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Title: After the Quake: Stories by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin ISBN: 0-375-41390-1 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 13 August, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Rating: 5
Summary: Haunting ... enchanting ...
Comment: Two people look at the night sky. One sees darkness and dots of light. Another sees a thousand marvels.
As the shock of an earthquake wears off, a sort of soul-quake takes place. After all, if we can't rely on the ground under our feet to remain solid, what can we be certain of? Sometimes we KNOW that in the brain, but it takes an earthquake or terrorist attack for us to FEEL it in the gut -- for the knowing to be meaningful.
Something intangible but essential shakes loose in the people of Japan weeks after the Kobe earthquake. Like the rock mantle that once covered Kobe, neglected souls have liquefied. Now change is possible. For some, that means healing. For one, it means, not just losing, but unknowingly giving away his...soul(?). Another meets a heretofore hidden aspect of his Self. I guess it depends on what had been important in their lives and where they were headed before.
The stories are told gently, subtly and with respect. A writer's self-inflicted chains are broken and he finds his freedom. A dumpy, overly modest, milquetoast doormat of a man finds his true power. With the help of a guru/limo driver, a rock of hatred that even the soul-quake left intact is only now able to be recognized and dealt with.
I wouldn't presume to discuss Mr. Murakami's use of metaphor and allegory. I think each reader will find what s/he needs to find. ("When the student is ready....") That's one reason I'll be reading this book again soon: There's much to be found.
AFTER THE QUAKE, I suggest, is best read slowly and often, with soft and open awareness; it's to be contemplated upon.
Rating: 5
Summary: Kobe Aftershocks.
Comment: Each of the short stories in the excellent "After the Quake" are linked to the terrible earthquake that shook Kobe in Jan'95. Although none are actually set in Kobe, the epicentre of the devastation, allusions to the disaster flit briefly into the radar of each story before quickly dipping out of sight again. Though the characters in these haunting stories are far removed from the scene of the tragedy, the earthquake, nonetheless, reverberates in subtle ways deep into their troubled lives.
"UFO" contains elements both of realism and surrealism. Komura's wife spends five intense days transfixed on the earthquake reports on her television, from morning to night, virtually unmoving, oblivious to all else. ("crumbled banks and hospitals, whole blocks of stores in flames, severed rail lines and expressways") Thereafter, abruptly, she deserts Komura. ("you have nothing inside you that you can give me ...living with you is like living with a chunk of air") Komura, a salesman, is requested by Sasaki, a colleague to deliver a packaged box, contents unknown, to Hokkaido. At the receiving end, following a surreal experience, Komura is brought face to face with his own inner emptiness.
In "Landscape With Flat Iron", Junko, a young woman, enjoys the company of Miyake, a forty-something painter who lights midnight beach bonfires stacked from driftwood. Miyake can look at fires in the way "a sculptor can imagine the pose of a figure hidden in a lump of stone." Gazing at the shapes the bonfire makes elevates Junko to a higher plane of being; watching the fire, she gets "this deep, quiet kind of feeling" where revelations and deeper truths come to her. Similar revelatory moments are experienced in "All God's Children Can Dance" by Yoshiya - he has been following the man he thought was the father he has been searching for - as he stands on the pitchers mound in a deserted baseball pitch bathed in the light of a huge moon. In "Thailand", a female doctor on vacation, soured and embittered by a divorce, is driven by her chauffeur to see an old woman who informs her, "There is a stone inside your body ...You must get rid of the stone." The earthquake is perhaps more central to "Super Frog Saves Tokyo" than it is in other stories. A giant frog enlists Kalagiri's help to save Tokyo from a gigantic worm that causes earthquakes when it's angry. Frog says earthquakes make people realise how fragile the ordinary world, "the intensive collectivity known as the city", in this case the city of Tokyo, really is. Murakami here, is referring not just to the fragile physical environment but also to the fragility of emotional rocks such as love, marriage, the family unit, friendships that underpin our inner lives.
"Honey Pie", the last and best story, is also the most conventional. Junpei, too shy to move in on Sayoko, his heart's desire, loses out in the marriage stakes to the more forward Takasaki, his best friend. Sala, the young child of the marriage, deeply fears "the earthquake man". When Sayoko and Takasaki later divorce, Junpei, who has remained close to them, is still unable to express his undying love for Sayoko. He tells Sala a story to ease her mind about "the earthquake man"...
Rating: 5
Summary: poetic, haunting .. brilliant
Comment: this slender collection of short stories is easily the among the best ive read. tender, evocative and touching, this is one to savor and remember. murakami creates memorable characters and situations that you will remember long after youve finished reading them.
this is my first murakami and has spurred me on to read his other novels. these impressive short stories are clear proof that teh short story format is alive and kicking, even if only in the quake ravaged parts of kobe.
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Title: Underground (Vintage International) by Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum, Philip Gabriel, J. Philip Gabriel ISBN: 0375725806 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Sputnik Sweetheart: A Novel by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel, J. Philip Gabriel ISBN: 0375726055 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin ISBN: 0679775439 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Elephant Vanishes: Stories (Vintage International) by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0679750533 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: July, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0679767398 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 14 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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