I have read almost all Murakami; sometimes beginning in the middle of a trilogy (not deliberately, but it didn't matter much, somehow). I recently read
Underground, which describes the events around the Tokyo gas attacks in 1995; a documentary.
Mixed together, the stories in
After the quake reflect the writing of Murakami nicely, although I 'missed' (well, not really of course) the cruelty he shows in some books.
I remember when reading
Kafka on the shore, I was confronted with this cruelty. My impressions while reading:
Spoiler:
As in IQ84 and in the Wind-up bird chronicles, there is a fantastic element in this book. It relates to the end of the second world war.
I think I am getting a liking for this writer, that is, for his actors.
(but…somewhat later I wrote…..)
This is not a book for the faint- hearted. If something similar happens like the things I've read these last few pages........I'll leave this book. There are limits.
(I did go on reading and in the end I appreciated the book, especially the next two quotes)
"Every one of us is losing something precious to us," he says after the phone stops ringing. "Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads—at least that's where I imagine it—there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library."
"Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there—to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there."
(and in the end I conclude)
I have had a battle with this book, because of a few lines of cruelty. Well, as in life; one can't have it all and sometimes there has to be a compromise, an acceptance of the inevitable. This book directs one into the soul of things.
I am impressed by this book, which seems to be a " coming of age" book. This is not defined by age though, but has to do with thinking about the world one lives in; battling, resisting and seeing for what it is.
My favorite book is
Hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world.