The Hard-Boiled Wonderland

I’m a fan of fiction that deals in world-building - the creation of not just foreign lands but entire alternate worlds and universes holds so much room for the writer’s imagination. My appreciation of the likes of Pullman, Tolkein and Le Guin does not stem purely from the portrayal of fantastical environs far-removed from our own though. Such fiction often incorporates ideas and issues of our own world but in doing so presents these ideas and issues in a refreshing and different light that helps us understand them in a new and possibly more productive way. Ursula Le Guin for example has addressed topics as far-reaching as politics, organised religion, racial and gender prejudice and the balance between humanity and nature in her fictional work centred on the world of Earthsea.

The first four full-length Earthsea novels (the fourth originally intended to be the last, but more recently followed by The Other Wind) are available in paperback format as one volume, which is a convenient and appropriate way to approach the series. They are self-contained works but take place chronologically, which means reading them in such an order is, to my mind at least, strongly advised but not essential. Earthsea is clearly far-removed from planet Earth in the Twentieth Century but as with similarly themed literature, it can be read as fantasy/alternate universe or equally as an allegorical work that deals with subject matter that is universal to both the world of Earthsea and our own. For all its talk of magic, dragons and distant lands, each novel has a lot to say about human nature and how we perceive our own world, here and now.

Along with the gas attack on the Tokyo Subway at the hands of a religious cult, the Kobe earthquake was a significant event in Japan in the 1990s. As with the Tokyo gas attack, Haruki Murakami tackles the after-effects of the earthquake on the media and public opinion, and highlights how such an incident can affect the public collectively on a national level and on the level of individuals; in contrast with his journalistic and factual approach to the former, he instead uses the earthquake as a starting point for a collection of short fictional works. In that sense, After the Quake is a concept album of short stories: none of them depict that infamous natural disaster that struck Kobe in 1995, but instead take a number of people and situations within Japan who are connected to the event in more indirect and abstract ways. Directly or not, all are connected to a common theme: that of a natural disaster coinciding with turning points in their lives.

After the Quake can be enjoyed as a stand-alone anthology of his short stories in the same way as, say, his Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman or The Elephant Vanishes collections. This particular selection however can also be read as a cohesive whole, thanks to that common thread: allusions to earthquakes and the mysteries of nature and coincidence. Inevitably some stories will work better than others from reader to reader, depending on what exactly one wishes to draw from what they have to tell. Some are shocking, some are touching while others are just plain odd - all however exhibit Murakami’s trademark pop culture references, dabblings in the supernatural and brilliantly-realised observations relating to the everyday.

Murakami’s follow-up to Kafka on the Shore is a surprisingly short novel but carries on the themes of loneliness, isolation and chance meetings of his previous works, not to mention his characteristically quirky and surreal style. As the title suggests, the story takes place between sunset and sunrise, focusing on an assorted selection of characters who are going about their business while the rest of the world is asleep and unaware. A girl named Mari sits in a Denny’s fast food restaurant when she meets a student named Takahashi, who is practising with his band in a nearby basement; meanwhile Mari’s sister Eri is alone at home in a state of unnaturally deep sleep as her sibling is called into a nearby love hotel to help in an incident involving one of its guests.

Right from the first time I saw the controversial feature film, I was utterly gripped by the concept and story of Battle Royale, the portrayal of a cruel government programme that pits an entire class of high-school students against each other in a fight to the death. Koushun Takami’s original novel is probably less well-known than its movie or manga incarnation, but for me at least exhibits the most affecting mixture of visceral violence and meticulous characterisation I’ve ever seen set to print.

On Monday, March 20th 2005, twelve people were killed when sarin nerve gas was released on the Tokyo underground rail system by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo. More than fifty others suffered serious ill effects as a direct result of the incident, which is considered the most significant attack on Japanese soil since the Second World War. In an attempt to understand the background and convey the human cost, novelist Haruki Murakami conducted interviews with both victims of the attack and people who were members of Aum itself. Far removed from his quirky and dreamlike fiction, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche is a startling and revealing piece of journalism that highlights the true cost of a terrorist act on a modern-day society.

A chance meeting on the streets of London propels Richard Mayhew, an ordinary young businessman, into a timeless and fantastical parallel world beneath the streets of the nation’s capital. The bemused and reluctant hero has to face conspiracies, betrayals, mythical monsters and unseen dangers if he is ever going to find his way to the surface and the world he is familiar with.

A collection of short stories that appeared in various publications between 1983 and 1990, this particular compilation was first published in 1993. It includes the opening chapter of what would later become The Wind-up Bird Chronicle in addition to sixteen separate stand-alone works.

The Elephant Vanishes demonstrates two things about Murakami’s writing style. First is his remarkable ability to draw attention to minute and subtle details of the everyday and blending in the decidedly surreal. Second is the fact that his strength appears to lie more in longer novels than short stories. While every tale in this book exemplifies the nuances of his writing style that fans will find instantly familiar, many feel like unfinished fragments of longer stories (this is actually true in the case of The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women). Interesting characters are introduced, given depth and then placed in unusual situations but these ideas are not followed through to their full potential.

An ordinary life of an ordinary man becomes decidely extraordinary when he is sent on a hunt for a very special sheep. The unnamed hero’s journey takes him from his home and work across the length and breadth of Japan to a run-down hotel, the wild hills of Sapporo and chance meetings with some colourful characters, both old and new.

Toru Okada is, for all intents and purposes, an ordinary man. Happily married with his own house and recently finished with a low-level job in a law firm, his uneventful life consists of comfortable routine. When the cat goes missing, his wife Kumiko begins to become quiet and unhappy and he begins to receive bizarre and suggestive phone calls from a strange woman who seems to know him very well. From this point on, Okada embarks on a strange journey of self-discovery and encounters a curious cast of characters who guide him to a destination of which he has no knowledge.

Set in a modern world of ‘post capitalistic mayhem’, Dance, Dance, Dance follows a humble magazine journalist as a visit to an old holiday destination brings back memeories of years previously. The Dolphin Hotel, formerly a run-down and unappealing establishment, is rebuilt and unrecogniseable. Despite this he is drawn back by recollections of the times he shared with a woman he has not seen in years. His stay at the new Dolphin Hotel leads to reunions with old friends and chance encounters with some colourful characters: add to this a mysterious murder and Murakami’s characteristic writing style and Dance, Dance, Dance is the result.