After Dark (Vintage International) by Haruki Murakami Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of After Dark (Vintage International)
Book Review: boring!
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm not one of murakam's fans but i've read most of his work and i like his style. However, this book = nothing to talk about.
One star is more than enough for such a waste of time and money, let alone papers!
Book Review: A surreal novel
Summary: 4 Stars
Haruki Murakami's After Dark takes place over the course of seven hours during an autumn night in Tokyo. From midnight to dawn we follow five lost souls: Eri Asai, a woman in a quasi-comatose state; Takahashi, a jazz musician at an all-night practice session; a prostitute assaulted at a "love hotel"; Shirakawa, a salary man working late on a software project; and Mari Asai a 19-year-old girl looking to escape from the tension of her strained home life. Before the sun rises, each of these stories will intersect with the others.
In this novel Murakami depicts the isolation and loneliness of modern Japanese life. "After Dark" also focuses on the theme of Japanese youth struggling to reconcile their ideals with the stifling conformity of the surrounding culture. There is a peculiar, surrealistic tone in Murakami's fiction. We remember "Kafka on the Shore" with the fish falling from the sky, a man who could converse with cats, and various other strange events. "After Dark" evokes a similar dream world ambiance. People disappear into television sets, or find that their image remains in the bathroom mirror even after they have left the room. A little disturbing at times...
Book Review: Slight, but still cuts the mustard
Summary: 4 Stars
This is not Murakami's longest, or indeed best work, but it is nevertheless a worthy part of his canon, in my opinion. It deals with some of Murakami's favourite themes, the shadowy psychic side of people's personalities, the thin line between reality and fiction, love and loneliness and how people connect with each other when language often seems so inadequate. The story centres round a chance meeting between a young woman, whose sister is lying at home in some kind of psychic coma state, and a young man who plays in a band. The chapters are divided into the hours of the night and the story flicks back and forth between the young couple and their discussions in a diner, and the 'reality' for the girl in the coma state lying in her bed. The book plays with the juxtaposition of light and shade, mirrors and imaging and reality and dreams. It's poetically written and the characters complex enough to get your teeth into, even in the short time Murakami allows us access into their lives.Book Review: Disappointing. Very disappointing.
Summary: 1 Stars
Having read almost all of Murakami's other books, as well as the recently released editions of short stories, I speak with the benefit of having much enjoyed and admired almost all other Murakami's work when I say that this is a dull, disappointing book. The intrigue and intricacy of Murakami's other works is not there; the book is too short to offer the same depth of character development, and the subject matters, one being a girl permanently asleep for no obvious reason, and the other about the sleeping girl's sister and how she gets involved in helping out an injured prostitute, do little for the imagination in the way that Murakami's other works do so well. It is hard to believe that the author of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, which is one of the most bizarre yet utterly compelling books I have ever read can expect his loyal fan base to be pleased with this new book. I bought it automatically on the strength of previous Murakami offerings; in future I will wait and read a few reviews first. I certainly hope the next one is a tour de force.Book Review: Japanese Catcher in the Rye?
Summary: 4 Stars
I did not expect anything from this book, and what I got was an atmospheric romp through one night in Japan. Nothing really happens, but the style of writing and the concept of a book spanning about the same amount of time as it takes to read made for an interesting and enjoyable story.
I found the characters deep and not one-dimensional, with the exception of the beautiful sister. Sometimes it is nice to be able to just be taken along for the ride by a story and this book certainly delivers for this purpose.
The translation also seemed to be intelligent and quirky and this added to the overall captivation of the storyline.