Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche | Haruki Murakami

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche | Haruki Murakami | A catcher

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Underground: The T...

	Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche Haruki Murakami Vintage, 2001 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

From Haruki Murakami, internationally acclaimed author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood, a work of literary journalism that is as fascinating as it is necessary, as provocative as it is profound.

In March of 1995, agents of a Japanese religious cult attacked the Tokyo subway system with sarin, a gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. Attempting to discover why, Murakami conducted hundreds of interviews with the people involved, from the survivors to the perpetrators to the relatives of those who died, and Underground is their story in their own voices. Concerned with the fundamental issues that led to the attack as well as these personal accounts, Underground is a document of what happened in Tokyo as well as a warning of what could happen anywhere. This is an enthralling and unique work of nonfiction that is timely and vital and as wonderfully executed as Murakami?s brilliant novels.

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Review of Murakami's "Underground"

Murakami's analysis of the Tokyo Sarin Attack is exactly the kind needed to understand all terrorism occuring in the world today. A great antidote to main-stream media's simplistic "us vs. them" morality tale description of terrorism. For concerned citizens of the post-9/11 world, I strongly recommend this book, together with Erich Fromm's "Fear of Freedom".

A catcher

I read both in Japanese before this English translation. It was several years ago that I first read the original of "The Place That was Promised" (Part 2), and I have just read that of "Underground" (Part 1), which is the first time.
What I tried to do in rereading them in English was to know what had to be changed when they were introduced to other countries and if the language might change how I felt reading the text.
The impressions I got from the originals were still so vivid, though, even graphic, that the latter of my trying would be failed.
I even had a nightmare at the night I had just read how the interviewees described the incident at Kodenmacho station.
When the gas attack happened, I was a student and lived in a different area of Tokyo. Though I sometimes used the subway lines and went to the area which was attacked, the news, either live broadcasts or videos, gave me nothing much but feeling "Something quite weird happened".
In a few years, even when I went to work in the very same area using the very same lines at almost the same time of the day, I didn't remembered the attack at all.
The method Murakami used in "Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche" reminds me of a documentary film, "Capturing the Friedmans"(2003), which is "just kind of peels the onion and shows the unspoken contradictions and the difficulties" (said by the filmmaker, Andrew Jarecki), but the words captured by Murakami visualizes "what the truth is" more vividly in your mind.
In "The Place That was Promised", the writer (Murakami), who it is said that "Underground" (Part 1) gave a new understanding of his mission as an author, sometimes seemed to be being struck or at a loss.
He must have recognized himself as "Catcher in the Rye", and looking back at his works, he would have thought most of his way had been on the right track.
Through the interviews for "The Place That was Promised", though, he seemed to have just found that his works might have totally failled to catch people who he thought he could and had to catch, and that it might be much harder to reach such people than he thought.

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A Significant Work of Future Historical Relevance

This easy-to-read book is unique in Murakami's own catalog. First of all, its his most true to life `documentary-style' book, consisting as it does of interviews, recollections and observations of selected people who were affected by the deadly gas attack in the Japan Metro in the 1990s. The book is not a `novel' - instead it breaks new ground for the author, and at times makes you wonder if this is the same man who gave us fantasy novels such as "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle" and "Kafka on the Shore".

"Underground" is an easy book to read, but its also maddeningly difficult to finish in one sitting. It took me about two weeks to actually make it through the entire thing. Its quite long, and there is no clear narrative structure. I found the beginning of the book very odd. The actual restructured train incident has been pieced together by Murakami from newspaper reports, and he relies completely on eye witness reports to describe the shock and horror of the actual crime scene. He also does away with niceties, and is uncompromising in his criticism of Japanese society, the government, and Japanese mass media itself. In fact, through much of the book it did seem at one point that Murakami himself was sort of anti-Japanese (a fact that reaffirmed itself to me when I discovered he actually was sick of his fame in Japan and fled overseas instead to live in peace). But at other times, Murakami gives us a portrait of families who dealt with the disaster with great nobility and tenderness, and he empathizes whole-heartedly with all the victims of the incident.

