After Dark

Disappointing. I assume that much of the musical prose was lost in translation. The translator, Jay Rubin, translated a few of Murakami's major works, including the debut bestseller 'Norwegian Wood'. Themes from previous novels are repeated in a different setting -- memories, consciousness and interconnectedness. I can't help but feel Murakami may be running out of ideas and just recycling old...more

Disappointing. I assume that much of the musical prose was lost in translation. The translator, Jay Rubin, translated a few of Murakami's major works, including the debut bestseller 'Norwegian Wood'. Themes from previous novels are repeated in a different setting -- memories, consciousness and interconnectedness. I can't help but feel Murakami may be running out of ideas and just recycling old themes. His earlier 'Kafka on the Shore' appears to be the dominant influence in this shorter novel.   hide

After Dark disappointed. I was fresh off Kafka on the Shore whose Kafka and Nakata stories sucked me in (I also became a huge Soseki fan because if Kafka's days in the Takamatsu library). After Dark, much like Norwegian Wood, didn't resonate with me. Maybe I didn't like Murakami's presentation of Tokyo - a city whose identity is so ever-changing yet to me, so personally rigid making others...more

After Dark disappointed. I was fresh off Kafka on the Shore whose Kafka and Nakata stories sucked me in (I also became a huge Soseki fan because if Kafka's days in the Takamatsu library). After Dark, much like Norwegian Wood, didn't resonate with me. Maybe I didn't like Murakami's presentation of Tokyo - a city whose identity is so ever-changing yet to me, so personally rigid making others interpretations sometimes hard to digest. I think Murakami's pen wields so much power when he can develop a character or two in great lengths, which I didn't think he allowed himself to do in After Dark.   hide

This is a good read for any Murakami fan, but I wouldn't say that it's his best. I guess it's because it's just simply not long enough to explore fully all of the characters that are included in this. You get a lot of like-able characters, but none of them are developed deeply enough for you to understand who they really are. Plus, there are a large amount of mysteries in the story that are...more

This is a good read for any Murakami fan, but I wouldn't say that it's his best. I guess it's because it's just simply not long enough to explore fully all of the characters that are included in this. You get a lot of like-able characters, but none of them are developed deeply enough for you to understand who they really are. Plus, there are a large amount of mysteries in the story that are never satisfyingly solved. I feel this would have been a much better book if it had been allowed to unfold longer than one night. All being said, I still enjoyed it and thought that it was one of Murakami's better reads.   hide

For Murakami people seem to exist on different circuits, and sometimes, for good or bad, these circuits cross and become confused. In his novels there is also a division between someone's lived reality and an alternative reality, whether surreal or not, lurking under the surface. His recent book seems to be a concentration of his theories of the way characters are connected. Taking place in the...more

For Murakami people seem to exist on different circuits, and sometimes, for good or bad, these circuits cross and become confused. In his novels there is also a division between someone's lived reality and an alternative reality, whether surreal or not, lurking under the surface. His recent book seems to be a concentration of his theories of the way characters are connected. Taking place in the course of one night, in the defamiliarised setting of a Tokyo entertainment district after the last train has gone, the experiences of a group of disconnected people begin to converge in interesting ways. The principle characters are two sisters, one beautiful and the other withdrawn, both damaged in their own way, only now the beautiful one, Irei, has slipped into a deep sleep from which she cannot awake. Mari, her sister, cannot bear to be at home and so has sought to escape by staying out all night reading in a restaurant. Her nocturnal encounters with a lanky jazz musician, a Chinese prostitute and the owner of a love hotel slowly cause her to draw closer to her sibling. Another immensely subtle and emotionally understated work from the world's greatest living writer. Frankly, i don't know how he manages to continue wringing such moments of poignancy from the most basic of situations.   hide

Is there a limit to the metaphysical allowance we give a genius/artistic writer like Murakami to have? I thought that "Dance, Dance, Dance" was about as far as he could push it..."Kafka on the Shore" had some hints of experimental new ground as well. But "After Dark" really takes things to a new level. And honestly, I didn't really enjoy it as much as I would have hoped. Maybe there's a...more

Is there a limit to the metaphysical allowance we give a genius/artistic writer like Murakami to have? I thought that "Dance, Dance, Dance" was about as far as he could push it..."Kafka on the Shore" had some hints of experimental new ground as well. But "After Dark" really takes things to a new level. And honestly, I didn't really enjoy it as much as I would have hoped. Maybe there's a point where a normal person like myself looks at the abstract vision of an artist and has to admit that I don't understand where the artist attends for the work to go. So I guess I have to throw my hands up with this one and humbly admit that Murakami is a genuis because his mind operates in a creative space that I cannot grasp.   hide

This is the first time I'v ever read a Murakami book, and I picked it up on a whim. I'm excited to read his other works after this. I absolutely loved his use of persepective. I found it unique, involving, and a great way to have the reader move through the scenes as a sort of limited omniscient presence. In this wa, we can see much, but are still kept at a bit of a distance. Characters are only...more

