I'm out of town again for a few days - this time in Hamamatsu proper. I'm holed up at one of my favourite business hotels - the Route Inn - and as a result have had time once again to actually read an entire book.
It is 10:49 p.m. and I have just finished After the Quake, a collection of six short stories by Haruki Murakami (he of Norwegian Wood fame). I don't sense sleep coming any time soon, and I can't really help blaming the stories for my current state of wakefulness - six stories with characters who are desperately deep and achingly empty, feeling the lack but not knowing what it is.
As with others of Murakami's writings, the stories in After the Quake are bordering on the surreal. There is an eerie sense throughout that something just isn't right, but you can never really figure out what that something is; yet the anticipation, anxiety created is tangible. In the first story, toward the end, after the the main character as delivered a mysterious box, he asks what was in the box? The woman replies that in the box was all that he had ever had in him, so now he's really empty. She then laughs and says that of course she's kidding - but one has to wonder.
The stories are all tied together by the 1995 Kobe quake; the characters are not in Kobe, and the stories are not realistic tales of the actual damage done, but rather uses the quake as a metaphor and starting point to reflect the damage in the lives of others in all parts of the country.
Next time I'm away spending the night alone in a hotel room, I think I'll opt for some lighter fare:-)
1 comment:
It sounds like a good read. If you want something to put you to sleep grab a potboiler from a drug store :)
Too bad I can't get you to do some reviews for me, my sites could use a little erudition
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