after the quake

Collections of short stories are difficult to write about.  They take more consideration than a novel, especially something like Haruki Murakami’s after the quake (all lower case as per Murakami’s instructions to his translator).  Each of the six stories is essentially a reaction to the earthquake that hit Kobe in January 1995, but they’re also about displacement and disconnection from family, travel, hearts of stone and giant talking frogs.  Like any good book of short stories, themes repeat themselves and the later stories leave you with a sense of déjà vu.  None of the stories are set in Kobe, so the book is more than a tale of human suffering- it is about reaction to disaster.

Now, I was pretty sure that I was completely ignorant of the Kobe earthquake, but in researching it for this blog, again I was stuck by a sense of déjà vu.  In retrospect, I think it might have been one of the case studies I had to learn for GCSE geography.  After nine years, this is clearly something that I’ve completely forgotten about.  It’s kind of sad considering that I could still draw you a spot on diagram of the formation of an ox-bow lake.  Anyway, Wikipedia and foggy memories have led to Japan’s second largest earthquake of the twentieth century, a city half destroyed and a whole bunch of disaster prevention methods introduced into the country.

Murakami’s book focuses upon the destruction of the city.  Although it wasn’t written until 2001, well after the city was rebuilt, each story is set in February 1995 as the city recovers.  The earthquake is a motivator in some cases: in UFO in Kushiro, Komura’s wife leaves him after watching the devastation on TV for five days straight, in Honey Pie, Junpei cannot find the courage to propose to the woman he loves- as Murakami puts it, “he went on wondering.  And not deciding.  And then the earthquake stuck.”  Honey Pie also plays into the idea of displacement.  Junpei is originally from Kobe and estranged from his parents, once the city is destroyed he is without roots.  Mr Miyake in Landscape with Flatiron has left behind his wife and children who remain in Kobe to paint and build bonfires on beaches.  He is displaced even before the earthquake.  There’s also a story about a giant talking frog convincing a man to battle an angry worm to save Tokyo that’s fair more symbolic than I’m giving it credit for here.

I think in many ways, though, my favourite of the tales in after the quake is Thailand.  It tells the story of Satsuki, a doctor visit the (no doubt riveting) World Thyroid Conference in Bangkok.  I love her.  Her husband divorced her because she didn’t want children and she’s, rightly, angry about it.  The story is so great because she is allowed to be angry without being hysterical.  Her ex-husband still lives in Kobe and she wishes him dead while remaining a likeable character.  And yes, she blames herself for the earthquake because she wants him dead, but those are clearly just flights of fancy and the story is about her letting go of the anger but she’s not portrayed as being wrong for being angry in the first place.  In a book where most of the main characters are male, it’s a refreshing and entirely relatable portrayal of a woman.

As I said at the start, it’s near impossible to write about this collection of short stories.  They can’t be easily broken down into categories as each overlaps with others in an intricate Venn diagram of motifs.  The stories are excellent and funny and sweet.  I can’t explain them any better than that without thousands of words and giving all of their plots away, so just go and read them and then this blog will make a whole load more sense. 

My next blog will be Inside Mr Enderby by Anthony Burgess.