after the quake (神の子どもたちはみな踊るKami no Kodomo-tachi wa Mina Odoru)
A collection of six short stories written between 1999 and 2000.
First published in Japan in 2000.
Translated into English by Jay Rubin in 2002.
“A fanciful collection of short stories that seldom touch upon the Kobe earthquake directly but deal more with the post-traumatic stress, and in some cases the pretraumatic stress, of a nation that lives in constant threat of natural disasters.” Mathew Carl Strecher, The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami
Book description:
Set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, the mesmerizing stories in After the Quake are as haunting as dreams and as potent as oracles.
An electronics salesman who has been deserted by his wife agrees to deliver an enigmatic package— and is rewarded with a glimpse of his true nature. A man who views himself as the son of God pursues a stranger who may be his human father. A mild-mannered collection agent receives a visit from a giant talking frog who enlists his help in saving Tokyo from destruction. The six stories in this collection come from the deep and mysterious place where the human meets the inhuman—and are further proof that Murakami is one of the most visionary writers at work today.
Note from the BOA Editor: Most people remember their first Murakami book (mine was Kafka on the Shore) and everyone has their favorite. When people ask me what my favorite Murakami book is, my answer is always the same: The last one I read.
Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカUmibe no Kafuka)
Published in Japanese in 2002
Translated into English by Philip Gabriel in 2005
“Murakami’s novels always take off in new directions at the same time that they build on the body of work that came before. In the case of Kafka, there are echoes of previous works; for instance, the two parallel narratives are reminiscent of the structure of Hard-Boiled Wonderland. What’s most strikingly a new departure, in terms of style, is having a fifteen-year-old narrator instead of Murakami’s typical thirty-something narrator. Still, the novel is recognizably Murakami throughout.” Philip Gabriel, from interview on translating Kafka on the Shore.
Book Description:
Kafka on the Shore follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father’s dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmeriing dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami’s novel is at once a classic quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all it is an entertainment of a very high order.
(Audio) Book Description:
With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.
Similarly extraordinary scope and the same capacity to amaze, entertain, and bewitch. A tour de force of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghost-like pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle – yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.
Extravagant in its accomplishment, Kafka on the Shore displays one of the world’s truly great storytellers at the height of his powers.
After Dark (アフターダークAfutā Dāku), Murakami’s 12th work of fiction.
Published in Japanese in 2004
Translated into English by Jay Rubin in 2017.
Book Description:
At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny’s toward people whose lives are radically different from her own: a jazz trombonist who claims they’ve met before, a burly female “love hotel” manager and her maid staff, and a Chinese prostitute savagely brutalized by a businessman.
After Dark moves from mesmerizing drama to metaphysical speculation, interweaving time and space, as well as memory and perspective, into a seamless exploration of human agency. Murakami’s trademark humor, psychological insight, and grasp of spirit and morality are here distilled with extraordinary, harmonious mastery.
BOA’s Favorite Quote:
“You know what I think?” she says. “that people’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn’t matter as fas as the maintenance of life is concerned. They’re all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed ém to the fire, they’re all just paper The fire isn’t thinking, ‘Oh, this is Kant,’ or Óh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,’ or ‘Nice tits,’ while it burns. To the fire, they’re nothing but scraps of paper. It’s the exact same thing. Important memories, not -so-important memories, totally useless memories: there’s no distinction—they’re all just fuel.”
Cheapest form: Audible $7.49 (narrated by Janet Song)
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (めくらやなぎと眠る女Mekurayanagi to nemuru onna) is a collection of 24 short stories written between 1980 and 2005, and that had previously appeared in various Japanese magazines and collections.
Book first published in English in 2006 by Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin.
Published in Japanese in 2009.
Note from the BOA Editor: As soon as I started reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, I had a dejavú moment: I think I’ve read this somewhere before! Was it originally one of Murakami’s short stories? Perhaps. I traced my hunch back to a short-story called “The Year of Spaghetti” that appeared in The New Yorker, Nov. 21, 2005 issue. In this story, Murakami declares 1971 the year of spaghetti and elaborates his passion for concocting spaghetti recipes born from his deep feeling of loneliness. “The Year of Spaghetti” plot also involves a phone call from a woman, but not the same prankster that calls him in Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It turns out that, although there were seeds of the same ideas in both these Murakami writings, “The Year of Spaghetti” had not morphed into a chapter of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. They turned out to be two completely different stories, only loosely linked by a spaghetti strand of an idea. Which just goes to show that Murakami always keeps us guessing! “The Year of Spaghetti” was included, however, in his book of short-stories Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
“1971 was The Year of Spaghetti. I cooked spaghetti to live, and lived to cook spaghetti. Steam rising from the aluminum pot was my pride and joy. Tomato sauce bubbling up in the saucepan, my one great hope in life. Spring, summer and autumn I cooked away, as if cooking spaghetti were an act of revenge. Like a lonely, jilted girl throwing old love letters into the fireplace, I tossed one handful of spaghetti after another into the pot.”
This collection gives us insight into Murakami’s propensity to continue his short-stories into novel-length epics. “Firefly” was incorporated into Norwegian Wood and “Man-Eating Cats” was adopted into the story line of Sputnik Sweetheart.
As Murakami describes in the Introduction to the English Edition of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman:
“There was a period when narratives I’d written as short stories, after I’d published them, kept expanding in my mind, developing into novels. A short story I’d written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake, and shout, “Hey, this is no time to be sleeping! You can’t forget about me, there’s still more to write!” Impelled by that voice, I’d find myself writing a novel.
