3 and 1/2 Stars.

Interesting and quirky short story book. It would've been nice if it was longer like Murakami's 'The Elephant Vanishes' or 'Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman' but taken as a set of experimental shorts, these selections work nicely.

Set around the Kobe earthquake in 1995, the stories involve a variety of characters each uniquely connected to the disaster. There is a sense of sorrow and guilt running through these stories, but there's also a tinge of redemption and fulfillment to even out the feel (especially in the final story).

The book lends itself to a post-9/11 mind state just as it does the Kobe tragedy, parlaying sorrow into hopefulness. Recommended.

.... they would comprise a suite, something like one of Mozart's divertimentos, six movements in contrasting tempi, the first story an andante, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th various stately dances, the 5th a scherzo, and the last story an allegro ma no troppo. The collection certainly has that kind of structural unity in addition to the lightly suggested temporal unity of incidents shortly after the Kobe earthquake. Okay... I admire that. I like long short stories. They're my favorite form these days. Alice Munro is easily my favorite active writer in English, and I very much admire the suite-like cohesion of her story collections. However, Haruki Murakami is no Alice Munro, and perhaps it's my sense of what a really great writer can do with the form that keeps me from appreciating Murakami more.

For one thing, Murakami's style - at the level of syntax, vocabulary, imagery - is not interesting in itself. I hesitate to judge too severely, since I'm reading in translation, but the language just isn't compelling. Other short story writers, Raymond Carver for instance, have written powerfully in 'flat' language, but their writing tends to sound authentic, like some local human's local way of talking. Murakami's language sounds deliberately 'kept simple', just as his characters are kept even more ordinary than most of us really are. In the effort to avoid any kind of literary language, Murakami sounds, to me, extremely literary, as if he were writing to the style sheet of every literary journal in.... ah, well, in Japan? Then once again, I have to specify that I can't judge his style in Japanese.

Since style ISN'T the reason for reading Murakami in English, then what do we look for? Action? Suspense? Erotic excitement? No, no, these are stories for more intellectually sensitive readers. Characterization? Yes, I'd say that's Murakami's strength; although we don't know his personae well, we catch their individuality. Thematic insights? Hmmm. I have a feeling that insights into "the human condition" are intended, perhaps even bluntly expressed in subtle asides, but I can't recall them when I finish the story. I have to wonder if "the human condition" is quite as kinky as Murakami and other writers of his generation portray...

Ooops! I said the G-word! could it be that simple? That I don't pulse with excitement at these stories merely because Murakami's temporal world isn't my world? That I'm too old to be intrigued by his situations?

Bottom line: Hiroki Murakami is a writer of skill and humanity, and I'll not hesitate to read more of him.

Haruki Murakami is one of the most well known Japanese novelists still living, but his small collection of six short stories, After The Quake, is a good intro to this writer. The book's stories revolve around the brief time between a January, 1995 earthquake that devastated the city of Kobe, and the terrorist poison gas attacks in a subway a couple of months later in Tokyo.
Murakami's tales are realist and fantasist, but they work far more than not because he has an understanding of the little compromises and rationales that people make up to cope with life's ills- be they great losses like an earthquake, or the little resentments that gnaw through the years. All the main characters are lonely or loners by choice, yet all have moments that take them away from the self. Sometimes the effects are good, other times not, and other times there is no effect. Yet, each tale, even the weakest, is far better than the dreck being spewed out by the PC Elitists who control American publishing, for they all contain insight, and not in the usual Zen-like koans that Westerners always associate with Oriental thought. It is this ability, most of all, that perdures translation, and proves Murakami an excellent writer in any language.

I must confess up front that short stories are not all that appealing to me. I prefer full length novels becasue of their ability to really develop the characters and plot. Right before reading these stories, I read "Kafka on the Shore". While these stories are not as mesmerizing, the six stories were very enjoyable and worth a read, especially for Murakami fans.

While all the stories center on individuals affected by the destructive 1995 Kobe earthquake, "Thailand", "Honey Pie" and "Super Frog Saves Tokyo" were my personal favorites.

I enjoyed this book very much. While reading the stories I was completely engrossed in how they would end. In hindsight, I realize that a lot of the stories did not provide me with true closure, however, I enjoyed them so much that I hardly cared. Deep within each story I found a moral to take away and although they are not outwardly stated they are there nonetheless. This book was recommended from a friend as an introduction of Murakami's writing and it worked...
I would recommend this author and I will definitely be picking up more of his books.