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Loading... After the Quake: Stories (original 2000; edition 2003)by Haruki Murakami (Author), Jay Rubin (Translator)
Work InformationAfter the Quake by Haruki Murakami (2000)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A nice collection of unique little stories by Murakami, each one memorable in it's own way. I always love reading his stories, and many times I will re-read them right away, thinking "what did I just read?". A beautiful little book, that can be stuck in a coat pocket and read in the park while enjoying the day after a nice walk... ( ) Each of the stories in this collection is set one month after the devastating 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan. That alone is the tie that binds and even then it is loosely bound. The earthquake is peripheral to each story at best and yet there is something decidedly central about its occurance. These stories feel like the ripples on a lake into which the earthquake has been thrown. For me, Murakami's genius lies in his ability to craft such distinct and powerful characters. He tells profound truths through simple storytelling and earnest protagonists. 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. I should start by saying, that generally, I actually prefer short stories as they tend to have a great flow, absorb you easily and finish before they become tedious or boring and generally leave you satisfied. These short stories weren't even stories for me, rather they were more like an finished paragraph about a person. I never got invested in any of the characters, none of them are really memorable at all and I'm not really clear on how the earthquake really affected any of their lives. Although I kind of liked the moments of human banality it just didn't translate into anything interesting for me. As short as the stories were it wouldn't have bothered me if I never finished any of them, as nothing really happened in the 'end' anyway, I think the reason I didn't click with the characters or the themes is because the actual 'story structure' failed for me and didn't leave me with the satisfaction you get from 'reading a story'. The writing was extremely simple, the structure and words could have been written by a kid under 12. That being said the writing made the stories really easy to read and allowed the people to be the focus. However, the Super-Frog story? What was the point of that one?
I loved this book before last week’s earthquake, because it illuminated a few things about my own condition at the time that I read it. But now the truth in this collection of fiction has a new depth to it; its general conclusions have become amazingly relevant and important to us this week. It offers no solutions and I don’t even think it offers much comfort, but it holds a hauntingly accurate mirror to our world now. ContainsHas as a studyDistinctionsNotable Lists
Fantasy.
Fiction.
Literature.
Short Stories.
HTML:Set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, the mesmerizing stories in After the Quake are as haunting as dreams and as potent as oracles. An electronics salesman who has been deserted by his wife agrees to deliver an enigmatic packageâ?? and is rewarded with a glimpse of his true nature. A man who views himself as the son of God pursues a stranger who may be his human father. A mild-mannered collection agent receives a visit from a giant talking frog who enlists his help in saving Tokyo from destruction. The six stories in this collection come from the deep and mysterious place where the human meets the inhumanâ??and are further proof that Murakami is one of the most visionary writers at work No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)895.635Literature Literature of other languages Asian (east and south east) languages Japanese Japanese fiction 1945–2000LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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