Despite his status in the literary world and his status as the author who helped get me into one of my favorite study areas in literature… I actually haven't read that much of him. Even so, ATQ is distinct, with its focus on a suddenly denuded Japan after the quake and subway attack, when there was no longer any distinction between above and below the surface.

While they drink at the cafe, she begins to tell the story of her father but Nimit interrupts her and tells her to have her dream first. He then tells the story of how polar bears mate once a year and how the males run away afterwards and both wonder about the existential meaning of the story. With scenes that evoke the aftermath of disaster and its emotional reckonings, the stories of ATQ disassemble the architecture of ideas about national trauma, leaving behind the amorphousness of feeling, brought to life in the form of giant frogs, talking bears, and misguided messiahs. And what makes this story so great is how uncertain everything felt; it felt real and unreal at the same time: it felt like reality had been warped and that the narrator may or may not have lost his mind. After he finishes dancing, he kneels on the pitcher's mound and feels the wind dance around him and says aloud, "Oh God.After a slight confusion regarding Keiko thinking that his wife has died rather than left him, they go to a noodle house for a meal. Murakami would not be so bold as to assume that he was saving anyone, but the stories of After the Quake make space for their characters to consider, to ponder, and in doing so, to ask more of themselves than the simple binary of vengeance or disappearance. While Yoshiya torments himself with a forbidden desire and an uncertain faith, his mother delivers provisions to victims of the quake in Kobe.

Indeed, it felt as if I was wading through the rubble of their minds, and witnessing the ruptures and shaking of their emotional lives. Personal tragedy and the feeling that there’s something missing in our lives can indeed lead us spiritual creatures to mediums, religions and cults like Aum. The man gets out at a remote location full of walls and barbed wire and walks away; Yoshiya follows him. Murakami is constantly reminding his characters that recuperation, personal or national, is a process rather than a product, even when that process is surreal.In spite of this common characteristic, the stories presented range from the most disparate possible sources: a recently separated man, a young woman who doesn't know what to do with life, a delusional man who can't tell whether he contributed to save Tokyo from another earthquake (just to mention some). I quite liked “Thailand” because it had some color (music and magical spices) and no such big passivity and “Honey Pie” with a fine silent love story, emotional and cute kid and the view to the world through the fairytales. Actiunea povestii o are in prim plan pe Sabuki, un medic endocrinolog ce calatoreste in Thailanda unde are o serie de experiente revelatorii.

Vivere una vita media, silenziosa e poco stimolante non ridimensiona le piccole lotte interiori a cui bisogna far fronte ogni giorno. The earthquake is peripheral to each story at best and yet there is something decidedly central about its occurrence. It's the particular kind of intimacy that can evolve between a reader and a book, unspoken and unexpected, familiar, satisfying, strange. The value of life, the importance of connecting with other human beings, the intense psychic power that disaster and trauma bring about in humans is delicately and beautifully explored in this short collection. They are plotted with omnipresent news accounts of the earthquake, missing loved ones, and allusions to the megalomania of the cult’s leader.The six stories in Haruki Murakami's mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. He's there during good times and in bad, and instead of seeing him as an intruder, he's always welcome. A link they do all share is that the events in each story take place one month after the earthquake. Best of all is the story of Mr Katagiri, who comes home one evening to find a giant frog in his apartment, intent upon having the poor chap help him save all Tokyo from disaster by burrowing down into the earth and confronting an immense and angry worm. They then proceed to have intercourse on the living room couch and Junpei continually holds back on ejaculation, not wanting the moment to end.