After the quake

After the quake_ stories -by Haruki Murakami & Jay Rubin


Epigraph

“Liza! What was it yesterday, then?” “It was what it was.” “That’s impossible! That’s cruel!”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

radio: . . . garrison already decimated by the Vietcong, who lost 115 of their men . . .
woman: It’s awful, isn’t it, it’s so anonymous.
man: What is?
woman: They say 115 guerillas, yet it doesn’t mean anything, because we don’t know anything about these men, who they are, whether they love a woman, or have children, if they prefer the cinema to the theatre. We know nothing. They just say . . . 115 dead.

—Jean-Luc Godard, Pierrot le Fou




Praise

acclaim for haruki murakami’s after the quake

“Both mysterious and yet somehow quite familiar."

—Alan Cheuse, San Francisco Chronicle

“In these stories . . . Murakami proves himself to be almost as fantastic—and as heroic—as his creations.” —Elle

“Trim, beautiful, diamond sharp, and profoundly layered in . . . mystical symbolism and daily absurdities. Murakami’s evocations of grace and possible redemption are startling, dangerous, and moving.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Haruki Murakami remains one of the most accessible Japanese writers for Western readers.” —Los Angeles Times

“Spare yet richly mysterious and emotionally prismatic, these unpredictable tales explore the subtle ways the earthquake affected those who live far from its epicenter yet who are nonetheless shaken to their very core. . . . Haunting.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“The stories here are well-crafted and lyrical. . . . They are sometimes absurd, sometimes quite funny, but they all have real epiphanies and real moments of feeling.”

—Rocky Mountain News