Translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin
After Dark is the first book by Haruki Murakami that I’ve read. I was warned by many that I would not enjoy it. But they’re all delusional and wrong.
After Dark isn’t a traditional novel. It isn’t a plot driven story and in fact, not much actually happens. After Dark takes place in Tokyo over a period of seven hours. It begins with Mari Asai, sitting and reading her book in a Denny’s in the middle of the night. An old acquaintance sees her and reacquaints himself. The boy, Takahashi, eats at Mari’s table and volunteers information about himself. He is going to a late-night practice down the street – he plays the trombone. It is her fateful meeting with Takahashi that sets off a chain of events. Without meeting Takahashi, Mari would have stayed at the Denny’s until morning, reading her book and ordering food or coffee every couple of hours to justify her presence. Instead she has ended up at a love-hotel trying to save a prostitute. But this isn’t the “mystery” part of the story. The actual mystery in the story is right in front of you from the beginning, presented in the most bizarre way.
Reading this book felt like a dream. Murakami often addresses the reader directly, “we.” He narrates part of the story as though the reader and writer are both a camera viewing the scene. It pulls you into the plot – confusing you at first – but like any dream, you just go with it. The place it took me was unexpected.
A flaw that I found with the novel was the conversations between characters. Often the dialogue between Mari and Takahashi lacked a human feel to it. It felt like he attempted to shove too much information into pieces of the dialogue. The ending of the story also left me a little worried. The revenge of the abused prostitute was never realized and thereby left out. Did someone punish the man that did such horrible things to her? Will Mari ever see Takahashi again? Does he even really like her? The note of hope that the book ends on left me only partly convinced.
I’m told that this book is not indicative of Murakami’s style – that this book was “experimental.” I look forward to reading more of him because this book, though it had its flaws, was a worthwhile read. It felt like a hallucination.
[Love|Like|Unworthy]
This is the first book that I’ve completed for the Lost In Translation Reading Challenge.
Filed under: Haruki Murakami, Literature Reviews , After Dark, Haruki Murakami, Japanese Literature, Lost in Translation, Read in 2009
