After Dark
by Haruki Murakami
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Book Summary Information
Author: Haruki MurakamiEdition: Paperback
Published: 2007-01-01
ISBN: 0739489062
Publisher: ALFRED A KNOPF
Book Reviews of After Dark
Book Review: Interesting Experiment for Modern Fable
Summary: 4 Stars
The reason I read this book was because of previous reviews and how After Dark was being portrayed as an innovative novel that is able to incorporate music into the story to act almost as a built in soundtrack for the novel. Since this is something I've been doing in my own writing, I wanted to see how it was handled by Mr. Murakami.
After Dark is the story of two sisters Mari and Eri Asai and their activities as they travel through one night of their lives. We are guided through the novel by the omniscient voice of the author or is it the director of a movie? Because the book flows like a movie. Mari's story starts out a Denny's where she's planning on staying for the night, studying, but she is interrupted by a friend of her sister's who recognizes her. This interruption leads to Mari finding life in the night. Eri's story is more sedate, more like the telling of a fable, Sleeping Beauty to be exact. She announces one night to her family that's she's tired and is going to sleep for a while and that's where we find her, asleep. But it is not sleep without dreaming or is it something more? Is she being watched over by some unseen person? This is the central juxtaposition of the novel while one sleeps in beauty, one witnesses the raw truths of the night in the neon wilderness. While the narrator may seem to focus on the bathetic, the ordinary aspects of life, the perspective isn't ordinary. The telling of the tale isn`t ordinary, it has a dreamlike quality that holds your interest throughout the book, it is novel.
As for the experimental aspects of providing a soundtrack for the novel, it was nothing more than the third person narrator mentioning a song playing in the background at the Denny's or on the street, or in a bar. This doesn't seem any more innovative than what other writers have been doing using pop culture references like mentioning songs, or even trying to give their readers a feel for the music through humming in the background or playing on a jukebox. This is an interesting experiment in writing and there is a subtle complexity, but the writing appears effortless and allows the reader to drift along with the flow of the story.
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