Category: All Things Japanese

Haruki Murakami

In the early morning of May 20, 1995, members of Aum Shinrikyo, a now-forbidden religious cult, released sarin gas on three Tokyo subway trains. However, the deadly nerve gas, conceived in Nazi laboratories in the 1930s, failed to cause the destruction the perpetrators had intended. Yet, the families of the 12 people who died and the thousands of injured – a good part of whom had to deal with varying long-term aftereffects – would disagree with this assessment.

In the course of 1996 when the worse shock over the attack had passed, but memories were still fairly fresh, Haruki Murakami interviewed 62 survivors. Of these testimonies, 34 are contained in “Underground”, a shocking account of how a normal Monday commute turned into a nightmare for many, touching on emotions that were still raw a year or more after the attack.

This edition of “Underground” also contains a part 2, titled “The Place that was Promised”, a collection of 8 interviews with (former) members of Aum Shinrikyo. While most of the victims expressed a hatred toward Aum, these interviewees were torn in their views. Most of them initially joined the group because they felt alienated by the world around them or tried to fill a (spiritual) void in their lives.

Even though they had a spiritual home in and were completely devoted to Aum, they declared that had they been asked to carry out the attack, they would have declined. Only one said that he would have gone through with it “if I had been asked by the right person.”

This raises the question – and Murakami addresses it in his own reflections on the topic – how far each of us would be willing to go for “the right person” or “the right cause”. On average, as history shows: all the way down to the inner circles of hell.

Haruki Murakami (born in Kyoto, 1949) is a Japanese author. He is most famous for his novels, which have been translated into dozens of languages and received numerous (international) prizes. He also writes essays and non fiction like this book.

For a first-hand account into one of Japan’s deadliest terrorist attacks in peace time. I recommend this particular edition for a view of both sides; they are equally chilling but for different reasons. It’s available on amazon.

Haruki Murakami

This book delivers exactly what its author says in the foreword: “This is a book in which I have gathered my thoughts about what running has meant to me as a person.”

It was written between summer 2005 and autumn 2006 and comprises nine essays, written in different places and about different races – marathons and triathlons – and the training that went into them. Yet, the essays are not just about running, but are also a memoir about writing and how Murakami became a writer in the first place. His early life as the owner of a music bar was especially interesting; his love for music is undiminished as can be seen in his novels that all seem to have at least one character obsessed with music.

Overall, I’m not sure what to think of this book. I am not a runner and not much of a writer myself, which probably explains a certain detached interest. Murakami is also not very good when writing about himself. He seems to be more at ease in the role of a (self-) chronicler, preferring to keep his deeper thoughts to himself.

Certainly, the subject matter of long-distance running doesn’t lend itself easily to deep philosophical insights, but I also think that the vertical pronoun throws Murakami’s prose off somehow. At least all the “in my opinion’s” that were so obnoxious in his book on writing are less numerous here, which makes him sound much less pompous and more human.

I don’t regret having read this book, but had I not done so, I wouldn’t have missed much either. Try it out for yourself on amazon.

Hideo Yokoyama

When in August 1985, Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed into the mountains of Gunma Prefecture, local newspaper reporter Yuuki Kazumasa is thrust into a position of leadership he never wanted: He is now in charge of the entire coverage of the accident, from choosing people to visit the crash site to editing the final articles. But tensions soon arise and never-healed wounds open up again as different departments – editorial, advertising, distribution – vie for influence to promote their own factions. Yuuki soon finds himself crushed between the front lines, but will he be ready to sacrifice his own career for what he believes in?

Once again, Yokoyama sheds light on what happens behind the scenes, but even though Yokoyama worked at a local newspaper at the time of the crash, I found this book lacking compared to SIX FOUR. That’s because arguments in the newsroom turned into physical altercations several times which I thought wasn’t very believable – images of Japanese parliamentarians on each other’s throats notwithstanding.

Also, even though I can believe that processing such an event can take years (Yokoyama even visited the crash site himself), the switching between the 1985 events with Yuuki’s personal rock climbing adventure in 2003 fell short to excite me.

Hideo Yokoyama was born in 1957 in Tokyo. He worked for 12 years as investigative reporter for a regional newspaper in Gunma Prefecture, where he still lives with his wife. His experience with the crash of JAL 123 made him quit the news industry and turn to fiction. He is now a popular writer of crime fiction and his novels are meticulously researched. He has won the annual Prize for Best Japanese Crime Fiction twice.

If you’re in for a dive behind the scenes of a (Japanese) newspaper, you should definitely try this book from amazon.