Murakami is more successful at entering the minds of the terrorists and giving us various plausible explanations as to why they did it. The most telling reason (pretty much "my boss told me to do it") is shocking at how it managed to sway so many young and even successful young men (and women) into joining the cult and falling for its' very twisted message. Murakami dispenses with casual observations here and attempts to create the portrait of a killer. In the end, his chilling depiction of the Cult is reason enough to buy this book, because its evident that this sort of psychopathic mentality exists in some form in every country. Japan is no exception.

For all the horror here, there are also passages of great beauty and grace. One particular story of a woman who is a `living vegetable' because of the gas attack is endearing because Murakami sets the story up so well - we feel we know this person, and by the time tragedy strikes her, we are totally sold on reading a whole book only about her. Then you remind yourself that this is not fiction. Every word in this book is true, and Murakami's attempts at tracking down and scheduling interviews with some very unwilling participants (who still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder) are to be commended. Though thousands were affected on that day, the author seemed to have trouble pinning down even a tiny percentage of people who wanted to approach him and talk about it.

That such an honest and superb account of that fateful day exists, is gift enough for me. Though I was aware of the incident when it occurred, I was possibly too young or engrossed in my studies to really pay it much attention. As I grew older and gravitated toward Japanese music and literature, I discovered Murakami. I only read this because I wanted to finish everything that Murakami had ever written, but as I went along I found myself lost in the story and the brilliant work contained therein. Surely, this is a topical book and not for everyone - in fact, I would prescribe it more for research scholars and students of history - but if you adore the works of Haruki Murakami, you will surely want to pick this up. Its revived in me an interest in world affairs and geopolitical events, and if one single book can do that, well, then more power to that book.

Five Stars. Highly Recommended.

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Worth Your Time

Some reviewers (including Murakami, writing on himself) have asserted that after Murakami`s long stay abroad, this book was primarily written by Murakami for himself as the author sought to come to grips with Japanese society again. Whatever Haruki Murakami`s rationale, `Underground` is worth a read, particularly to anyone who seeks to understand topics ranging from our new `postmodern` existence, to Japanese society and modern life, or just the nuts and bolts of the future of terrorism.

A great deal emerges from these telling interviews; information that takes the form of insights which subtly impress themselves on the reader. `It made me realize all the more how frightening [mass media`s control] is` --victim Masanori Okuyama. `People raised in happy families probably wouldn`t join Aum` -- Harumi Iwakura, former Aum member. `The local police might not have any experience, but they were practically useless... they only showed up after the rescue operation was over,` --Naoyuki Ogata, victim. `People were foaming at the mouth... that half of the roadway was absolute hell. But on the other side, people were walking to work as usual` --Kiyoka Izumi, victim. Some of what came out of the interviews was information that came completely out of the blue, probably even to the author, such as the mention (in the book`s Japanese edition) that half the women interviewed suffered regularly from sexual assault while riding on Tokyo`s legendary so-packed-you-can`t-breathe trains.

And it all emerges because Murakami`s strength is his intense focus here-- `I intentionally set up my camera at one fixed spot,` he writes. Outlines of events are sparse; the narratives are front and center. His wide approach (34 interviews from victims alone) allows for sweeping perspective on a number of topical issues and permits the reader to take from the book what they may. A more in-depth look at the inner workings of Aum, the socioeconomic background of terror, or the disconnect of modern digital life are all natural follow-up reads-- the reader need only choose their path. While keeping it simple, Murakami has written and complied a work, a look at the dawn of the modern urban age of terror, that will be read for years.

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Just okay...

This book could have been good, but it's too long and too repetitive, the subject matter is very interesting, but the story gets retold a thousand times and it's just not very entertaining or insightful for that matter.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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