Unfulfilled Darkness After... [After Dark book review]

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

My Haiku of the book:

one lone Tokyo night

lives tied together by chance

stock murakami

I'm still on the fence on this one. I first found Murakami in 1999 when I picked up a copy of an elephant vanishes while teaching English in Taiwan.

His books tend to explore the same themes, such as: loneliness, how random threads are tied together, and what lurks metaphysical darkness lurks behind reality.

After Dark is written like a neo-noir film, taking place in diners, love hotels, and empty convenience stores. The book takes place over seven hours of a Tokyo night. The chapters track the passing of time as we are are voyeurs in three stories strung together by bizarre coincidences.

As Michael Dirda describes:

At times, the novel recalls those unsettling films of Jean-Luc Godard or Michelangelo Antonioni where something dire seems always about to happen, even as attractive young people, full of anomie and confusion, meander aimlessly through an ominous urban landscape.

Murakami's literary spiderwebs remind us that, though we may not be aware of it, something profoundly disturbing sits behind the mask of reality, that we are being stalked from its other side and that we are connected to our past the same way the ground under our feet is connected to the depths of the earth, through wells and tunnels.

Overall, for someone who has read most of Murakami's work, I wasn't particularly thrilled. I have already read mirror images of the content in his other work. However, I've always enjoyed reading his books again and usually find more meaning from a second read. For the time being, I'll have to give After Dark and average rating.

Rating: (2.4/5)