Haruki Murakami wrote After the Quake in response to the 1995 Kobe earthquake. In his characteristically unconventional memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, he states that the short story collection was a turning point in his fiction, when his writing become less introspective and more outward-looking. His new perspective is evident in the greater range and depth of his characters, the third person narratives, and the more mature themes which he explores.
It deals with the earthquake very indirectly. Rather than exploiting the tragedy for drama, he explores it as a psychological phenomenon. In most of the stories, it is ancillary to the main story, but pivotal.
Still present are all the things I love about the writer – the championing of mundane courage, the conversational prose, the off-beat sensibility. My personal favourites in the collection are the last two stories, Super-Frog Saves Tokyo and Honey Pie. In the latter, the main character, also an author, ends on a note that I suspect is autobiographical:
‘I want to write stories that are different from the ones I’ve written so far, Junpei thought: I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love.’
From now on, I’ll be reading Mr Murakami’s later works with this in mind.
Gabriel Ng 