leads Nakata into a strange area of the city, to a house where the cat-catcher is waiting for him. The cat-catcher is dressed oddly, in a red shirt with a black vest and white trousers, a black top hat and long black leather boots. He tells Nakata to call him Johnnie Walker, because he’s borrowed that appearance and name. He proceeds to tell Nakata that Goma’s fate is in his hands. 

Kafka has trouble falling asleep once Oshima leaves; he’s afraid and feels like someone is watching him. In the morning, all of his fear is gone with the light. Bright and clear, the sun pours down on the cabin, the morning “mist floating like freshly minted souls” (131). He makes breakfast and chooses a book to read. He reads a book about the trial of Adolph Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal and the creator and bureaucrat of the Nazi’s “final solution”—extermination—for the Jewish people. Kafka marvels at Eichmann’s ability to not question, morally, what he is doing. Eichmann had no imagination, so he could not comprehend his responsibility. Kafka is struck by this idea, and knows that no matter what happens, he is responsible for the blood he found on his clothing when he woke up on the grounds of the shrine.

Kafka goes into the woods and he experiences the forest as a living thing. It fills him with awe, and he realizes that he must have respect for the forest. Later that night, he looks up at the sky and sees stars. He thinks, “[T]he stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me” (135). He feels helpless and afraid.

Kafka overcomes his fears and goes into the forest again the next day, imagining a “3-D painting of an animal, watching my every move” (136). He finds a sunlit clearing in the forest and sits there, enjoying the sunshine. The intense feelings of loneliness and fear he experienced the previous night are gone. It rains and he goes naked out in the rain to wash himself. He feels free.

The boy called Crow intrudes to remind Kafka that he’s not in control of events or even his own mind. Imagination and dreams are real, lying in wait like beasts, and Kafka fears his own imagination, his dreams, and the responsibility for his actions that begins in them. 

The dog leads Nakata to the kitchen, where he commands Nakata to open the freezer. It contains the severed heads of about 20 cats. The dog tells Nakata to look carefully and to make sure that Goma’s head is not there.

Nakata returns to the study where Johnnie Walker admits that he killed all the cats and removed their heads. He is collecting their souls to make a flute, with which he plans to collect even bigger souls—human souls, perhaps eventually all the souls in the world. However, this work does not make Johnnie happy.

Johnnie Walker promises to give Goma to Nakata instead of killing her, if Nakata will kill him. He wants Nakata to hate him, to get angry enough to overcome his reluctance and to kill him. Nakata refuses to kill Johnnie Walker.

Johnnie opens a case that he tells Nakata contains five cats that have been given a paralyzing injection. They are able to feel pain but cannot move. He proceeds to taunt Nakata, as he brutally slices open the first cat, extracts its beating heart, and eats it. After he eviscerates the cat, he saws off his head.

The horrified Nakata blanks out and refuses to believe what he’s seeing. Johnnie kills two more cats in exactly the same way, including Kawamura, as Nakata becomes more upset and confused. He begs Johnnie to stop, but Johnnie insists that this is “war,” and the “rules” of war must be followed. He tells Nakata that he can stop him, simply by killing him.

Next, Johnnie pulls out Mimi, the helpful Siamese cat. Driven beyond his endurance, Nakata grabs a knife lying on the desk and stabs Johnnie repeatedly in the chest and stomach. Johnnie Walker dies. Nakata collapses.