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Familiar Murakami territory is visited through his use of the fantastic. Miu seems to have had a fantastical experience that has made her emotionally and sexually dead. Then there’s the mysterious disappearance of Sumire on an obscure Greek island, which drives the plot of the novel. This novel ties up more loose ends than usual, but still isn’t completely satisfying in true Murakami fashion. The reader must project his/her own ending into the novel.

One the recurring themes in the work of Murakami reflects an existential bent: why are we here? Why do we die and disappear? The satellite that the novel is named after serves as the central metaphor for humanity: “Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, they pass each other, and part, never to meet again.”

Norwegian Wood , so named after a Beatles song, is a previously published novel that only now just been published. It’s surprising that it has taken this long for this novel to see the light of day, because it sold over 4 million copies in Japan and was available in a two volume English learner version published by Kodansha in Japan. For many Japanese it carries the same emotional, cult statusas a novel like Catcher In The Rye.

Perhaps, it wasn’t published, because it is quite different from the books that established Murakami in America-The Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderlandand The End Of The World. These books and those that followed (Dance Dance Dance and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) were marked by elements of science fictionor the fantastic. Norwegian Wood is hardly a straight forward coming of age novel, but it is devoid of these elements. It has been criticized for being a bit sentimental and maudlin in tone. But obviously he has struck a chord with a great many readers with his story of Toru and his never dying love for the beautiful and tragic Naoko. He searches for solace and understanding with another woman, Midori, but he can’t fully distance himself from Naoko. This novel explores themes that Murakami will revisit in future novels to come: the inability of individual to truly connect, as well as the meaning of life and death. The book is told in a long flashback as the middle aged Toru returns to Tokyo aboard a plane.

Toru fits the bill as the typical Murakami loner obsessed with jazz and literature and Naoko and Midori head a list of realistic, beautiful,intelligent, interesting and unforgettable female characters that have populated his novels ever since. A tradition that is apparent in Sputnik Sweetheart with Miu and Sumire, as well. Therefore, it is easy to see why Underground is markedly so different from everything Murakami has written to date.

To begin with, Underground, is a work of non-fiction. It is concerned with the subway sarin gas attacks by the Aum cult on March 20, 1995 that killed 12, injured thousands and sent reverberations throughout Japan revealing that Japan wasn’t as safe as people had previously thought. Murakami was drawn to thesubject by a letter he read in women’s magazine by a woman who recounted a story of how her husband suffered from the effects of the gas attack and encountered a hostile work environment where he was virtually forced out of his job. This made Murakami wondered why?

The book combines the two separate books he wrote in Japanese-divided into two sections in this volume: “Underground” (1997) and “The Place That Was Promised“(1998). The first section is a series of 63 interviews Murakami had with survivors and/or their surviving family members. He provides backgroundinformation about each attack that took place on three separate train lines, and prefaces each interview with some details about each individual’s character and information that didn’t surface in the subsequent interview.

What emerges is a series of fascinating and illuminating portraits of ordinary Japanese people who showed great courage in the face of adversity. People who tried to carry on with their normal routines, despite the fact that the effects of the sarin gas began to debilitate them. A common statement made by many interviewees was that they felt that they had to make it to the office. One interview involved a woman, Yoshiko Wada, who had recently wed, was pregnant,and had just bought a new condo with her husband, Eiji, only to have him die from the effects of the gas on that fateful day. She harbors no resentment, but it is a heart wrenching story nonetheless. Another powerful interview involved Shizuko Akashi, who lost her memory, developed a speech impediment and, and had temporary brain damage. It is tragic to see a life so distorted and damaged.The section in which Murakami interviews the Aum cult followers is equally absorbing. A common thread linking the members and former members is a spiritual quest to find meaning beyond the everyday hustle and bustle for existence. It seems that some members were a bit more critical in their thinking and began to question the direction in which Shoko Ashara, the leader if the cult, was takingAum. Others followed blindly and still have trouble believing the organization was involved in the gas attacks. Some were looking for a place to fit in and to be told how to live their lives relieving them of the troublesome burden. In the afterword, Murakami sums up his experience interviewing the cult members by saying: “We shouldn’t criticize a sincere attempt to find answers. Still, this is precisely the point where a kind of fatal mistake can be made. The layers of reality begin to get distorted. The place that was promised, you suddenly realize, has changed into something different from what you are looking for.”