Book Club: after the quake, part one: ufo in kushiro
Esmerelda, Reuben, Santorri and Zach sit down to discuss Haruki Murakami's short story: "ufo in kushiro."
ZE: Thanks everyone for coming to our book club. What did you all think of after the quake by Haruki Murakami?
Esmerelda: Let me tell you, darling, about this book, okay? It’s by a nice enough seeming Japanese man, but I can tell you — his mother breastfed him too long.
ZE: What do you mean?
ES: Oh my god the breasts! The breasts in this book! This man is repressed!
Reuben: It was fine. Kinda weird. Everybody’s upset.
ES: I should say.
ZE: Upset about what?
RB: The quake. Lotta people died.
ZE: Yeah, the 1995 earthquake in Kobe.
RB: Yup.
ZE: Santorri, anything to add?
Santorri: Oh I’d love to tell you! So—Haruki Murakami is a surrealist who uses everyday life to describe the sublime and the cryptic. That which we can’t understand. Like earthquakes! We can’t predict them! Ohmigod. I just got that. So—
ES: Honey, you just got that?
RB: The title.
ES: It’s in the title.
ST: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I just wasn’t thinking about it that way. I was thinking about the quake as metaphorical.
RB: It wasn’t metaphorical.
ES: It really happened.
RB: People died.
ES: A lot of people died.
ST: Yes, but. The quake is a metaphor for the unpredictability of life. All of the characters manifest that in their daily lives. Like in the first story—
ZE: Yeah let’s talk about the stories. The first one was “ufo in kushiro.”
RB: That the one with the brothel?
ES: Reuben! Wait, was it?
ST: No—it was a story about naiveté.
ZE: Santorri, how about you explain the story to the reader?
ST: Of course. The initial situation was redolent of Killing Commendatore—a man’s wife leaves him and he’s feeling confused and listless so he goes on a journey. Certainly reflects Murakami’s inner psyche, I would speculate—
ZE: Uh huh. Remember, the story.
ST: Right, right. Okay, so—I really like this opening: “Five straight days she spent in front of the television, staring at crumbled banks and hospitals, whole blocks of stores in flames, severed rail lines and expressways. She never said a word.” The narrator’s a guy named… here, Komura. This is his wife. This is what she’s like after the quake. Then when he comes home from work one day she’s gone.
RB: I thought it was going to be aliens.
ES: Maybe the aliens caused the earthquake!
ST: There are no aliens.
ES: Yes there were.
RB: I know. I said I thought it was going to be aliens.
ST: So—his wife left him. She sends a note explaining she’s never coming back and that the reason she left was because he is emotionally empty and never gives her anything. Living with him is like “living with a chunk of air.” So a coworker sends Komura to Hokkaido—y’know this really feels like it was cut from Killing Commendatore because the narrator in that story also went to Hokkaido. Anyway—the coworker gives him a package that he wants hand-delivered to someone in Kushiro, Hokkaido and offers to pay Komura’s board for a week while he’s up there to give him a getaway.
ES: That was his first mistake.
ZE: What do you mean, Esmerelda?
ES: “Some things are too good to be true.” He shouldn’t have gone.
RB: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
ES: You’re telling me you would have gone?
RB: Sure. Why not? Free trip. Wife just left him.
ES: If only we could all be so lucky, right?
RB: I didn’t say that.
ST: Can I continue? So—he flies to Hokkaido where his coworker’s sister and her friend pick him up. They take him around town.
ES: They recognized him at the airport even though he didn’t hold up the package.
RB: I thought they were going to be the aliens.
ES: No, they’re girls.
RB: I know. I said I thought they were going to be the aliens.
ST: Anyway, he gives them the package. The girls are weird. One of them thinks his wife died and gets upset when Komura corrects her that she just left him. Then they drive around and talk. Komura says he doesn’t think his wife left him because of the earthquake which I found interesting because it seems obvious to me that’s why she left. It’s a brilliant use of dramatic irony to deepen the reader’s sympathy for the protagonist; we can see so clearly what Komura cannot. —why are you coughing?
ZE: Nothing. Just summarize the story, Santorri.
ST: So—then the girls, their names are Keiko and Shimao, tell Komura a story about a local man whose wife saw a UFO fly overhead and a week later she disappeared and never came back. Then they bring him to the hotel.
RB: It’s a brothel.
ES: It’s not a brothel, is it?
ZE: It’s a “love hotel.”
RB: It’s a brothel. The girls are hookers.
ST: It’s the hotel where his coworker set him up for a week. And the girls set a bath for him.
