06-07-2013, 02:00 AM | #1 |
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after the quake by Haruki Murakami
This is the MR Literary Club selection for June 2013. Whether you've already read it or would like to, feel free to start or join in the conversation at any time! Guests are also always welcome.
Some E-book Availability- Amazon Canada Amazon U.K. Amazon U.S. Bookworld Australia Inkmesh Search So, what are your thoughts on it? |
06-07-2013, 04:01 AM | #2 |
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To refresh my memory:
Spoiler:
I started to read the first story: 'UFO in Kushiro' and right away I thought that this first story is about the earthquake in Kobo, but also about a personal earthquake. Spoiler:
Last edited by desertblues; 06-07-2013 at 04:08 AM. Reason: I put the information about the book in spoilers... |
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06-07-2013, 03:56 PM | #3 |
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After the Quake would not have been my first choice, but I am quite happy with the selection. I have really enjoyed the other books by him that I have read. There was recently a question in the quiz thread (in the Lounge Forum) about past winners of the Kafka Prize. I knew that Murakami was one, but not any of the others. Anyway an author that wins that prize rises in stature in my opinion. I do like Kafka.
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06-07-2013, 04:55 PM | #4 |
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I love Kafka and I have enjoyed most of the Murakami I've read. He can be odd at times and I'm wondering how or if some of his themes in the novels show in the shorter form.
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06-08-2013, 03:47 AM | #5 |
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I'm currently reading another of his short story collections, "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman". The introduction to it gives a fair bit of information about his oscillating back and forth between novels and short stories. He seems to use short stories as a break from the ordeal of novel writing. Some of the ideas for his novels came from short stories, but I'm not sure if it ever worked in the other direction. Anyway, I recommend reading that introduction if you have the chance. I'm also greatly enjoying the stories there, so anyone who likes "After the Quake" should pick it up, as well.
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06-09-2013, 01:51 PM | #6 |
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After reading the first two, I feel that he is a kind of japanese version of the Anglo-Irish writer, Elizabeth Bowen. Bowen, of course, came from a vastly different culture and while she dealt with sexuality, it was very much as a sub-text. But there is {IMO} a marked similarity in their interest in the explorations of the nature of the self, inner meaning, and passivity. Both writers also tend to end their stories elliptically.
When I finish reading the set, perhaps my opinion will be different, but that's the impression I get so far. |
06-09-2013, 04:16 PM | #7 |
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My first impressions after a few stories:
Yes, these 'open endings' are interesting. I've read the first three stories and the endings of the first two made me shiver somewhat and I wondered what would/could happen to the protagonists. From Ufo in Kushuro Spoiler:
From Landscape with flatiron Spoiler:
But the ending of the third story 'All God's children can dance" seems to be different, seems to end in harmony with the universe. Spoiler:
About the sexuality in the stories. I don't even know whether that contributes anything to it, except to the atmosphere; like wallpaper. Murakami writes about younger people here, and sexuality is a thing that will occupy their mind. But...... I'll have to think all through. Also, as Hamlet 53 mentioned Kafka; I can't help thinking whether I can link Murakami to Kafka. On first sight not, perhaps, but Murakami also changes the view, the experience on the 'normal world' in his stories. Last edited by desertblues; 06-09-2013 at 05:40 PM. |
06-09-2013, 08:34 PM | #8 |
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The link that I see to Kafka is the blending of the surreal with the real. Also how many Murakami and Kafka stories seem like the literary equivalent of an abstract painting. It is up to each reader [the viewer] to find there own individual meaning. Just as an example I see this in Landscape with Flatiron by Murakami and Conversation with the Supplicant by Kafka.
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06-10-2013, 01:15 PM | #9 | |
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Quote:
Murakami has a way of weaving the surreal into the real without the reader realizing that it is so; in the beginning that is. In most of his novels he is rather subtle about it. |
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06-11-2013, 07:47 AM | #10 |
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The fourth story. "Thailand" is by far the best I've read so far. How the final two will be I don't know, but "Thailand" is superb--worthy to stand with the short stories of Joyce, Bowen and Frank O'Connor. The other three were interesting but this one moved me. Whatever the quality of the last two, the book is worth this one jewel.
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06-11-2013, 08:17 AM | #11 |
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I'm glad to hear that, fantasyfan. I have read the first three stories and couldn't really get engaged with them. I'm sure that's my fault rather than Murakami's. It's the first example of his work that I have read and although I have seen a number of Japanese films, I don't think I have read any other Japanese authors either.
So there is no doubt a lack of understanding in me of the subtleties of Japanese culture that would help me here. |
06-11-2013, 10:19 AM | #12 | |
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Quote:
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06-11-2013, 10:28 AM | #13 |
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About the story Thailand: I saw a link about elephants in Bangkok, Thailand
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/wo...anted=all&_r=0 |
06-11-2013, 01:50 PM | #14 | |
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Quote:
As in some of the other stories, dreams are important. They seem to form a bridge, a portal to the important things of life. |
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06-11-2013, 05:57 PM | #15 | |||
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Quote:
This is the second collection of short stories by Murakami that I have read, the other being Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. I thought that the latter collection contained a more consistent and stronger set of stories than did After the Quake. This opinion may also have been influenced by the greater number of stories in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (24) relative to only six in After the Quake. One tends to remember good stories and forget others. Quote:
Quote:
Returning to Thailand, Murakami seems to often make use of a symbolic stone in his stories. He did it in The Kidney-shaped Stone That Moves Every Day (from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman) and in the novel Kafka on the Shore. |
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