71 pages • 2 hours read
Haruki MurakamiKafka on the Shore
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25–28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Kafka tries to stay awake, but he keeps dozing off and then waking up again. Once, when he wakes, the young girl is already sitting at the desk, with her chin in her hands, gazing at the painting. Kafka is certain the girl is the young Miss Saeki. His heart begins pounding so loudly that young Miss Saeki seems to hear it, but Kafka thinks she dismisses the sound because it’s not part of her dream. She stays for about 20 minutes before getting up and walking out the door. Kafka realizes that “[s]he and I are in two separate worlds, divided by an invisible barrier” (242).
Waking near dawn on Thursday morning, Kafka wanders outside to the seashore, trying to identify the location in the painting. The boy called Crow arrives to help clarify Kafka’s dilemma: he’s jealous of a boy long dead and in love with a girl who no longer exists, and wants to trade places with that dead boy in order to have that time with the girl his loves. Crow says, “You’ve wandered into a labyrinth of time, and the biggest problem of all is that you have no desire at all to get out” (243).
In the morning, after opening the library, Kafka asks Oshima the important question on his mind: “’Is it possible that Miss Saeki…is my mother?’”(246). The only evidence Kafka has to support this claim is that he feels “’drawn to the library like Fate reeling him in’” (247), Miss Saeki is the right age; she disappeared from her life in Takamatsu during the relevant years; and Kafka is in love with her.
Kafka takes a cup of coffee to Miss Saeki. During their conversation, Miss Saeki asks Kafka why he left home. He says he had to leave before he was permanently damaged and turned into something he “shouldn’t” (249). As he is leaving, Miss Saeki mentions that she wrote a book on people who had been struck by lightning and lived. Later that night, Kafka remembers that his father was once struck by lightning.
A terrible thunderstorm strikes on Thursday afternoon.
Kafka believes that Miss Saeki found the entrance stone she sings about in “Kafka on the Shore”, an entrance to another world where time doesn’t flow like it does in this one, where she can project her 15 year-old self through the unconsciousness tunnel into this time and place, and once again experience in dreams the love she has lost.
Chapter 26 Summary
Nakata and Hoshino find a hotel in Takamatsu, and Hoshino asks Nakata about their next step. Nakata tells Hoshino that they must find the entrance stone, which is white and about the size of an LP record. Nakata will recognize it when they find it and must move the stone.
The next morning they set out to search for the stone. Neither the young woman at the tourist bureau nor the public library can offer them any helpful information about the entrance stone. While Hoshino looks up legends about stones, Nakata reads picture books. Hoshino researches stones in the library the next day as well.
That evening, while Nakata sleeps, Hoshino goes out to explore the town. He runs into a man calling himself Colonel Sanders, who looks exactly like the Kentucky Fried Chicken icon. He knows that Hoshino is looking for an entrance stone and fixes Hoshino up with a girl. He promises that after Hoshino sleeps with the girl he will tell Hoshino where the entrance stone can be found.
Chapter 27 Summary
Kafka notices the ghost girl at 2:47 a.m. She is sitting at the desk gazing at the painting. Kafka speaks, calling her name. She stops looking at the painting and seems to look in his direction, then she leaves.
The next day a police detective arrives, looking for Kafka. Oshima covers for him, and once the detective leaves, reassures Kafka that he’s not a suspect in his father’s death, but the police have no other leads and simply want whatever information Kafka can share with them. Oshima asks Kafka whether the detective was telling the truth about him being a troublemaker at school, and being suspended three times for violence. Kafka admits that he’s been suspended twice, and that at times he loses control of himself. It’s only when he comes to that he discovers that he’s hurt someone.
He takes coffee upstairs to Miss Saeki and talks with her for a while. He tells her that he’s in love. As he’s leaving, he asks her if she has any children. She tells him she cannot give him a yes or no answer. Kafka is confused; he doesn’t know if he’s in love with Miss Saeki at age 15 or Miss Saeki now.
Chapter 28 Summary
Colonel Sanders takes Hoshino to a shrine and calls a prostitute to meet them. Colonel Sanders constantly berates Hoshino for being slow-witted and not very intelligent. A beautiful young woman shows up, and Hoshino and the woman go to a hotel. They have sex, during which the young woman quotes philosophy to him, particularly Hegel. Hoshino doesn’t understand any of the philosophy, though he does his best to play along.
After that adventure, Hoshino returns to Colonel Sanders at the shrine. Colonel Sanders tells him that the entrance stone is right there.
Chapters 25-28 Analysis
These chapters cover Wednesday and Thursday, June 3rd and 4th, for Kafka.
Kafka receives visitations from young Miss Saeki, on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and his research on Miss Saeki continues during the day, as he listens to the song “Kafka on the Shore.” The visitations with the young girl gazing at the painting, and the song, with its strange lyrics all seem to match some aspects of Kafka’s life.
The terrible thunderstorm that occurs on Thursday afternoon is a result of the entrance stone opening the entrance to the other world. This happens in Chapter 25 for Kafka.
Kafka’s discovery that he’s in love with young Miss Saeki and that Miss Saeki could very well be his mother should alarm him much more than they do. If he’s really interested in running away from his fate, he should be on the next bus out of there. However, he stays, too intrigued and too emotionally invested to leave.
The Nakata chapters begin on Monday, June 2nd, and continue through Wednesday, June 3rd. Hoshino’s journey takes off once he begins directing Nakata’s search for the entrance stone in earnest. He begins to grow and change. He becomes more interested in learning and ashamed of his ignorance, exemplified by his reading and research in the library. He becomes ashamed that he can read and has a good mind, yet he has done nothing with those abilities. Whereas Nakata, who has no intellect, does his best to do something positive every day.
Hoshino’s encounters with Colonel Sanders and the prostitute provide one of the few humorous sections of the novel, though serious issues are addressed. As Colonel Sanders both helps him and berates him for his stupidity, Hoshino begins to understand that the world contains more than he thought, and that more might be expected of him than he thought. The prostitute, a very intelligent philosophy student who also enjoys sex, turns stereotypes about prostitutes on their head.
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