Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami & Philip Gabriel (translator)

Author:Haruki Murakami & Philip Gabriel (translator)
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Contemporary, Fiction
ISBN: 9781400044818
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Hoshino was born into a farming family, the third of five sons. Up until junior high he was well behaved, but after entering a trade school he fell in with a bad crowd and started getting in trouble. The police hauled him in a few times. He was able to graduate but couldn’t find a decent job—and trouble with a girl only compounded his difficulties—so he decided to join the Self-Defense Force. Though he was hoping to be a tank driver, he didn’t make the cut and spent most of his time driving large transport trucks. After three years in the SDF he got out and found a job with a trucking company, and for the last six years he’d been driving for a living.

This suited him. He’d always loved machines, and when he was perched high up in the cab with his hands on the wheel, it was like he was in his own private little kingdom. The job’s long hard hours were tiring, but he knew he couldn’t stand a regular company job, commuting to a dingy office every morning only to have a boss watch his every move like a hawk.

He’d always been the feisty type who got into fights. He was skinny and on the short side, not very tough looking, but in his case looks were deceiving. He was deceptively strong, and once he reached the breaking point a crazed look would come over him that sent most opponents scurrying for cover. He’d gotten into a lot of fights, both as a soldier and as a truck driver, but only recently had started to understand that this, win or lose, never accomplished very much. At least, he thought proudly, he’d never had any serious injuries.

During his wild high school days, his grandfather was always the one who’d show up at the local precinct, bowing apologetically to the police, and they’d release Hoshino into his custody. They always stopped at a restaurant on the way home, his grandfather treating him to a delicious meal. He never lectured Hoshino, even then. Not once did his parents come to get him. They were just barely scraping by and didn’t have the time or energy to worry about their no-good third son. Hoshino sometimes wondered what would’ve happened to him if his grandfather hadn’t been there to bail him out. The old man, at least, knew he was alive and worried about him.

Despite all this, he’d never once thanked his grandfather for all he’d done. He didn’t know what to say, and was also too preoccupied trying to get by. His grandfather died of cancer soon after Hoshino joined the Self-Defense Force. At the end he got senile and didn’t even recognize him. Hoshino hadn’t been back home once since the old man passed away.

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