Review: Haruki Murakami - After Dark
Book 04: Haruki Murakami - After Dark
(This year's challenge is going so badly, I have no words lol)
Reading Murakami is always 'something else' and I've found it a quality that is difficult to explain to someone who has never read him. I'm sure the same is true for many other authors and maybe it speaks of my lack of knowledge about other Japanese writers or writers he could be compared with, but just from my personal point of view, Murakami is really special and really beautiful.
I should mention that by necessity, I read this as an English translation from the original Japanese. Not having read a translation in quite a while now, I have to admit there is a certain level of professional distraction there (I study translating), for example when I wonder if Murakami really set the beginning of his book in a "Denny's" or whether the translator substituted that for a Japanese chain restaurant of a similar feel in order to help the reader feel the same thing about the minimalist description as a Japanese reader would and eliminate the note of foreigness when the feel should be of a place that is totally everyday and unremarkable. I actually think I'll check how the German translator did that next time I'm in a book-store, might be some indication. But whichever it was, I did feel it was a good translation, with a nice feel for the mood and after I got used to it again, I actually forgot about the translation aspect, which I deem a good thing.
After Dark is the story a young woman, Mari, and the people she meets, interacts with and thinks about in course of a night in a Japanese metropolis. There is a young man, she vaguely knows who used to fancy her beautiful older sister, later the manager of a love hotel, a blonde and stout woman, other employees there, a young chinese prostitute, the man who beat her up and stole her clothes... All the interactions lean towards a very stark sense of realism, with dialogues and descriptions and yet, as though capturing that sense we all get at night-time, there is also something mysterious about it all. As though, after dark, it is perfectly natural to have odd and interesting conversations, meet new people and be someone slightly different than you would be during the day.
Next to to this sphere, the book also tells us about Mari's sister Eri, but here Murakami comes into fantastical and mysterious realm he is so famous for, describing scenes and occurances that can't quite and maybe might yet somehow be real somewhere.
Without going on now to reveal all the spoilers, it is really beautiful book. It's short and to the point and mysterious and beautiful and it makes me rather curious to finally pick up one of Murakami's longer works.
Other Books read by the same Author:
- Sputnik Sweetheart
- South of the Boarder, West of the Sun
- The Elephant vanishes
(This year's challenge is going so badly, I have no words lol)
Reading Murakami is always 'something else' and I've found it a quality that is difficult to explain to someone who has never read him. I'm sure the same is true for many other authors and maybe it speaks of my lack of knowledge about other Japanese writers or writers he could be compared with, but just from my personal point of view, Murakami is really special and really beautiful.
I should mention that by necessity, I read this as an English translation from the original Japanese. Not having read a translation in quite a while now, I have to admit there is a certain level of professional distraction there (I study translating), for example when I wonder if Murakami really set the beginning of his book in a "Denny's" or whether the translator substituted that for a Japanese chain restaurant of a similar feel in order to help the reader feel the same thing about the minimalist description as a Japanese reader would and eliminate the note of foreigness when the feel should be of a place that is totally everyday and unremarkable. I actually think I'll check how the German translator did that next time I'm in a book-store, might be some indication. But whichever it was, I did feel it was a good translation, with a nice feel for the mood and after I got used to it again, I actually forgot about the translation aspect, which I deem a good thing.
After Dark is the story a young woman, Mari, and the people she meets, interacts with and thinks about in course of a night in a Japanese metropolis. There is a young man, she vaguely knows who used to fancy her beautiful older sister, later the manager of a love hotel, a blonde and stout woman, other employees there, a young chinese prostitute, the man who beat her up and stole her clothes... All the interactions lean towards a very stark sense of realism, with dialogues and descriptions and yet, as though capturing that sense we all get at night-time, there is also something mysterious about it all. As though, after dark, it is perfectly natural to have odd and interesting conversations, meet new people and be someone slightly different than you would be during the day.
Next to to this sphere, the book also tells us about Mari's sister Eri, but here Murakami comes into fantastical and mysterious realm he is so famous for, describing scenes and occurances that can't quite and maybe might yet somehow be real somewhere.
Without going on now to reveal all the spoilers, it is really beautiful book. It's short and to the point and mysterious and beautiful and it makes me rather curious to finally pick up one of Murakami's longer works.
Other Books read by the same Author:
- Sputnik Sweetheart
- South of the Boarder, West of the Sun
- The Elephant vanishes