Haruki Murakami, "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo"

A well-read, six-foot frog enlists the help of an ordinary loan collector to defeat a large worm and prevent and earthquake.

(from After The Quake, translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin)

What an utterly strange story. I don’t know that there are any metaphors or allusions at play here. I think it’s just a story about a big frog who quotes Hemingway, references Dostoevsky and wants to help.

One thought on “Haruki Murakami, "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo"

  1. Andy Pelcher

    Ahh, it seems you are missing quite a bit then. There are many references to the bubble economy Japan experienced in the post ww2 era, leading up to it’s burst in the early 90′s. I believe it’s quite clear that the frog and worm represent parts of the economy.

    The worm who sleeps and absorbs the sounds and vibrations of the city, only to wake and explode after absorbing so much. This may well represent the bubble itself.

    The frog, who so often reminds Katagiri that fear is all in the imagination, seems to suggest that the entire bubble economy and all the richness people falsely believed themselves to have is all a fabricated illusion. The economy (as recent episodes of South Park have suggested), is nothing more than a product of our collective imaginations, or as Murakami so eloquently wrote: “Understanding is merely the sum total of our misunderstandings”.

    This is particularly relevant given the current state of the American economy, and how we are all experiencing a similiar fabrication and sense of security in our consumer lifestyles

    Reply

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