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Title: After Dark
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Manufacturer: Knopf
List Price: $22.95
Our Price: $12.94
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| Customer Reviews: |
| After Dark by Knopf The plot was a little boring | | The book looked interesting, but when I began to read it, I became bored with it. I found there wasn't really any plot. It was just a bunch of conversations composed into one book. It certainly wasn't worth what I paid for it. | | After Dark by Knopf another page turner but v .weak in plot & character | | Nothing new in this one. Sleeping beauty Eri is an OK symbol for Japan, and the equally pretty but poor and abused Chinese hooker does an equivalent job for her nation I suppose. I prefer the treatment of the Japan-China issue in his masterpiece Wind-Up Bird, of course, and the memory of characters like lieutenant Mamiya or Yumiyoshi makes the ones of this novel seem too thin. Pages turn fast as usual with M., but this time a lot less startingly. Very good job of the night hours as a plot device (a la Jarmusch's Night on Earth) and really great that Jay Rubin is back as translator, after less fortunate attempts by others. Still, two stars only for such an obvious quickie. Please M.H. don't become a brand; stay a real writer. | | After Dark by Knopf A Quiet, Simple Late Night Read | Sure, it's not quite The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore, but it's still a simple, engaging read. I read it mostly on the train, coming home from work late at night, and the novel works well in that setting: it is, as some reviewers have already noted, like a quiet late-night jazz album, like Miles Davis. I agree with the reviewer who said it ought to be read in one sitting, during a long sleepless night.
I can see why some readers could not get into it, but I hope those who've said, "This was my first Murakami book and it will be my last" will give his other works a chance. Starting with this would be like watching Fire Walk With Me when you haven't seen Twin Peaks. | | After Dark by Knopf Vivid yet dream like jazz in Tokyo | This the first time I read anything of Haruki Murakami and what a treat. This is not your usual fiction work, nor is it quite of the absurd beautifully yet frustrating style of Kazuo Ishiguro. Like Ishiguro, Murakami seduces the reader with very real and very vivid description of people and events; so we are there completely witnessing events and picturing very real people and places in front of us. His portrayal of all is sympathetic, not too judgmental at all. The move from a normal novel like style to some sort of a camera or a documentary filming works beautifully in just reminding us not to expect answers or a closure. It feels like a "do it yourself" novel, the basic characters are laid out for us, some interesting threads for multiple plots are started, then it is really up to the reader to develop further and finish. The possibilities are endless, I finished the book three days ago and I can't stop developing ideas for it.
For people who know and love Japan, they will appreciate the subtleties of the description of the restaurants or the way food is served. The music and the Jazz add to the ambiance. Enjoy!
| | After Dark by Knopf read it in real time | | The downside: this is no Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It's still one of the best new books I've read this year, as you would expect from Murakami. I read it on a long flight and came up blinking at the sunlight at the end, with that feeling that reality shifted just a bit while I was reading. It's gripping and powerful and well worth the time and money. | | After Dark by Knopf Product Description | A short, sleek novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami’s masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore.
At its center are two sisters—Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny’s toward people whose lives are radically alien to her own: a jazz trombonist who claims they’ve met before, a burly female “love hotel” manager and her maid staff, and a Chinese prostitute savagely brutalized by a businessman. These “night people” are haunted by secrets and needs that draw them together more powerfully than the differing circumstances that might keep them apart, and it soon becomes clear that Eri’s slumber—mysteriously tied to the businessman plagued by the mark of his crime—will either restore or annihilate her.
After Dark moves from mesmerizing drama to metaphysical speculation, interweaving time and space as well as memory and perspective into a seamless exploration of human agency—the interplay between self-expression and empathy, between the power of observation and the scope of compassion and love. Murakami’s trademark humor, psychological insight, and grasp of spirit and morality are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery. |
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