This is my personal favourite of Murakami's short story collections, and includes my favourite short story of his, "honey pie". It is a short but highly polished volume; I have read over it innumerable times, and it has yet to lose its lustre. ( )

Really enjoyed this book. I like the reoccuring motifs that tie the stories together and the final story is like a happy ending to the whole collection. One of my favorites of Murakami so far.

I read my first Murakami, "Kafka on the Shore", last year and found it about 20% enjoyable, 80% frustrating (I hated the dialogue, for one thing). So I was ready to swear off Murakami, but I thought I'd give him another shot--hence, "after the quake", a collection of short stories ostensibly about people in the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, although most of the characters seem relatively unaffected by the tragedy. I liked Murakami's short stories a lot more than his novel, although not as much as the short stories of some other authors I've been reading recently. My favorites were "Honey Pie", for the emotional poignancy and sweetness, and "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo", because Frog was just a cool guy. I want a Frog of my own, except not in the form of an enormous frog, because that would be pretty creepy. So I would recommend "after the quake" to people who like Murakami, but also to people who don't like Murakami, and to people who have no opinion on Murakami. Which should just about cover everybody. ( )

This book is a collection of 6 short stories, all completely unrelated to each other, except for one minute detail, which is that they are all set during the period after the Kobe earthquake.

My favourite of the six was .. I rather think it’s actually quite difficult for me to pick a favourite, because each one of them had quite a different flavour from one another, and had a different appeal. Though saying that, if I simply had to choose, I’d say it’s a toss-up between ‘landscape with flatiron’, and ‘thailand’.

‘landscape with flatiron’, I particularly enjoyed because I found it very deep and soulful. The story was told in such a way that I felt like I was sitting there with the characters, watching the fire as it grew, completely entranced with it.

As for ‘thailand’, perhaps it is because I come from Malaysia, and since Thailand is the only neighbour country that connects physically with my own, I felt the intimacy, and also felt quite strongly the distinct Thai flavour within the story, despite it also being very Japanese in character.

All the stories though, had a very dignified quietness to them. Although the stories were set during the period after such a natural disaster, there was almost none of the hysterics that one would normally associate with the aftermath of an earthquake. In fact, the stories felt almost serene.

But then again, ’serene’ is actually quite a vague way to put it, and might I add, maybe even a little inaccurate, because there are unimaginable twists and unexpected turns inserted at some very odd junctions of each story. Just when you start to think you’ve got the characters figured out, he shows you otherwise. And the story ends without you ever being the wiser.

I’m probably only not satisfied with one thing, and that is the stories were indeed SHORT. In a sense, I had wanted some of the stories to go on for a little while longer. But they always end a tad too quickly, making me wish I could catch at least one more glimpse of what the character was thinking, but instead was left hanging on that final sentence.

Maybe short stories are supposed to be that way. Maybe they’re supposed to leave us hanging, to let our own imaginations fly. Maybe short stories are supposed to engage us in thought even after the story is done. Maybe short stories never actually end.

* From http://sushu.blog.com/2009/08/15/afte... ( )

A collection of short stories following Japan's 1995 Kobe earthquake - by which the characters in every story are affected (in some cases quite lightly). Surreal, but oddly realistic, you are shown only a very brief, but somehow telling glimpse into the life of each central character - all of whom seem to have some great sadness, or emptiness. ( )