The Rice Bowl Hill Incident

“Chance is a scary thing, isn’t it?” - Hoshino.

Haruki Murakami (Murakami) is a contemporary Japanese writer and in his book, Kafka on the Shore (Shore), most of us may notice that the language is kept simple after the translation, perhaps to avoid any redundant complexity in the story and also to form a close connection between the outlandish in the story and the reader’s mind. This informal diction in Shore does not fail to convey the magical, hypnotic and the spellbinding effect of the plot, where the plot turns to the supernatural too. It is surprising and marvellous for a reader to note how simple words can articulately plot two wonderful and addictive stories in alternate chapters.

In the first few pages, the “Rice Bowl Hill” incident directs the reader’s to a harsh consequence of war and the incident also helps to empathise with the anguished teacher who stands among unconscious children. With there being no cause for the loss of consciousness, this incident connotes to a chance. Later in the story, readers get to know that this incident is what made Nakata “less bright” but, this is also a significant event that may have activated a mysterious sense in Nakata, which enables him to speak with cats. The astounding fact that Nakata can only talk to cats and not other animals; this may be a coincidence in Shore because cats are

Is it only by chance that he ends up in “Komura Memorial Library” and not somewhere else? Or is it a coincidence that he meets Oshima and Miss Saeki, who would play important roles as the plot progresses. He believes that Miss Saeki is his mother and has a proposed theory to prove it but, in the final pages of the story, he tells her “Are you my mother?” and she replies, “You already know the answer to that.” However, there is no direct evidence of his theory being true in the story. Shore is filled with unanswered questions and this is possibly one of