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desertblues · 06-01-2013, 06:35 AM

I nominate After the quake by Haruki Murakami (6 short stories, 200 pages, published in 2000)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_quake

"The stories were written in response to Japan's 1995 Kobe earthquake, and each story is affected peripherally by the disaster. Along withUnderground, a collection of interviews and essays about the 1995 Tokyo gas attacks, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a complex exploration of Japan's modern history, after the quake represents part of an effort on the part of Murakami to adopt a more purposeful exploration of the Japanese national conscience.
The stories in after the quake repeat motifs, themes, and elements common in much of Murakami's earlier short stories and novels, but also present some notable stylistic changes. All six stories are told in the third person, as opposed to Murakami's much more familiar first person narrative established in his previous work. Additionally, only one of the stories contains clear supernatural elements, which are present in the majority of Murakami's stories. All of the stories are set in February 1995, the month between the Kobe earthquake and the Tokyo gas attacks. Translator Jay Rubin says of the collection, "The central characters in after the quake live far from the physical devastation, which they witness only on TV or in the papers, but for each of them the massive destruction unleashed by the earth itself becomes a turning point in their lives. They are forced to confront an emptiness they have borne inside them for years."

I never was one for short stories, but Murakami's thoughts on it (from the preface of Blind woman, sleeping willow) decided me to give these a chance.

Spoiler:

"'One of the joys of writing short stories is that they don’t take so long to finish. Generally it takes me about a week to get a short story into some kind of decent shape (though revisions can be endless). It’s not like the total physical and mental commitment you have to make for the year or two it takes to compose a novel. You merely enter a room, finish your work, and exit. That’s it. For me, at least, writing a novel can seem to drag on forever, and I sometimes wonder if I’m going to survive. So I find writing short stories a necessary change of pace.
One more nice thing about short stories is that you can create a story out of the smallest details—an idea that springs up in your mind, a word, an image, whatever. In most cases it’s like jazz improvisation, with the story taking me where it wants to. And another good point is that with short stories you don’t have to worry about failing. If the idea doesn’t work out the way you hoped it would, you just shrug your shoulders and tell yourself that they can’t all be'winners. Even with masters of the genre like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver—even Anton Chekhov—not every short story is a masterpiece. I find this a great comfort. You can learn from your mistakes (in other words, those you can’t call a complete success) and use that in the next story you write. In my case, when I write novels I try very hard to learn from the successes and failures I experience in writing short stories. In that sense, the short story is a kind of experimental laboratory for me as a novelist. It’s hard to experiment the way I like inside the framework of a novel, so without short stories I know I’d find the task of writing novels even more difficult and demanding.
Essentially I consider myself a novelist, but a lot of people tell me they prefer my short stories to my novels. That doesn’t bother me, and I don’t try to convince them otherwise. I’m actually happy to hear them say that. My short stories are like soft shadows I’ve set out in the world, faint footprints I’ve left behind. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart, and it makes me happy as a writer to be able to share these intimate feelings with my readers"

Available:
http://inkmesh.com/ebooks/after-quak...fter+the+quake

http://www.amazon.com/After-The-Quak...aruki+murakami

http://www.bookworld.com.au/search/a...dia_type=EBook

http://www.amazon.ca/After-Quake-Sto...aruki+murakami

06-01-2013, 06:35 AM	#4
desertblues Home for the moment Posts: 5,127 Karma: 27718936 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: travelling Device: various	I nominate After the quake by Haruki Murakami (6 short stories, 200 pages, published in 2000)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_quake "The stories were written in response to Japan's 1995 Kobe earthquake, and each story is affected peripherally by the disaster. Along withUnderground, a collection of interviews and essays about the 1995 Tokyo gas attacks, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a complex exploration of Japan's modern history, after the quake represents part of an effort on the part of Murakami to adopt a more purposeful exploration of the Japanese national conscience. The stories in after the quake repeat motifs, themes, and elements common in much of Murakami's earlier short stories and novels, but also present some notable stylistic changes. All six stories are told in the third person, as opposed to Murakami's much more familiar first person narrative established in his previous work. Additionally, only one of the stories contains clear supernatural elements, which are present in the majority of Murakami's stories. All of the stories are set in February 1995, the month between the Kobe earthquake and the Tokyo gas attacks. Translator Jay Rubin says of the collection, "The central characters in after the quake live far from the physical devastation, which they witness only on TV or in the papers, but for each of them the massive destruction unleashed by the earth itself becomes a turning point in their lives. They are forced to confront an emptiness they have borne inside them for years." I never was one for short stories, but Murakami's thoughts on it (from the preface of Blind woman, sleeping willow) decided me to give these a chance. Spoiler: "'One of the joys of writing short stories is that they don’t take so long to finish. Generally it takes me about a week to get a short story into some kind of decent shape (though revisions can be endless). It’s not like the total physical and mental commitment you have to make for the year or two it takes to compose a novel. You merely enter a room, finish your work, and exit. That’s it. For me, at least, writing a novel can seem to drag on forever, and I sometimes wonder if I’m going to survive. So I find writing short stories a necessary change of pace. One more nice thing about short stories is that you can create a story out of the smallest details—an idea that springs up in your mind, a word, an image, whatever. In most cases it’s like jazz improvisation, with the story taking me where it wants to. And another good point is that with short stories you don’t have to worry about failing. If the idea doesn’t work out the way you hoped it would, you just shrug your shoulders and tell yourself that they can’t all be'winners. Even with masters of the genre like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver—even Anton Chekhov—not every short story is a masterpiece. I find this a great comfort. You can learn from your mistakes (in other words, those you can’t call a complete success) and use that in the next story you write. In my case, when I write novels I try very hard to learn from the successes and failures I experience in writing short stories. In that sense, the short story is a kind of experimental laboratory for me as a novelist. It’s hard to experiment the way I like inside the framework of a novel, so without short stories I know I’d find the task of writing novels even more difficult and demanding. Essentially I consider myself a novelist, but a lot of people tell me they prefer my short stories to my novels. That doesn’t bother me, and I don’t try to convince them otherwise. I’m actually happy to hear them say that. My short stories are like soft shadows I’ve set out in the world, faint footprints I’ve left behind. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart, and it makes me happy as a writer to be able to share these intimate feelings with my readers" Available: http://inkmesh.com/ebooks/after-quak...fter+the+quake http://www.amazon.com/After-The-Quak...aruki+murakami http://www.bookworld.com.au/search/a...dia_type=EBook http://www.amazon.ca/After-Quake-Sto...aruki+murakami Last edited by desertblues; 05-06-2015 at 11:22 AM.