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Jun 06, 2011

Alina rated it:

Amazing, thoughtful compilation of interviews conducted by Murakami. While the accounts of the gas attack itself are both shocking and fascinating, it also gives invaluable insight into what it means to be Japanese and the life that is expected of you. In fact, when reading the rigid and all-prevailing work ethic of the commuters on their way to work on the doomed trains, the sense of entrapping routine makes you wonder how 'crazy' the interviewed Aum members are for wanting to escape it. A c More...

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May 25, 2011

AC rated it:

This is actually two books. Part I (1-223), titled "Underground" (Andaguraundo) was published in 1997; Part II ("The Place that was Promised") was written and published separately the following year.

Part I consists of interviews with the victims (see updates; this section is too long and is tedious). Part II consists of interviews with members and former members of Aum Shinrikyo.

And this is where things get really weird....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrik... More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2010

Jackie "the Librarian" rated it:

There was a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway system carried out in 1995 by a religious cult called Aum. They released poison gas, called sarin, during rush hour on several different train lines, killing 13 people, and injuring hundreds of others.

This book contains interviews of people caught in the attack, as well as interviews of members of the Aum cult, although none of them were perpetrators of the attack.

As a reader from another country, I feel like I'm missing a More...

6 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2008

Anina rated it:

This was a re-read, probably one of my favorite books of all time. It contains interviews of victims of a sarin (like cyanide) gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995. It also contains interviews with members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult who carried out the attacks. If you are into cults, you will really find this book fascinating. The cult members are all people who feel alienated from society or reject society in some way, and in the end they are very relatable because many of us feel that way More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 19, 2011

Mady rated it:

This was not the typical Murakami. Because it's non-fiction. Because most words are not Murakami's. Regardless, it's a Murakami book. It took me a few pages to understand this, but then testimony by testimony I savoured it slowly.

Underground is a glimpse onto Japanese society in face of a major disaster, the sarin attack in Tokyo's metro. This was perpetrated by Japanese people, on a weekday during rush hour and inflicted onto Japanese people. Almost unthinkable on the days before it More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 05, 2011

Ken rated it:

I started to read this book when it came out. After 130 pages I was bored and put it on my shelf where it laid for eight years. I don't like unfinished business and it was bothering me to have an unread book in my room, so I picked it up two weeks ago to finally finish what I started so long ago.

Underground is a series of separate interviews Murakami conducted with 60 victims of the gas attacks in the Tokyo subway and 8 members of the Aum-sect, descriptions of how the attacks More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 18, 2007

Tosh rated it:

I know the subway line in Tokyo that the AUM attacked very well. It goes through the 'posh' or expensive areas of Tokyo - as well as some leading tourist sites - the Ginza, Roppongi. Then the unthinkable happened - especially in Tokyo. The gas attack.

Murakami and an assistant interviewed everyone who was on that train line that morning - so the reader gets slightly different versions what happened on the subway line. All the victims talk about their bad health after-affects of c More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2012

Aaron rated it:

A birthday gift from wifey, and somewhat of a reality-horror novel as I read most of this book whilst commuting on the subway and train from the heart of manhattan to remote Syosset. This book, compiled as a organized transcribed collation of heartfelt interviews with victims and/or their surviving family, shows how each individual responds differently to tragedy and terror.

It is said to represent the Japanese Psyche: the urge to quietly and politely endure/withstand unpleasantness th More...

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Dec 03, 2011

Isabel rated it:

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack by members of the Aum Shinrikyo Cult, Murakami decided to interview as many of the people who were caught up in the attacks as possible. The first part of the book consists of interviews with commuters and underground staff, and relatives of the one of the dead and a woman who was severely disabled by the attack, as well as two or three hospital doctors who were on duty that day. Each interview is preceded by a biographical note about the interviewee's li More...

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Aug 17, 2011

Faisal rated it:

Its difficult to discribe this book in any other terms then to say that Murakami sets out to interview all the people he could find who were in the tokyo subway that fateful day. We get a little background of each person along with a detailed account of how they ended up being a part of so extraordinary while they carried out their ordinary lives .[return][return]As you read the book it clarifies the way people think in japan and the reaction or lack there of in case something dreadful happens, More...

