Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche [Paperback]

In this haunting work of journalistic investigation, Haruki Murakami tells the story of the horrific terrorist attack on Japanese soil that shook the entire world.
 
On a clear spring day in 1995, five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas on the Tokyo subway system. In attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakmi talks to the people who lived through the catastrophe, and in so doing lays bare the Japanese psyche. As he discerns the fundamental issues that led to the attack, Murakami paints a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere.“Powerful. . . . Candid and often emotional.” —San Francisco Chronicle

 “Both a literary memorial and a frank examination of a society in search of its bearings.” —A.V. Club

“Impressive.” —The Independent

“Chilling. . . . Murakami weaves a compelling true tale of normal lives faced with abnormal realities.” —Sunday Tribune

“Powerfully observed. . . . A rattling chronicle of violence and terror.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Through Murakami’s sensitive yet relentless questioning, it emerges that the people who joined Aum felt just as adrift in the world as Murakami’s own [fictional] characters do.” —The GuardianHaruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul.TOKYO METROPOLITAN SUBWAY LINE
CHIYODA LINE
TRAIN A725K

Two men were assigned to drop sarin gas on the Chiyoda Line: Ikuo Hayashi and Tomomitsu Niimi. Hayashi was the principal criminal, Niimi the driver-accomplice.

Why Hayashi--a senior medical doctor with an active "front-linlĂ#