RB: I thought he was going to have a threeway.
ES: No!
ST: I did too. Murakami is a master of developing tension and misdirection, alienating the reader from—sorry. So—instead he gets out and Keiko is gone but Shimao is still there. She tells him the story about the bear while they have a beer. She was having sex in the woods with a guy and they were ringing a bell so that a bear wouldn’t come along and attack them while they were doing it. Then they try to have sex but Komura can’t get it up.
RB: It happens.
ES: You pig.
ST: Never happened with me.
RB: Must be nice.
ST: He couldn’t get it up because he was thinking about the earthquake. Then he tells Shimao about how his wife said he’s like a chunk of air. And then he asks her what was in the box that his coworker wanted couriered all the way up here.
ES: I liked this part. Can I say it?
ST: Sure.
ES: She tells him that the box contains the “something” that was inside him. And that now he’ll never get it back.
Haruki Murakami is a surrealist who uses everyday life to describe the sublime and the cryptic
RB: I believed her.
ES: So did the guy. But she was just kidding.
ZE: Or was she?
ST: And then it ends with Shimao saying he’s “just at the beginning.”
ES: So are they in Kushiro? ufo in kushiro. That confused me. I thought they were in H-something.
ZE: Hokkaido.
ST: Right but the town is Kushiro.
ES: Oh. Where does his wife go? Because I was thinking that the title was referring to her. She’s the UFO in Kushiro because she did what that other guy’s wife did after seeing a UFO.
ST: Yamagata.
RB: So the only alien is the one the wife of the local guy saw and then she ran off.
ST: It was a metaphor. She saw that there was more to life—things she couldn’t explain—so she went out in pursuit of them.
RB: Or the aliens took her.
ES: Yeah I thought the aliens took her. Or she went and met up with them probably.
ST: It’s a way to relate the peculiar to the universal: one woman sees a UFO, another sees the wreckage of an earthquake—but both have an epiphany: there’s more to life than just being married to someone.
ZE: But the story isn’t about them. Murakami chose to write a story about Komura, not his wife.
RB: It’s about what Santeria was saying. About the guy not understanding himself.
ES: Santorri.
RB: I said Santorri.
ST: So—the earthquake is affecting him in a lot of ways. Even though he didn’t know anyone in Kobe. His wife left him because of it, and his thing isn’t cooperating with Shimao because he’s thinking about the earthquake.
ES: She tells him he needs to lighten up. And his wife said he’s full of hot air.
RB: Nothing but air.
ES: So maybe it’s a story about a guy loosening up. He goes and does this thing, he has a fling in a new town, meets some nice young girls—well, I don’t know how nice they are if you know what I mean.
ZE: So it’s a story about finding yourself? Did you each pick out a quote? Mine was “No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.”
ST: I chose a conversation. Is that allowed? Okay:
“When did she leave? …Did it have something to do with the earthquake?
Komura shook his head. “Probably not. I don’t think so.”
“Still, I wonder if things like that aren’t connected somehow.”
RB: “You need to open up and enjoy life a little more. I mean, think about it: tomorrow there could be an earthquake; you could be kidnapped by aliens; you could be eaten by a bear. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.”
ES: See, that’s what I’m saying. Reuby’s got it. It’s about enjoying life more.
ZE: Did you choose a quote, Esmerelda?
ES: No I couldn’t decide. What do you think was in the box?
ST: The box was just a narrative conceit. It was a way for Murakami to get his character going. By not telling us what was in the box, he’s giving us yet another example of the random ways the universe pushes us in entirely random directions, and things we think have cause and effect, really don’t.
RB: Government technology. The coworker stole something.
ES: I was thinking maybe a vase for his mother. What did you think, Zach?
ZE: Maybe it was whatever Komura was missing, like Shimao said.
ST: That’s a cop out.
RB: You can’t say maybe. What was it? Put your cards down.
ES: He doesn’t have to tell us.
ZE: Really. I don’t have an answer.
ST: That’s exactly my point.
Reuben, Santorri, and Esmerelda will return next month to continue their conversation of after the quake by Haruki Murakami. If you’d like to get in on the action, buy the book on bookshop,1 thriftbooks or get it from your library. We’ll be discussing “landscape with flatiron” next.
RB: I didn’t like this one.
ST: Really? It’s so powerful. It’s about existentialism, and the fire that burns—
ES: Save it for next time, kid. Reuben, can you give me a ride home? I’ve had too much to drink.
Remember that if you buy it through Bookshop I get a small commission. So instead of doing that, purchasing it used or borrowing from your library is more environmental.