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Aug 07, 2011

Andrew added it

Over fifteen years ago, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult stepped on to several subway trains in Tokyo, dropped packages of sarin liquid and punctured them with sharpened umbrella tips, resulting in the release of sarin gas. In the ensuing chaos, twelve people died and thousands more were injured, many of whom live with the effects of the gas to this day. In retrospect, it's rather remarkable more people didn't die as sarin is an unbelievably lethal substance. This truly seemed like an act of More...

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Jun 26, 2011

Sandy rated it:

if you have even a marginal interest in contemporary japan and the japanese psyche, this book is quintessential to your reading list. nothing brings out the character of a nation like deep tragedy, and murakami delves fearlessly into the oft-considered hive mind of the intensely private japanese people. it's a somewhat daunting book (most books with heavy subject matter are, at least to me), and it took me awhile to read (sort of how it took me a long time to read norwegian wood), but it's worth More...

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Mar 04, 2011

Moonit rated it:

This is nothing like any other Haruki Murakami book I've read. If you are a fan of his novels, you may or may not like this book. I don't know. It is totally dissimilar to them, so I have no way of predicting that. I would say it would be more up the alley of fans of the true crime genre.

The structure of this book was interesting to me. The first 2/3 consists of interviews with survivors of the Tokyo subway poison gas attacks. The interviews are fairly short, generally between 4 More...

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Oct 18, 2010

Seth rated it:

Murakami's Underground was by turns devastating and intriguing. There were moments I wanted to abandon humanity in a wastebin behind an abortion clinic and others when I sat there dumbfounded, thinking Wow, humanity, you're like the most interesting people on earth. Love to hate to love to hate. Again and again.

That's what books about patent insanities do to me.

Underground chronicles the psychological aftermath of Aum Shinrikyo's 1995 deposit of Sarin nerve gas across several More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2010

Chelsea rated it:

This book proves two things I've long suspected about Murakami Haruki. One is that he'd be a lot more interesting if he'd deny his own ego every once in a while, and the second is that he is not very skilled at analysis. This book of Murakami's is nonfiction and almost entirely the compiled testimonies of survivors of the March 20, 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway.

At first the experiment is absolutely absorbing. In his prologue, Murakami promises to explore the kind of "doubl More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2010

Jan rated it:

Apparently, Mr. Murakami is a well-known novelist in Japan. However, in this non-fiction book, he covers the heavy topic of the 1995 sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway by Aum Shinkryo, a fringe religion. He does this largely through interviews with survivors of the attacks, family members of victims, doctors who treated victims, and members of Aum Shinkryo (although none of the ones who committed the attacks).

The book was a little dull in places. Many of the survivors' stories wer More...

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Jan 18, 2010

Lobstergirl rated it:

The bestselling novelist Haruki Murakami gives a Studs Terkelish treatment to the Tokyo sarin gas attacks of 1995 which killed 12 and injured hundreds. There's a great deal about Terkel's methods to like (when Terkel uses them), but they fall flat here. I don't think the oral history treatment works well in this instance, in which every victim is in the same location (the subway system) and is subjected to the same assault; the approximately 30 victim accounts are extremely repetitive, which b More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 13, 2010

Olivia rated it:

I found the review from Observer is the closest to express my sentiment about this book.

'There is no artifice or pretension in Underground. There is no need for cleverness. What Murakami describes happens to ordinary people in a frighteningly ordinary way. And it is all the more bizarre for that.'

What Murakami assembled gave me, as a reader, a multi perspective view to a horror that most people and media only saw as a good vs evil phenomenon. It's truly ordinary and hones More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2011

Jamin rated it:

The book is written in a way such that the reader can be brought to the scenes themselves and truly understand what the victims/survivors were going through. Each recount is written with care and emotion with frightening ordinance, as well as letting readers keep in mind that the event could have happened to absolutely anyone at all.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 21, 2010

Yupa rated it:

Scomponiamo il libro in tre parti:
- Le testimonianze delle vittime dell'attentato.
- Le testimonianze dei membri (in alcuni casi ex membri) dell'Aum Shinrikyō
- Gli scarni commenti di Murakami, avvolti intorno alle due parti precedenti.

Le testimonianze delle vittime sono semplicemente troppe. Mi pare sulle 250pp. (non ho il libro sottomano, vado a memoria). Alla lunga si ripetono, e stancano. Anche perché parecchio ripetitive non tanto nei dettagli, ma nel tono generale.
Non ho capito s More...

