| Contents |
Map of the Tokyo subway: Underground: Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Chiyoda line: Nobody was dealing with things calmly / Kiyoka Izumi -- I've been here since I first joined / Masaru Yuasa -- At that point Takahashi was still alive / Minoru Miyata -- I'm not a sarin victim, I'm a survivor / Toshiaki Toyoda -- It's not even whether or not to take the subway, just to go out walking scares me now / Tomoko Takatsuki -- Day after the gas attack, I asked my wife for a divorce / Mitsuteru Izutsu -- Luckily I was dozing off / Aya Kazagucchi -- Everyone loves a scandal / Hideki Sono -- Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Marunouchi line (destination: Ogikubo): I felt like I was watching a program on TV / Mitsuo Arima -- Looking back, it all started because the bus was two minutes early / Kenji Ohashi -- That day and that day only I took the first door / Soichi Inagawa -- If I hadn't been there, somebody else would have picked up the packets / Sumio Nishimura -- I was in pain, yet I still bought my milk as usual / Koichi Sakata -- Night before the gas attack, the family was saying over dinner, "My, how lucky we are" / Tatsuo Akashi -- "Li-yu-nii-an (Disneyland)" / Shizuko Akashi -- Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Marunouchi line (destination: Ikebukuro): "What can that be?" I thought / Shintaro Komada -- I knew it was sarin / Ikuko Nakayama -- Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Hibiya line (departing: Naka-meguro): "What if you never see your grandchild's face?" / Hiroshige Sugazaki -- I had some knowledge of sarin / Kozo Ishiro -- I kept shouting, "Please, please, please!" in Japanese / Michael Kennedy -- That kind of fright is something you never forget / Yoko Lizuka -- Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Hibiya line (departing: Kita-senju; destination: Naka-meguro): I'd borrowed the down payment, and my wife was expecting-it looked pretty bad / Nuburu Terajima -- In a situation like that the emergency services aren't much help at all / Masanori Okuyama -- Ride the trains every day and you know what regular air / Michiaki -- Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Hibiya line: Some crazy's probably sprinkled pesticides or something / Takanori Ichiba -- We'll never make it. If we wait for the ambulance we're done for / Naoyuki Ogata -- It'd be pathetic to die like this / Michiru Kono -- Day of the gas attack was my sixty-fifth birthday / Kei'ichi Ishikura -- Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Kodemmach Station: I saw his face and thought: "I've seen this character somewhere" / Ken'ichi Yamazaki -- He was such a kind person. He seemed to get even kinder before he died / Yoshiko Wada -- He was an undemanding child / Kichiro; Sanae Wada -- Sarin! Sarin! / Koichiro Makita -- Very first thing that came to mind was poison gas-cyanide or sarin / Dr. Toru Saito -- There is no prompt and efficient system in Japan for dealing with a major catastrophe / Dr. Nobuo Yanagisawa -- Blind nightmare: Where are we Japanese going? -- Place that was promised: I'm still in Aum / Hiroyuki Kano -- Nostradamus had a great influence on my generation / Akio Namimura -- Each individual has his own image of the Master / Mitsuharu Inaba -- This was like an experiment using human beings / Hajime Masutani -- In my previous life I was a man / Miyuki Kanda -- "If I stay here," I thought, "I'm going to die" / Shin'ichi Hosoi -- Asahara tried to force me to have sex with him / Harumi Iwakura -- No matter how grotesque a figure Asahara appears, I can't just dismiss him / Hidetishi Takahashi. |
| Abstract |
Covers the 1995 Tokyo Gas Attack, during which agents of a Japanese cult released a gas deadlier than cyanide into the subway system, as documented in interviews with its survivors, perpetrators, and victim family members. In March 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. 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, vital, and as brilliantly executed as Murakami's novels. 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. It was a clear spring day, Monday, March 20, 1995, when five members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo conducted chemical warfare on the Tokyo subway system using sarin, a poison gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. The unthinkable had happened; a major urban transit system had become the target of a terrorist attack. Attempting to discover why, Murakami conducted hundreds of interviews with the people involved, from a subway authority employee with survivor guilt, to a fashion salesman with more venom for the media than for the perpetrators, to a young cult member who vehemently condemns the attack though he has not quit Aum. Through these and many other voices, Murakami exposes intriguing aspects of the Japanese psyche. And, as he discerns the fundamental issues leading to the attack, we achieve a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere. Hauntingly compelling and inescapably important, Underground is a powerful work of journalistic literature from one of the world's most perceptive writers. 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. |