This collection includes two of the first three short stories he ever published: “A ‘Poor Aunt’ Story” and “New York Mining Disaster.” Also included in this volume are “Birthday Girl,” “Airplane: Or, How He Talked to Himself as If Reciting Poetry,” “The Mirror,” “A Folklore for My Generation: A Pre-History of Late-Stage Capitalism,” “Hunting Knife,” “A Perfect Day for Kangaroos,” “Dabchick,” “Nausea 1979,” “The Seventh Man,” “The Year of Spaghetti,” “Tony Takitani,” “The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes,” “The Ice Man,” “Crabs,” “Hanalei Bay,” “Where I’m Likely to Find It,” “The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day,” and “A Shinagawa Monkey.”
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (走ることについて語るときに僕の語ることHashiru Koto ni Tsuite Kataru Toki ni Boku no Kataru Koto)
Published in Japan in 2017.
Translated into English by Philip Gabriel in 2008.
The book’s title was inspired by Raymond Carver’s collection of short stories entitled What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Murakami is a great fan of Carver’s writing.
“For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level, I elevate myself. At least, that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner by any means. I’m at an ordinary—or perhaps mediocre—level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running, the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be… Running has a lot of advantages. First of all, you don’t need anyone else to do it. And no need for special equipment. You don’t have to go to any special place to do it. As long as you have running shoes and a good road you can run to your heart’s content… People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But I don’t think that’s the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years, it far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog. And I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life—and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree. From Murakami 2020 Diary
First published in Japanese in three volumes between 2009 and 2010.
Translated into English by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel in 2011.
Carl Mathew Strecher, in his book The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami, introduces the concept of dual works: the first work written in literary journalistic mode and the second in fictional mode, with the latter playing off the information of the former to create “journalistic fiction” which offers “double exposure” of the same events. In the case of 1Q84, he suggests that Murakami’s earlier research undertook to write the non-fiction account Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche influenced his later work 1Q84:
“The working assumption…is that the cult portrayed in 1Q84 as “Sakigake” is a fictional depiction of the Aum Shinrikyō, or a cult very like it, in its earliest phases.”—Carl Mathew Strecher
BOA’s favorite quote:
“A ragged line of sparrows sat on an electrical line, constantly switching positions like musical notes being rewritten. A crow with a large beak came to rest on top of a mercury vapor lamp, cautiously surveying his surroundings as he mulled over his next move. A few streaks of clouds floated off high in the sky, so high and far away that they were like abstract concepts unrelated to the affairs of men. With his back to the patient, Tengo gazed for a while at this scene outside. Things that are living, and things that are not. Things that move, and things that don’t.”—Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
The Strange Library (ふしぎな図書館 fushigi na toshokan) is a novella for children
First appeared in Japanese in 1983.
Translated into English by Ted Goosen in 2014.
“A little old man sat behind a little old desk in the middle of the room. Tiny black spots dotted his face like a swarm of flies. The old man was bald and wore glasses with thick lenses. His baldness looked incomplete; he had frizzy white hairs plastered against both sides of his head. It looked like a mountain after a big forest fire.” Haruki Murakami—The Strange Library
This children’s story is classic Murakami. What better way to get young people addicted to this amazing writer as soon as possible! All the elements of good fiction in here, including some great kid quotes such as:
“No matter what the situation may be, I still take pleasure in witnessing the joy of others.”
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年 (Shikisai o motanai Tazaki Tsukuru to, kare no junrei no toshi)
Published in Japanese in 2013.
Translated into English by Philip Gabriel 2014.
In Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, the protagonist revisits his friends from high school in a quest to find out why he was shunned from the group so long ago.
“…my own contention that dreams, briefly stated, express the dreamer’s deepest desires as well as his or her worst fears, and in this sense they mirror, on the individual level, the nature and function of mythology. This, no doubt, is one reason that dreams, like mythology, frequently contain taboo content, the difference being that whereas in mythology taboos are expressed in a a prohibitive manner, in dreams taboos are enacted freely, without retribution, for the express the desire of the inner self—the baser side of our psyche—which in the dreamscape is permitted to have its way.” —Mathew Carl Strecher, The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami
Translated in English translation by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen in 2018
“The narrator in Killing Commendatore is a portrait painter who has recently split up with his wife who no longer wants to be with him. His friend Masahiko Amada offers him a place to live on a mountain near Odawara. This house is owned by his father, the famous artist Tomohiko Amada, who is now senile and living full-time in a care home. The narrator is commissioned by a millionaire called Mr. Menshiki, who is living nearby, to paint his portrait but he soon discovers Menshiki has underlying motives. Menshiki wants the narrator to help him get to know another neighbor also the narrator’s student, the 13-year-old girl Mariye Akikawa. Menshiki believes she could be his daughter. He has purposefully bought his mansion on the same mountain to keep an eye on her.”
Men Without Women: A collection of short stories about men who have lost women in their lives
Published in Japanese in 2014 as 女のいない男たち (Onna no inai otokotachi)
Translated into English by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goosen in 2017.
“Haruki Murakami’s Men Without Women examines what happens to characters without important women in their lives; it’ll move you and confuse you and sometimes leave you with more questions than answers.” —Barack Obama
Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders, and even Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all. In Men Without Women Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic, marked by the same wry humor and pathos that have defined his entire body of work.
Four of these stories appeared previously in the New Yorker Magazine.
