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After Dark

By Haruki Murakami

(307)

| Paperback | 9780099506249

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Book Description

The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. The musician has plans to rehearse with his jazz band all night, Mari is equally unconcerned anContinue

The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. The musician has plans to rehearse with his jazz band all night, Mari is equally unconcerned and content to read, smoke and drink coffee until dawn. They realise they've been acquainted through Eri, Mari's beautiful sister. The musician soon leaves with a promise to return. Shortly afterwards Mari will be interrupted a second time by a girl from the Alphaville Hotel; a Chinese prostitute has been hurt by a client, the girl has heard Mari speaks fluent Chinese and requests her help.Meanwhile Eri is at home and sleeps a deep, heavy sleep that is 'too perfect, too pure' to be normal; pulse and respiration at the lowest required level. She has been in this soporific state for two months; Eri has become the classic myth - a sleeping beauty. But tonight as the digital clock displays 00:00 a faint electrical crackle is perceptible, a hint of life flickers across the TV screen, though the television's plug has been pulled. Murakami, acclaimed master of the surreal, returns with a stunning new novel, where the familiar can become unfamiliar after midnight, even to those that thrive in small hours. With "After Dark" we journey beyond the twilight. Strange nocturnal happenings, or a trick of the night?

Critics

  • After Dark

    La trama e le recensioni di After Dark, romanzo di Murakami Haruki edito da Einaudi. Tokyo, un quartiere che inizia a vivere quando cala il buio, strade dove le insegne di bar e night club restano accese fino all'alba. Dalla mezzanotte alle sette del ... (read full critics)

    Qlibri published on Thu, 25 Nov 2010

  • Night of the living dead

    After Dark by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin 191pp, Harvill, £15.99 The night needs to be re-enchanted. So in the nocturnal milieu of Tokyo's 24-hour cafes and love hotels, Haruki Murakami's new novel makes an eerie metaphysical wager. As t ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

10 Reviews

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  • 1 person find this helpful

    I feel bad for the (U.S.) English readers because this book is just too simplistic and silly when read in English.

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    Sweet Sesame said on May 23, 2011 | Add your feedback

  • "The night has begun to open up at last. There will be time until the next darkness arrives."

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    rafsan said on May 25, 2011 | Add your feedback

  • Like reading modern art ...

    ... exactly like one of a previous comments, but to be read in a positive key.
    Amazing how one can describe that one only night and still keep you chained to the book until the end!

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    Stepad said on Dec 12, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

  • I associate it with The Catcher in the Rye written by J. D. Salinger. Certainly, the latter is more classic. Both books reflect our discontent with our lives in the modern society. And, I highly recommend reading the original one written in Japanese as it transpires the breath of Tokyo more strongly ... (continue)

    I associate it with The Catcher in the Rye written by J. D. Salinger. Certainly, the latter is more classic. Both books reflect our discontent with our lives in the modern society. And, I highly recommend reading the original one written in Japanese as it transpires the breath of Tokyo more strongly. Though I read the Japanese one very slowly, it proved worthwhile to do it.

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    Mikepyl said on Apr 16, 2010 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • Everyone is haunted

    Typically Murakami. Dark and surreal. Complicated and mystrous. The strange atmosphere in the book lingers on.
    I guess what he tries to tell in the book is that everyone is haunted to some extend. Some may be haunted by the past, some may be haunted by the present. However, Marakami acknowledge ... (continue)

    Typically Murakami. Dark and surreal. Complicated and mystrous. The strange atmosphere in the book lingers on.
    I guess what he tries to tell in the book is that everyone is haunted to some extend. Some may be haunted by the past, some may be haunted by the present. However, Marakami acknowledges the importance of memory in one's life, by describing it as the 'fuel' which makes one to carry on.

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    Yao said on Oct 23, 2009 | Add your feedback

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