| Haruki Murakami & Yohji Yamamoto: 2 Japanese Titles |
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Once more, Haruki Murakami stone-floors his magnificent skill tracing the human psyche. Kafka on the Shore is about two fifteen-year old boys, who, having escaped their responsibilities to home and school, take a deep voyage through Tokyo, where they endure convoluted periods of longing, romance and sex, adventure and revelation. Taking us through the torpedoing galaxies of protagonist’s Kafka Tamura’s minds-eye, Murakami’s narrative technique is instrumental, architectural, but mostly it is fashionable. Murakami acquaints his readers with the delights of delving deeply into the obscene chambers, dangerous streets, and unforeseen places of Tokyo city. The innocent boys who transform into street savages—night mongering, Steppenwolf types—are arguably fashioned like Yohji Yamamoto enigmatic designs of oversized silhouettes made from black (or gray) tatters of loose clothing.  These teenage boys escape the innocence of their childhoods and flee into cruel urbanity where bombs, prostitutes, and hunter-like men “in black” grace their presences. Their stories transform like the contours of Yamamoto’s designs. In fact, while their meticulously tailored wills correspond to the clothing made by Japan’s top designer—black-urban, mysterious yet serene—Nakata and Kafka Tamura’s encounters with lovers and dream never fail to draw in the mystical renderings of memory and light.(Check out his site featuring music, fashion and more: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/murakami/site.php?id).
by Farrah Sarafa
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