In 2022, the former prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe was murdered by a man obsessed with Abe’s connection to a cultish church. Well it seems that Murakami is better with 3000 page novels than with short stories: even if each one starts interestingly, he seems to run into trouble when it comes to ending a story rapidly. This is new territory for Murakami, and Yoshiya is a challenging character—arrogant, delusional, lost.

I must confess that I hadn't bought and read this book because I thought it was a chronicle; so, great was my surprise when I found a collection of short stories as marvellously written and mind-blowing as all Murakami's works have proved to be. In fact, all of ATQ’s stories are suffused with Junpei’s desire: a hunger for fiction that can offer alternatives to the cycle of violence and revenge, within which characters remain trapped. By contrast, the stories of ATQ are grounded in local Japanese landmarks and peppered with references to these two historical tragedies, all with a mix of fantasy and horror.As always with Murakami there are themes of love and loss, solitude and friendship and some of the stories include surreal moments which seem entirely believable when you are reading them.

Tonkichi was caught in a trap and that is the reason he is in the zoo rather than living in the wild. The characters in the stories are having strange dreams, or are moving in an alternate dream reality. L'attaccamento alla vita precedente è l'anticamera della morte interiore; la morte del passato la scelta più dolorosa e necessaria per rinascere in un'altra esistenza e accettare che, alle volte, le cose cambiano assieme a noi; e forse a prescindere da noi. Probabil ca e "replica" de dupa cutremur, caci, dupa cum bine stim, nevasta trebuie sa aiba mereu o replica.We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed.

in one sitting (που λένε και στο χωριό μου) και βρήκα τις ιστορίες του άλλες περισσότερο και άλλες λιγότερο ενδιαφέρουσες. They are plotted with omnipresent news accounts of the earthquake, missing loved ones, and allusions to the megalomania of the cult’s leader. His eventual victory over the worm (a clear stand-in for Aum’s cult leader, Shoko Asahara) results in the disintegration of the super-frog, a willing sacrifice for millions of Tokyoites. Despite my addiction to Murakami, this is actually a collection of unrelated short stories linked - somewhat tenuously sometimes- to the Kobe earthquake. That night, while Sayoko and Sala sleep together in the same bed, Junpei watches over them and decides that he will ask Sayoko to marry him when she wakes up.After the Quake doesn't chronicle the events of the earthquake, although all its stories have a vague connection to the disaster. Nimit helps her find a pool away from the hotel and chauffeurs her there every day for five days; he also provides her with lunch. An unreliable narrator is not quite the right label because he believes what he experiences is real, but we are left questioning his reality. Junpei fills the void and is eventually told by Takatsuki that he should marry Sayoko; Junpei is unsure regarding whether it is the right thing to do.

The menacing little seismographic printout on the translucent dustjacket of this stylishly produced book says it all. Personal tragedy and the feeling that there’s something missing in our lives can indeed lead us spiritual creatures to mediums, religions and cults like Aum. Komura, an early-thirties salesman living in Tokyo, comes home from work five days after the quake to find that his wife of five years has left him. This is the twelfth book I have read by Murakami and at this point you could probably say that I am quite invested in the author. I loved this collection of six short stories, which he make up my favourite of Murakami's short story books.Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. They talk instead; he tells her that his wife left him because he was like a "chunk of air" and then asks her what was in the package. I love his indignation when he imagines someone denying that he is a frog: “ Anyone claiming I am not a frog would be a dirty liar. In May 2015 Chin Music Press published his novel THE SUN GODS, set in Seattle against the background of the incarceration of 120,000 U. There is something written on the stone, but she cannot read it because it is in Japanese: small black characters of some kind.