After Dark (Vintage International)
by Haruki Murakami
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Book Summary Information
Author: Haruki MurakamiEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-29
ISBN: 0307278735
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of After Dark (Vintage International)
Book Review: Short, but still too long.
Summary: 2 Stars
After Dark is very short. It only takes up 250 pages because of the large print size, margins, and spacing. But even that's too long -- the book is still full of filler. Here's an example from the scene where Takahashi discovers an abandoned cell phone, and answers it to find a message from the mob: "'You'll never get away,' a man's voice says instantly. 'You will never get away. No matter how far you run, we're going to get you... We're going to tap you on the shoulder someday. We know what you look like...If somebody taps you on the shoulder somewhere someday, it's us,' the man says." (217) Takahashi subsequently mulls over this message: "Somebody, for some reason, is being chased by a number of people, Takahashi imagines. Judging from the man's declarative tone, that somebody will probably never get away. Sometime, somewhere, when he is least expecting it, someone is going to tap him on the shoulder." (218) Thanks for giving me that play-by-play, I couldn't have done without it.
This goofy, repetitive tone is everywhere. Murakami thinks that the night-time makes ordinary settings mysterious and sexy. Fine, I'm with him all the way on that. But as a result, he adopts a tone of heavy poetic gravitas and piles it on everywhere. The most mundane and trivial descriptions are weighed down with ridiculously serious intonation. "Takahashi...carries only a shopping basket. His hand reaches out, grasps a carton of milk, but he notices that it is low-fat, and he frowns. This could be a fundamental moral problem for him, not just a question of the fat content of milk." (104) Edge of my seat here! "Next he moves on to the fruit case and picks up an apple. This he inspects from several angles beneath the ceiling lights. It is not quite good enough. He puts it back and picks up another apple, subjecting it to the same kind of scrutiny. He repeats the process several times until he can find one that he can at least accept, if not be wholly satisfied with." (104) The best part is the way the description insistently goes deeper and deeper into hilarious, needless pedantry.
The scenes with Eri Asai sleeping in her bed are all entirely unnecessary. Eri does not do anything outside these scenes, she's a total cipher. Other characters talk about her, but that brings out aspects of their own character, it reveals little about her own personality. Yet the book spends considerable time hammering on these drawn-out, grave descriptions of her bedroom, always heavy on the faux-mysterious intonation: "Our point of view...picks up and lingers over things...in the room. We are invisible, anonymous intruders. We look. We listen. We note odors. But we are not physically present in the place... We observe, but do not intervene. Honestly speaking, however, the information regarding Eri Asai that we can glean from the appearance of this room is far from abundant." (33) You don't say. "The sleeping woman appears to be totally unaware of these events occurring in her room. She evidences no response to the outpouring of light and sound from the TV set but goes on sleeping soundly amid an established completeness. For now, nothing can disturb her deep sleep." (35) And on and on it goes.
The more realistic scenes are better, but there too, the tendentious writing provides much merriment: "She reaches out at regular intervals and brings the coffee cup to her mouth, but she doesn't appear to be enjoying the flavour. She drinks because she has a cup of coffee in front of her: that is her role as a customer." (6) It sounds like what you'd write in high school if you wanted to evoke the emptiness of life. And let's not forget Murakami's supremely awkward way of working in a Jean-Luc Godard reference (really, Godard is still hip?) into the dialogue. Mari says, "In Alphaville, you're not allowed to have deep feelings. So there's nothing like love. No contradictions, no irony." Kaoru "wrinkles her brow" and queries, "Irony?" To which Mari readily replies, "Irony means taking an objective or inverted view of oneself or of something belonging to oneself and discovering oddness in that." To which Kaoru replies, "I don't really get it... But tell me: is there sex in this Alphaville place?" (72) No comment.
If you strip away the filler, the core story is promising. It uses a lot of well-traveled Murakami tropes: the cool and collected protagonist, who never allows the girl's rudeness to perturb him; the pretty and successful older sister; the reserved and troubled younger sister; the earthy but friendly, unattractive older woman. These types appear in both Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but that's not really a problem. The world could always use another story about alienated young people whose routine is shaken up by nocturnal mystery and sleaze, enabling them to establish a certain rapport. The scene in the love hotel (which is referred to as a "love ho," possibly in order to sound cool and trendy) early on is pretty good. This would have been a much better book if Murakami tried to flesh out the story of the Chinese prostitute. Or, if that's asking too much, he could have focused more on the main characters' wandering. For instance, he could have shown more of the musicians in the basement. But the world he depicts has no texture, because he spends his time on these inane descriptions instead.
Basically this book is pointless. It would have been better as a short story, but even then it wouldn't be especially memorable. If you're interested in Murakami's take on human connections, read Norwegian Wood; if you prefer his fanciful side, try Hard-Boiled Wonderland. After Dark adds nothing to either of those areas.
Summary of After Dark (Vintage International)
A sleek, gripping novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the spooky hours between midnight and dawn, by an internationally renowned literary phenomenon.Murakami's trademark humor, psychological insight, and grasp of spirit and morality are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery. Combining the pyrotechnical genius that made Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle international bestsellers, with a surprising infusion of heart, Murakami has produced one of his most enchanting fictions yet.
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