After the Quake

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Dazzlingly elegant...In a world where even the ground beneath our feet can't be relied on, imagination becomes less of a luxury and more of a duty. It's an obligation that Murakami is busily making his raison d'etre, to our very great advantage Guardian

Atsu, from Ghana, has won 65 caps with his country and played for Premier League sides Chelsea, Everton, and Newcastle United. He currently plays for top-flight Turkish side Hatayspor, in the city of Antakya - about 80 miles south of the earthquakes' epicentres. Junpei often made up stories for Sala when she went to bed. And whenever she didn’t understand something, she would ask him to explain. Junpei gave a lot of thought to his answers. Sala’s questions were always sharp and interesting, and while he was thinking about them he could also come up with new twists to the story.” This was my first time reading Haruki Murakami's writing, and I was indeed more than intrigued and impressed. The six stories in this mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But the upheavals that afflict Murakami’s characters are even deeper and more mysterious, emanating from a place where the human meets the inhuman. Buildings that have completely collapsed are usually the last to be searched, because the likelihood of finding survivors is very slim.

The earthquake is merely another symptom of the general unease and uncertainty faced by contemporary Japan. Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse 'Peter Cat' which was a jazz bar in the evening in Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife. Super-Frog saves Tokyo" tells of an odd relationship between Katagiri and a frog that appears to him and asks him to help save Tokyo from an earthquake far more devastating than the one in Kansai. The man, Komura, then travels to Hokkaido at the suggestion of a colleague, who has him deliver a mysterious small box. The final story, "Honey Pie", presents a familiar wistful Murakami-scenario: an odd threesome (two men who love one woman), a small child (to whom stories are told), and a somewhat successful writer.

Murakami's interpersonal relationships are pleasant but so unlike most people's experience that they help give the collection a very surreal feel.

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The Kobe earthquake plays a large role here, both in his wife's leaving and as a reflection of his own unsettled state. He said initially it was very scary when the tremor first hit. "We were winding down to go to sleep, the glass was vibrating, we grabbed some essential items and ran outside." Murakami isn't interested (or if he is, he doesn't show it in his fiction) in what earthquakes actually are, or in what causes them. He's more concerned with this particular quake's effects, and especially its emotional effects on people who experience it at one remove." - Thomas Jones, London Review of Books Junpei tells young Sala the story of Masakichi, an anthropomorphic bear who sells honey. She says that Masakichi should sell honey pies to increase his profit and Junpei agrees. After she falls asleep, he talks with Sala's mother Sayoko in the kitchen about taking the girl to the Ueno Zoo. She agrees and tells him to also invite Sala's father Takatsuki.

Rescue teams and residents of the region continue their search and rescue efforts in collapsed buildings, in Idlib, Syria after 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes hits Turkiye's Kahramanmaras, on 6 February 2023. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Her driver, Nimit, is the perfect care-taker for her, taking her to a secluded swimming pool away from the hotel where she can rest and swim in peace. All of the characters in this book are damaged people. None of them are likeable people, with the possible exception of Miyake from “Landscape With Flatiron.” But he’s not really likeable either. He’s vulnerable. I feel sorry for him and in my sympathy I like him a little. But likeable or not, they’re people. And that’s what’s important. Katagiri, who wonders why he was chosen to help Frog, describes himself as a short, balding, pot-bellied, nearsighted forty year old man with no wife, no children, no friends, no social skills, and no respect from anyone. And Frog replies: “ Tokyo can only be saved by a person like you. And it’s for people like you that I am trying to save Tokyo” (104). Most of it is the usual Murakami-stuff: lost souls, odd encounters, late nights, unlikely and inexplicable creatures and occurrences, some jazz music, some unfulfilled love, disappearances, and at least one Murakami-like author.The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has called for increased funding for humanitarian aid in Syria, saying that many people in the north-west of the country have already been displaced up to 20 times, and that medical care in the region was “strained beyond capacity, even before this tragedy”. For me, this was very much a mixed bag. This can often be the case with short story collections, but I've never felt quite so polar about stories in the same book before by the same author. To invoke a cliche, he has really become hit or miss for me. So I think I'm going to have a break from Murakami for a while. I will read more of his books in the future, but that future will be distant.

In that sense it is a bit different to some of the experiences we had in north-west Syria after the earthquake - and perhaps more like the situation was in Turkey.Perhaps my favorite, "Super-Frog saves Tokyo" is a surrealistic and humorous tale about a frog who recruits Katagiri, a loan collection agent, to help him save Tokyo. Without irony, Frog tells Katagiri, "Tokyo can only be saved by a person like you." The literary references, from Hemingway to Dostoevsky to Tolstoy, that Frog interjects into conversations adds to the humor and the sense of the impossible taking shape. Unrequited young love from the perspective of a semi successful writer makes "Honey Pie" an interesting take on some of Murakami's other works. All the stories had their moments. Still, I was less fond of "All God's Children can Dance" and "Thailand." 4.25 stars Hadia Temli, owner of Gallery Siniya 28, held an online auction that raised €75,000 in a week. Serge Dive, CEO of experiential travel show PURE, which had to be cancelled at 24-hour’s notice, pivoted to raising funds for Education For All and Travel Link Foundation. “Crucially, we also gathered our PURE community to discuss ways in which we can support Morocco in their recovery,” he says. “The key takeaway was simple; as leaders in experiential travel, we must support the tourism industry now more than ever.” It was peak season for us,” says Zina Bencheikh, Managing Director of EMEA for Intrepid Travel. “We had 650 clients on the ground. Morocco is our biggest destination. So, the immediate impact on us was significant. That said, the impact of the earthquake was very localised around Mount Toubkal. The vast majority of the country was unaffected.”