Rachel's review
After the Quake
by Haruki Murakami
Rachel's review
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
Rachel's review
rating:
I love short fiction, and this book loosely follows a theme of characters after the Kobe earthquake (in 1995? 1996?). Haruki Murakami writes elegantly and sparsely, and the characters in this book quietly followed me after I finished.
Murakami writes brilliantly on modern fatigue. Not the overblown French ennui kind, but day-to-day quiet "Is this all there is?" kind. There are strains of sci-fi and magical realism that don't exactly pump up the action, but they do unsettle the lives of the characters. Strangley, in such quiet lives, the disquietude becomes reassuring. Does that make any sense?
Anyway, the story "Honey Pie" is one of the best pieces of short fiction I've ever read. About a writer and the woman he loves, it's so easily true to life that it's hard to believe a story about it can be so moving.
Murakami writes brilliantly on modern fatigue. Not the overblown French ennui kind, but day-to-day quiet "Is this all there is?" kind. There are strains of sci-fi and magical realism that don't exactly pump up the action, but they do unsettle the lives of the characters. Strangley, in such quiet lives, the disquietude becomes reassuring. Does that make any sense?
Anyway, the story "Honey Pie" is one of the best pieces of short fiction I've ever read. About a writer and the woman he loves, it's so easily true to life that it's hard to believe a story about it can be so moving.