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Nov 12, 2010

Derek rated it:

Underground is my first experience with Haruki Murakami, and perhaps not the best place to start. The first half of the book is a Studs Terkel-style set of interviews with people directly affected by the 1995 Aum attack on the Tokyo subway system, which involved the use of sarin gas. The format is intellectually and historically interesting, and provides an extremely thoughtful and surprisingly coherent version of events. What it lacks, however, is a compelling overarching narrative to keep the More...

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Aug 21, 2009

Brian rated it:

This was the first book I ever read by Murakami while on my quest to find "Tony Takatani." It's incredibly sad, but amazing to read about the Sarin attacks in Tokyo. I read this a few years ago, so I'm not going to recall the fine details of the book; however, I do recall that reading the testimonials of both the victims and the cult members was incredibly powerful. I think Murakami's limited analysis of the interviews allows readers to make their own judgments about the actions of the More...

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Jan 28, 2010

Shaz rated it:

I just finished reading Underground by Haruki Murakami and I'm so glad that I bought the complete edition because it’s the second part of the book that has left me more fulfilled. The book is a collection of interviews with the victims of the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo Subway system by members of Aum Shinrikyo (It is a doomsday cult with nihilist outlook, also incorporating elements of Yoga, Buddhism, Freemasonry and Nostradamus' prophecies). I have read a book called "The cult at the en More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 26, 2010

Kevin rated it:

Being a big fan of Haruki Murakami's fiction I opened this book with high expectations but unfortunately, was disappointed with the outcome. The first part of the book consisted of Murakami interviewing victims of the 1995 terrorist attack of the Tokyo subway system by the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo. Murakami set out to get as many as first hand accounts as he could, and you'd think reading all these accounts would be fascinating. But as insensitive as it may sound , after awhi More...

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Jan 09, 2012

Mag rated it:

I read it to get a better understanding of 1Q84. I wouldn’t say it’s essential reading for it, but it's very helpful to understanding the book’s themes and characters. Underground is a non-fiction account of Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway in March, 1995. Aum Shinrikyo was a doomsday cult and the attack happened to fulfil its leader’s prophecy that a gas attack in Tokyo was to start the Third World War and lead to Armageddon. The attack killed 13 people (the last More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2009

Tony rated it:

I was really impressed by this book, and it made me want to check out Murakami's fiction work.

In Underground, Murakami looks at the Tokyo Gas attacks (carried out by an apocalyptic cult named Aum) through a series of interview - with both victims of the attack and members of the cult at the time. He states multiple times that his goal isn't to come to a direct conclusion, but rather to allow people to tell a story that has been flattened and mistold by the media circus that surround More...

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Aug 31, 2011

Sara rated it:

"When asked by Asahara's legal team whether he could have refused if he had wanted to, Hayashi replied:"if that had been possible, the Tokyo gas attack would never have happened"".

De todos os tipos de motivação possível e imaginária para cometer ataques terroristas, este é talvez o "menos compreensível" se é que pode haver alguma compreensão no que diz respeito a ataques terroristas. Em geral os atacantes acreditam no que estão a fazer, seja por motivos re More...

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Sep 03, 2011

Ben rated it:

Murakami's fiction is a sympathetic portrait of everyday Japan interspersed with the surreal. While the subway sarin attacks were certainly jarring and unexpected, they don't qualify in the same way as the fantastical happenings in his novels, and I think the book suffers as a result. In his quest to faithfully reflect the subjective experiences of the victims, Murakami doesn't seem to realise that he can do this while allowing himself some creativity with format and style.

Nevertheless More...

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Jan 17, 2010

Colleen rated it:

Taking a cue from Studs Terkel, Murakami lets you experience the sarin gas attack in the Tokoyo subway from people directly affected by the event. He goes beyond just getting the interview into showing how Japanese society reacted. How authorities didn't respond. How bystanders got in trouble. How some victims became heros. How most people just didn't understand any of it. The second half of the book is where he explores the Aum Shinrykiu cult members - why they joined, how some of them could ob More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Iris added it

When I first started reading this book, I must admit: I was bored. However, I forced myself to keep going and keep reading, and I'm glad that I did. My favourite part is when Murakami interviewed the Aum followers. Reading about Aum, it really made me think about the media: and how it twists stories to whatever they like... it makes me feel differently about listening to the media all the time. Aum believers think of themselves as out of this world, when really in my opinion they are only feelin More...

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