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 37–40Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 37 Summary
Oshima and Kafka arrive at the mountain cabin, to find everything the same as when Kafka left it last week. Oshima warns him again about how easy it is to get lost in the woods, and shares a story about how, when Japanese troops ran practice drills in the forest here, two soldiers disappeared and were never seen again. He explains it another way: the forest is a labyrinth. Oshima says that there is another world parallel to our own, and when entering the forest, you could easily go too far and slip into the other world and not be able to get back.
Kafka reads on the porch until it gets dark, then he goes to bed. He cannot sleep for thinking about Miss Saeki; he wonders if she felt the same things that he did. He wishes he were older so that he could understand her better. He falls asleep, hoping that she will appear in his dreams.
Chapter 38 Summary
It’s Saturday, and Hoshino rents a car and returns to the apartment. He listens to his new classical music CD of Beethoven’s Archduke Trio while Nakata cooks. The food is wonderful. They eat dinner. Nakata has never cooked for another person; he’s never had a friend or family over to cook for them. He tells Hoshino that he will need him to drive him somewhere tomorrow, on Sunday.
They drive around the city all day Sunday and all day on Monday. Just when they are about to give up for the day, they find themselves at the Komura Memorial Library. Nakata announces that this is the place he was looking for.
Chapter 39 Summary
On Tuesday, his second day at the mountain cabin, Kafka walks into the forest, ignoring Oshima’s warnings. He easily finds his way to the familiar clearing in the forest, but he doesn’t want to stop there. He wants to explore the “more challenging labyrinth” (367). He wants to see for himself how dangerous the forest is; he wants to experience danger. He hears a crow caw and that sound brings him back to his senses. He cannot push ahead now; he turns around. He is uncertain of the way back but manages to find his “safety zone” of the clearing.
Kafka falls asleep hoping he will dream of Miss Saeki, but instead he dreams of Sakura. In the dream, Kafka begins having sex with Sakura, who he thinks of as his sister. She wakes up and asks him to stop; she says that even if they are not blood relatives they are still brother and sister. He rapes her, deciding that he’d rather completely embrace the prophecy. He wakes up. Something like a slimy, faceless worm is growing inside him, coming out of its shell. When it reveals itself, it’s a dark shadow.
Chapter 40 Summary
Nakata and Hoshino return to the library on Tuesday morning. They talk with Oshima and read until the tour with Miss Saeki begins at 2 p.m. After the tour, they settle down to read again. Suddenly at 3 p.m., Nakata goes upstairs to Miss Saeki’s room and tells her he wants to talk to her about the “entrance stone” (382). She asks Oshima and Hoshino to leave so they can talk.
Chapters 37–40 Analysis
When Oshima warns Kafka about the forest—and how easy it is to slip into the other world and to not be able to get back—he must be referring to the terrible experience he had that he mentioned the first time Kafka stayed in the cabin.
In Chapter 38, events in the Nakata chapters finally catch up with those in the Kafka chapters. Nakata and Hoshino find the library on the same Monday that Kafka flees to the mountain cabin. Nakata and Hoshino return to the library on Tuesday, and Nakata’s conversation with Miss Saeki takes place on Tuesday afternoon.
In the mountain forest on Tuesday afternoon, Kafka gives himself over to his dark shadow, a figurative representation of his anger, pain, and confusion, fulfilling the prophecy implanted in him by his father. He toys with the idea of entering the real forest labyrinth even as he plunges into the dark labyrinth within himself, which is demonstrated by his dream about raping Sakura.
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