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 enlarge | Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $6.74
You Save: $7.21 (52%)
New (47) Used (26) from $6.74
Avg. Customer Rating:  78 reviews
Sales Rank: 8930
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0307278735
Dewey Decimal Number: 895.635
EAN: 9780307278739
ASIN: 0307278735
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 After Dark July 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After Dark by Haruki Murakami: In Haruki Murakami's latest novel, After Dark, he tells a unique and compelling story of what goes on after midnight on the streets of Tokyo. It is a very different world from that of the daytime, with very different people. Murakami makes this clear by revealing that the rules of physics and reality don't necessarily apply.
The story begins with a young girl, Mari Asai, reading a book at Denny's after midnight, but it immediately jumps to the unusual, as Mari is greeted by a boy she hasn't seen in a while who sits opposite her and begins conversing. She admits she plans on spending the night out, doing anything other than sleeping. The boy, Tetsuya Takahashi, tells her about his late night band practices - he is a trombonist. After he leaves for his practice, a short while passes before a strange, rough looking woman comes into Denny's and walks straight up to Mari, telling her she is the manager of a love hotel and has found a beaten girl who only speaks Chinese in one of her rooms; Takahashi told her Mari speaks Chinese. So begins an adventurous - and at times dark and morbid - night.
After Dark tells of various characters who all go about their lives during the early morning hours in Tokyo, but who are intrinsically linked and will cross paths one or more times during the night. At the heart of the story is Mari and her love for her beautiful sister, to whom she is no longer close. Eri Asai was a girl born with a special beauty, but recently gave up on life and now spends her days and nights in a deep, almost catatonic sleep. But she is just one cast member whose life is affected on this particular night.
Murakami uses a floating camera narrator to take the reader everywhere and anywhere, where there are no bounds, where things are dark and scary. After Dark is a short, but haunting tale with some special characters who will stay with you long after you have closed the book and put it aside.
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 The plot was a little boring July 20, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
 another page turner but v .weak in plot & character July 12, 2008
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.
A Quiet, Simple Late Night Read July 12, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Vivid yet dream like jazz in Tokyo June 15, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
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!
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