After The Quake (Haruki Murakami)

The Elephant Vanishes was the first Murakami title I ever picked up. A weird and tiresome person I once crossed paths with lent it to me. Luckily the book turned out to be much more worthwhile than the person who lent it to me. I’ve been hooked ever since.

I love short stories. I’ve had the chance to read some wonderful collections over the years, Neil Gaiman has a great volume titled “Smoke and Mirrors”. I was excited to find out that Murakami has a couple more beyond the Elephant Vanishes. I just bought and read After the Quake. I’ve yet to pick up Blind Willow.

Its hard to explain Murakami (H.M. from here on out) to someone who’s not familiar with his style of writing or hasn’t digested at least the smallest piece of his work. H.M. is definitely a surrealist but that doesn’t define what his writing is really like. If I had to sum up his style in one sentence I would say that H.M. is involved with the worship of the mundane. He’s the only writer I know that can make a breath taking story with twists and turns and the most excruciating consequences for the protagonist seem the whole time as mild and enjoyable as a slow sunny Sunday afternoon. In his stories the world is only turned upside down for a handful of people, the rest of the world is very much the same.

After the Quake is a collection of six short stories with a common theme the Kobe earthquake that took place in 1995. The connection can be slight, maybe just a mention on a television broadcast that one of the characters is watching but the earthquake is definitely featured in every story. There seem to be deeper ties to the earthquake within each story that run much deeper but some are vague. The event seems to motivate different characters in very different ways changing the way they interact with loved ones or the choices they make in their own lives.

Its hard to pick out a favorite story within After the Quake, just as its hard to pick a favorite from H.M.’s library. I think two definitely pushed their way to the top for me, namely Super Frog Saves Tokyo and Honey Pie the last two stories in the volume. Super Frog is about a large talking frog who with the help of a collections agent must save Tokyo from an earthquake very similar to the Kobe quake. Honey Pie is about a man who missed the chance to become romantically involved with the woman who is his soulmate. I can’t really elaborate without spoiling the plots and I could never portray the atmosphere of the stories themselves even if I were given three times as many pages as the story themselves in which to elaborate.

As far as reading H.M. goes I’d highly recommend any of his titles though I think its best to start with two of his titles. One is really short, one is really long. You can either start with the Elephant Vanishes, its a quick read or the Wind Up Bird Chronicle which is in a constant struggle with my various copies of the Harry Potter books to be the thickest thing in my bookcase. Wind Up Bird is simply amazing, I would probably start with Wind Up if I had it to do all over again. Here’s where I’ve been and where I’m going with H. M. I haven’t read but have in my possession the underlined ones.

The Elephant Vanishes, Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Dance Dance Dance, Kafka on the Shore, After the Quake, South of the Border West of the Sun, After Dark