I've heard so many good things about Haruki Murakami that I felt I must must read at least one of his books this year. After Dark was at hand. It is short, didn't need too much commitment; I couldn't think of a better way to introduce myself in to a Murakami world than this. And what a world it is!
While Murakami writes in Japanese and what we read are actually translations this world that he creates, the atmospheric quality of his narrative does not seem to get lost in translation at any point in the book. Of course I can't say this with certainty unless I actually read the Japanese version and then compare but you get the point.
The events in After Dark all take place in one night. It's in what is called 'real-time narrative' where the story is unfolding in the then and the now with us readers as witness. We are introduced to several characters, mainly Mari, a young college student, Eri Asai, her older sister who seems to be in some deep state of sleep, and Takahashi, a young trombonist. There are also a number of other characters, all connected to Alphavill, a "love hotel". As the night progresses we are given snapshots of these characters as their paths cross each other's. Through out the novel I kept thinking what a fantastic film it would make mostly because of the way Murakami guides the reader's point-of-view almost like a cinematographer does with a camera. The whole story plays with the concept of perception and reality/realities. In fact duality is a major theme in the novel.
What Murakami does in this novel, and does quite brilliantly is to transport you in to a time and space that is bordering reality. Even the "reality" of the Japanese metropolis in the novel has a veil of the surreal cast over it. In a way this could be because "night time" does tend to carry with it that sense of the surreal and mystic. Therefore you could say we only encounter "reality" in the sobering sense of the word, when dawn breaks at the end of the novel. Until then, we are very much lost in a world that sits comfortably between the familiar and the strange, the real and the dream-like, the comprehensible and the hallucinatory.
The richness of the imagery, the uncanny tone all make for an immersive reading experience. It's hard to say exactly what Murakami is trying to say with all this: there's obviously meditations on time and an almost Quantum Physical conception of reality but it's not quite clear cut. But it really doesn't matter. After Dark, for me at least, was all about the journey, I didn't care about the destination.
Could appeal to: readers of speculative fiction, fantasy
Read it with: a night light
Taster quote: "In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It’s important to combine the two in just the right amount."
Published by: Random House
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