after the quake

Rollercoaster after the Quake

Earthquakes have the tendency to disrupt many lives. It changes a person’s belief that the world they live in is safe and secure place. In After the Quake Haruki Murakami, writes moderate stories about people, not in Kobe, not even directly involved with Kobe at all, but nevertheless caught up in the national aftershock which affects them all in strange, small ways. These stories are inspired by the quake that devastated Kobe, Japan in January 1995. The earthquake itself only appears in the background of each tale, but there is a connection between the stories through different devices. After facing sudden, uncontrollable changes in their lives created by external forces each of the characters is struck by his or her own shattering personal earthquake.
In the first story “UFO in Kushiro,” Komura an electronics salesman whose life takes a new turn when his wife leaves him after following the coverage of horrors inflic...