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A review by danielkallin04
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
4.0
After Dark is refreshingly short after the labyrinthine epic that was The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. However, with the amount of weight Murakami places into each and every word, After Dark feels just as brimming with meaning -even if the stories are simpler and more to the point.
After Dark's triumph comes from the way Murakami writes it as a film screenplay trapped in novel form. The eyes of the narrator, and us, are the camera. In a way all books can be read like that, but Murakami's persistent mentioning of the fact makes After Dark feel like a lonely, yet somewhat gritty, 90s indie film. And, more importantly, he makes the act of reading these character's private conversations and secrets, and watching them sleep, seem a lot more perverse than when I've read the same thing without being called out by the narrator on it.
One sister sleeps, the other talks. Neither know that they have our full attention over the course of five long hours of night. The final pages of the novel, only ruined in their beauty by our ceaseless watchful eyes: the book only truly begins once they cease.
After Dark's triumph comes from the way Murakami writes it as a film screenplay trapped in novel form. The eyes of the narrator, and us, are the camera. In a way all books can be read like that, but Murakami's persistent mentioning of the fact makes After Dark feel like a lonely, yet somewhat gritty, 90s indie film. And, more importantly, he makes the act of reading these character's private conversations and secrets, and watching them sleep, seem a lot more perverse than when I've read the same thing without being called out by the narrator on it.
One sister sleeps, the other talks. Neither know that they have our full attention over the course of five long hours of night. The final pages of the novel, only ruined in their beauty by our ceaseless watchful eyes: the book only truly begins once they cease.