| | Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. Haruki Murakami.
Murakami, the well-known Japanese
author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,
Wild Sheep Chase, and others, decided to tackle
a non-fiction account of the 1995 poison gas attack in the
Tokyo subway because the Japanese media ignored the plight
of the victims, both the survivors and the deceased, in
favor of focusing on the Aum "cult" who perpetrated
the crime. The author adopted a style similar to Studs Terkel
(who he acknowledges in the preface) by transcribing interviews
with survivors and friends and family of those killed. Going
into the book I was a bit disappointed that Murakami's signature
style would take a backseat to the interviewee's voices,
though as I read the book I was taken by the simplicity
of each account, both in language and structure. This can
partly be attributed to the english language translation
and the author's editing of the interviews. Regardless,
the shock, confusion, anger and other emotions come through
very clearly. What comes forward in the text are the effects
of the sarin gas, particularly the lingering effects, making
the initial act even less excusable. Like many of Murakami's
writing, the english translation compiles two separate works,
Underground and The Place That Was Promised,
the latter featuring interviews of Aum members. But after
reading over 200 pages of first-hand accounts of the attack,
it's difficult to sympathize with Aum, though one does walk
away with a skepticism of the media's over-simplification
of issues and their glorification of destructive events.
. . or . . 
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