After Dark ebook

by Haruki Murakami

I read Murakami’s After Dark exclusively at night time Another great thing about reading all the Haruki Murakami books for someone like me, who's just so fond of Music, things way more delightful.

I read Murakami’s After Dark exclusively at night time. Capricious as it might sound, I do believe that most of it I read after midnight. Darkness encroaching all around, only a dim desk lamp to illuminate my surroundings. Another great thing about reading all the Haruki Murakami books for someone like me, who's just so fond of Music, things way more delightful. Murakami is a music lover himself and it's quite evident from all his works, hence, there's a lot of musical references from different genres like jazz, classical and pop-tracks.

Home Haruki Murakami After Dark. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15. Contents. Far from skimming, she seems to be biting off and chewing it one line at a time. On her table is a coffee cup.

After Dark (アフターダーク, Afutā Dāku) is a 2004 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Set in metropolitan Tokyo over the course of one night, characters include Mari Asai, a 19-year-old student, who is spending the night reading in a Denny's. There she meets Takahashi Tetsuya, a trombone-playing student who loves Curtis Fuller's "Five Spot After Dark" song on Blues-ette; Takahashi knows Mari's sister Eri, who he was once interested in, and insists that the group of them have hung out before.

Murakami's 12th work of fiction is darkly entertaining and more novella than novel. I really enjoy Murakami’s writing style

Murakami's 12th work of fiction is darkly entertaining and more novella than novel. I really enjoy Murakami’s writing style. Mari’s story was interesting because she met several people and that allowed the author to show many layers of that character. That’s why at the end of the book (only one night after the story began) the reader can feel that she has grown and developed. Eri’s story, however, was certainly confusing and the author never really gives us satisfying explanations about what happened to her.

This book proves me right when I say Murakami is one hell of a writer. Murakami describes a darker and scarier Tokyo in After Dark. In a city like this, how can much can your life change in just a night?

Steven Poole finds Haruki Murakami marries the strange and mundane with his usual precision in After Dark. Just before midnight, we meet a young woman, Mari, smoking and reading a book in a coffee shop.

Steven Poole finds Haruki Murakami marries the strange and mundane with his usual precision in After Dark. Before dawn she will have met a trombonist, Takahashi, as well as Kaoru, the tough blond manager of a local love hotel, where a Chinese prostitute is beaten up by a mysterious man. Meanwhile, Mari's sister Eri is asleep, as she has been for the last two months, and something very strange is happening in her bedroom. An unplugged television set sparks to life, showing a room where a man sits wearing a cellophane mask.

After Dark, Murakami’s latest novel, is a streamlined, hushed ensemble piece built on the notion that very late at night, after the lamps of logic have been snuffed and rationality has shut its eyes, life on earth becomes boundariless and blurred. Individuals who were separate during the day begin to lose uniqueness, to leak distinctiveness, melting into a soft psychic collective.

Murakami writes with admirable discipline, producing ten pages a day, after which he runs ten kilometres (he began long-distance running in 1982 and has participated in numerous marathons and races), works on translations, and then reads, listens to records and cooks.

great story by Haruki Murakami. As always very intriguing

Samulkree

Imagine if you were a non-human observing people's conversations and interactions in the overnight hours in downtown Tokyo. After Dark's first-person plural narration creates the sense that we are this type of observer, blending the mundane with a metaphysical surrealism.

Mari is spending the night away from home, where her beautiful older sister had been in a state of prolonged sleep for two months. While downtown between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m., Mari crosses paths with a cast of interesting people, each isolated and lonely in their own way, in a Denny's and a nearby "love hotel."

Meanwhile, the short chapters switch between the characters who are awake and Mari's sister, Esi Ari; it's these chapters where Murakami's signature surrealism comes into play: Esi Ari seems to transcend the boundaries of the world as we know it, all while in her deep sleep.

After Dark is a strange and bewitching meditation on temporality and dualism: as Mari discusses her sister with a man she meets, she alludes more than once to them living "different lives," and the omnipresent narrator observes that each human being is "simultaneously a self-contained whole and a mere part." Of course, there's also the duality of night and day, and a sense that certain events could only ever take place in the former.

As with much of Murakami's fiction, there's an elusiveness to After Dark. Sometimes that can be frustrating, but in such an ephemeral, dreamlike setting (and with a relatively low page count) it mostly works. I read this one for a book club and am really looking forward to hearing how everyone interpreted it.

EXIBUZYW

After Dark is a quick and interesting read that unfurls over the course of one night. We get a glimpse into the lives of people who work, play, or party when most people sleep. The time between dusk and dawn is explored as a metaphor on many levels, in several ways. It gives the reader a lot to think about and reflect upon.

I loved the storyline with Mari (19 yr old student) and Takahashi (a trombone player in a band). They share a connection through Mari’s sister, Eri, who is in a deep and possibly dark sleep. I didn’t not like the unseen observer “point of view” narration in the Eri storyline. I found it distracting. I did enjoy the cast of “night people” encountered throughout the story.

Two quotes that state what the book tries to capture are:

“The new day is almost here, but the old one is still dragging its heavy skirts. Just as ocean water in the river water struggle against each other at a river mouth, the old time and the new time clash blend. He is unable to tell for sure which side, which world, contains his center of gravity.”

“It could be a day like all others, or could be a day remarkable enough in many ways to remain in the memory. In either case, for now, for most people, it is a blank sheet of paper.”

Not my favorite Murakami book, but it certainly caused me to pause and pay closer attention to the world/people around me.

Dainris

"After Dark" was a selection made in preparation for my travels around Japan. The criteria – contemporary Japanese literature by a Japanese writer set in modern Japan. I’ve enjoyed a number of historical novels set in Japan during war times but wanted this selection to convey Japan in its current state; how else could I experience the sense of déjà vu when actually in the country? Set in Tokyo between the hours of 11:56pm and 6:52am, "After Dark" is filled with metaphor and symbolism on awareness – of self, others and surroundings. This thematic landscape allows Murakami to explore, on various levels, the extent to which people are “awake”. The novel is narrated by Consciousness with a pace and tone reminiscent of the narrator from the Twilight Zone. The dialogue is as believable as its characters. I enjoyed this trippy walk through the characters’ state of mind and mindfulness. "He is considering aspects of the interrelationship of thought and action.", observes the story’s narrator of a character’s thoughts while he’s eating breakfast. I'm still mulling over that observation and many more from the novel.

"After Dark" is a contemplative exploration that didn’t necessarily provide the sense of déjà vu that I typically experience when traveling to a country that I’ve explored through some of its literature. In completing the book, I found that the sense of familiarity I experienced was not connected to any place visited, food eaten, or excursion taken; but through the introspection of the character and the observations of the story’s narrator. This was a good selection. Highly Recommended.