This is the first time I'v ever read a Murakami book, and I picked it up on a whim. I'm excited to read his other works after this. I absolutely loved his use of persepective. I found it unique, involving, and a great way to have the reader move through the scenes as a sort of limited omniscient presence. In this wa, we can see much, but are still kept at a bit of a distance. Characters are only revealed to us when they allow us to see a bit of them, much as in real life. He perfectly captures the loneliness, the danger, the serenity and the thriving possibility of a city at sleep that any one who has been up till the break of dawn in a city will recognize. It's a quick read, and for me that made it an easy gateway. I definitely want to read Kafka now. I realize there are times when the metaphysical seems a bit much, but the point isn't too try to divine everything he's saying at every point. I think it's more of a rumination... something you experience and let soak into your skin and think about. That's how I took it. Very impressed.   hide

Being in graduate school, one can’t help but hear about Haruki Murakami in the context of contemporary literature. It’s quite amazing, to say the least, that a writer who writes in Japanese, is read so widely in this country. Which other authors could boast the same with their translated works? Not many. That, and my fascination with Japan, always had me curious about Murakami. But his books...more

Being in graduate school, one can’t help but hear about Haruki Murakami in the context of contemporary literature. It’s quite amazing, to say the least, that a writer who writes in Japanese, is read so widely in this country. Which other authors could boast the same with their translated works? Not many. That, and my fascination with Japan, always had me curious about Murakami. But his books were never on sale, and I had a tight budget every time I went to the book store. I started reading After Dark at Barnes & Noble once, but had to keep it away because I needed to buy something else. I got really lucky this week when I was out with friends and came across a store going out of business. They had everything on sale! Spanking new copies for half the price?! Was I in heaven or what? I am glad I thought about looking for Murakami at the store. This time, I wasn’t going to let it go. As the name suggests, the novel starts at night, and plays out in real time till the sun rises the next day. There is Mari, a nineteen year old girl, trying to spend a night out, alone. There is Takahashi, a young man, who starts a conversation with her. The writer breaks the fourth invisible wall that helps us see the goings-on, as he often uses “we” and includes the reader into the mix. We’re helpless, but we’re right there. This unusual trick does wonders to add to the eerie feeling that the novel creates. The middle-of-the-night landscape of downtown Tokyo is barren and Murakami takes little to no effort to describe it to us. Instead, he repeatedly tells us about what Mari is wearing, or how beautiful her sister Eri is. Eri has been asleep for a while now, and Mari is awake, trying not to sleep. Each of the characters are running away from something, or caught in a world they cannot make sense of. Takahashi wants to become a lawyer, but it doesn’t seem like that’s his dream. Mari is going to go to China, but she is afraid of doing so. Eri is caught in the world of sleep, and wakes up in a place that’s indescribable. Having seen (and disliked, sorry to say) Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, it was interesting to note the use of similar tropes in the movie and novel, namely the use of the television set. There is a namesake hotel in the novel called Alphaville too, which is obviously not a co-incidence. Most of the times, I’ve been rewarded reading shorter texts of hefty writers like Murakami, and After Dark was no exception. I understand why reviews by his fans opine that this might not be his best work. It is a little too straightforward. But I did feel a profundity in its simplicity. The characters weren’t really explored deeply (on purpose, I think), and yet they left me with a deep impression. The romanticized idea of spending a night out, meeting someone new, talking all night long to them – these are all used by Murakami, and yet the novel is not stereotypical. I really look forward to getting my hands on more of his books. And I won’t be surprised if I turn into one of his fans.   hide

Not quite sure how I feel about this one yet (maybe I should wait on the review--oh well). Would not recommend as a first Murakami. Quick read--it's slim *and* I didn't have to go back and re-read whole sections to try to figure out what was going on. I liked these characters, but didn't feel like I knew them as well at the end as I have with some of his other books. Just can't stop comparing,...more

Not quite sure how I feel about this one yet (maybe I should wait on the review--oh well). Would not recommend as a first Murakami. Quick read--it's slim *and* I didn't have to go back and re-read whole sections to try to figure out what was going on. I liked these characters, but didn't feel like I knew them as well at the end as I have with some of his other books. Just can't stop comparing, can I?   hide

A seemingly unlikely collection of people who find themselves connected through the dark hours of the night. Murakami presents what seems a fairly simple story, but is in fact an attempt to delve into some darker issues. As always, it is well written with interesting and quirky characters, however it delved a little too deeply for me, leaving a little too much mystery and not much resolution....more

A seemingly unlikely collection of people who find themselves connected through the dark hours of the night. Murakami presents what seems a fairly simple story, but is in fact an attempt to delve into some darker issues. As always, it is well written with interesting and quirky characters, however it delved a little too deeply for me, leaving a little too much mystery and not much resolution. Only for real Murakami fans.   hide