After the Quake

Absolutely terrible and a total waste of time. It's a collection of short stories with the central motif being an earthquake which plays absolutely no role at all with any subsequent plot developments. After introducing a couple of plot points, none of them are resolved at all. I was askance about the book half way through and despite that completed it. Highly pretentious, egregious and a chore to go through.



Plus the sex scenes are plain groan worthy.

“Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they- earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. We even talk about people being ‘down to earth' or having their feet firmly planted on the ground. But suddenly one day we see it isn't true. The earth, the boulders, that are suppose to be so solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid.”

“Whatever distinguishes one lump of flesh from another when we're alive, we're all the same once we're dead, just used-up shells.”

You know it's Murakami, when the characters stay with you long after you've finished reading the book.
After the Quake is a collection of short stories, about lives of some people and how differently they were all affected by one incident - The Earthquake at Kobe.
My personal favorite was Super-Frog Saves Tokyo, starts all dreamy and vivid, but ends on a very disturbingly horrid note.
Murakami isn't like any author I've read. He has a way of storytelling, which forces you to think about the characters and their lives, even after the story has ended.