After Dark

I've never read anything by Haruki Murakami before. I don't tend to read things in translation, but I don't really have a hope of reading it in the original, so translation it is. I think someone might have mentioned this book to me, maybe in passing, in a bookstore, or something like that. Something that drew my eye to it on the shelf at the library, anyway.

The translation doesn't seem bad. I mean, I've read some translations and you can immediately tell they're stiff, literal translations. This one still feels like a translation, but it's kind of appropriate anyway since it's not set in England or anything. It isn't jarringly so, though; it flows pretty well.

It isn't really a book with a plot. There are characters, and an interesting/surreal/magic-realism sort of situation, but there's little character growth and no resolution. All the novel follows is one night, during the hours of darkness. It has that late-night feel to it, somehow, quiet and contemplative.

I don't know how to feel about it really, since I'm normally all about plot and characters, plenty of both, please. It's a readable sort of book, and there are some interesting conversations/images, like the two sisters in the stopped lift and then in the bed, and the Sleeping Beauty imagery, and Mari reading her book, "biting it off and chewing it one sentence at a time". I might try reading something else by Haruki Murakami, because I kind of enjoyed it, I just didn't really know what to make of it. ( )

Different. Artistic. Almost reads like a movie or drama script at times, especially with the first person plural POV. Dialogue seemed trite or strained or sophmoric at times (not sure how to describe it), but I wonder if that was partly due to translation. Sometimes the translation was great, other times it wasn't (eg "company man" instead of "businessman").

I didn't love the story, but it is short, so tolerable. ( )

I really liked this one...it was a little strange and I felt like there was something maybe missing or lost in translation. I'm curious about a few things....one of the characters lies about the movie "Love Story" and I can't decide whether it is to keep the conversation from becoming too sad or if like, it really is different in Japanese. I'm pretty sure it's just that he's lying for the sake of Mari.

I also couldn't figure out if Murakami was intentionally narrating some parts like a movie or if Japanese does not allow for storytelling in this way. He describes seeing Mari's sister in a way that is very creepy but also very odd. I felt like I was in the middle of a David Lynch film.

Overall, I would recommend this to someone looking for a book about insomnia or a book about the night (perfect for this years SRP theme). I'm not sure that this is Murakami's best or the best novel to begin with but I'm looking forward to reading more from this author. ( )

A very sparse and tense novel set in Tokyo in one night between midnight and dawn. ( )

there's a lot to this book. i wish i could have slowed it down and read it slower, because i think i probably missed quite a bit. murakami has a lot to say and i'm looking forward to reading more of him in the future.

...here's my more in depth review after a few days of thinking about it. as far as the writing goes, i wonder about the translation, and how good it is. because it was kind of awkward in parts. i know that jay rubin is one of the main translators of murakami's work so reading more of his stuff might not shed any light on that issue. but the book itself...the uninventive gimmick of the chapters being titled with the time as we move through the hours of the night that the story takes place in actually didn't bother me, but i wasn't impressed with the book overall. it feels like an outline for a novel that he's working on, or maybe a screenplay. like he can't decide which he's writing, and he's still working on which storylines he's going to go with and expand on, and how he's going to develop the characters. there are a number of stories that are unresolved at the end, which also doesn't bother me. or i should say that it doesn't bother me when it makes sense. but he opens the door to a few things that either need to be closed, or not brought up in the first place. everything about the book feels unfinished to me, and i don't like that.

that said, a couple of nice passages:

"After a long, steady look at this jumbled street scene, she holds her breath for a moment and turns her eyes once again toward her book. She reaches for her coffee cup. Puffed no more than two or three times, her cigarette turns into a perfectly formed column of ash in the ashtray."

a man describing his detachment watching courtroom criminal cases:
"'They live in a different world, they think different thoughts, and their actions are nothing like mine. Between the world they live in and the world I live in there's this thick, high wall. At least, that's how I saw it at first. I mean, there's no way I'm gonna commit those vicious crimes. I'm a pacifist, a good-natured guy, I've never laid a hand on anybody since I was a kid. Which is why I was able to view a trial from on high as a total spectator.'
Takahashi raises his face and looks at Mari. Then he chooses his words carefully.
'As I sat in court, though, and listened to the testimonies of the witnesses and the speeches of the prosecutors and the arguments of the defense attorneys and the statements of the defendants, I became a lot less sure of myself. In other words, I started seeing it like this: that there really was no such things as a wall separating their world from mine. Or if there was such a wall, it was probably a flimsy one made of papier-mache. The second I leaned on it, I'd probably fall right through and end up on the other side. Or maybe it's that the other side has already managed to sneak its way inside of us, and we just haven't noticed.'" ( )