83 pages • 2 hours read
Haruki MurakamiA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Still holding Tengo’s hand, Fuka-Eri guides him off the train and to the street where they hail a taxi. They arrive at a large house owned by Professor Ebisuno, a man in his 60s who is Fuka-Eri’s guardian.
Ebisuno explains that it is important for Tengo to understand Fuka-Eri’s childhood and how she came to be in his care. In the 1960s, Ebisuno and Fuka-Eri’s father, Tamotsu Fukada, were both in the anthropology department at the same university. By 1970, Tamotsu became a strong adherent to the Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong, helping to organize student radicals against the university for its support of the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. After the university fired him, Tamotsu moved his wife and two-year-old Fuka-Eri to a utopian farming commune in Yamanashi Prefecture, along with a group of his more revolutionary students. By 1974, the commune—rechristened Sakigake with Tamotsu as its leader—had amassed considerable funds and gained tax exempt status from the Japanese government.
As the commune grew, thanks to the influx of affluent, idealistic professionals, a more militant faction broke away from Sakigake in 1976 and started its own revolutionary commune in the same region. Though torn, Tamotsu chose to stay with the moderate faction.
By Haruki Murakami
Japanese Literature
View Collection
Magical Realism
View Collection
Mystery & Crime
View Collection
Science Fiction & Dystopian Fiction
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
SuperSummary New Releases
View Collection
The Best of "Best Book" Lists
View Collection
Truth & Lies
View Collection
Valentine's Day Reads: The Theme of Love
View Collection