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A review by emergencily
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
4.0
okay so murakami is capable of writing female characters with some amount of depth beyond stilted descriptions of their breasts and ears sometimes. thank christ!!! i thought he actually had some interesting depth to the women in this story for once, reflecting on objectification, voyeurism, and intrusion on women’s private spaces and inner worlds.
set in an unnamed entertainment district (probably shinjuku) in late night tokyo, in the weird and magical witching hours between the last train home at midnight and the first trains out at dawn. follows a small cast of separate characters, telling a snippet of a different person’s night in each chapter. all these characters are tangentially connected in some way, as ships passing in the night: a college girl who spends her overnight smoking in denny’s rather than going home; her beautiful, Snow White-like sister, unconscious in a long lasting and inexplicable sleep; the faceless man who watches her sleep in another realm behind her TV screen; a former showman-style women’s wrestler turned love hotel owner; and more.
if i can best describe the vibe of this book, it would be edward hopper’s painting “nighthawks.” to me, this is a love letter to the magic of night time in the city: the blissful autonomy of solitude in the cover of darkness; the kind of vulnerability you can only share in fleeting, nighttime encounters with people you may never see again; sitting in those ordinary places that transform into liminal spaces after dark (shoutout denny’s after midnight); and the certain knowledge that in a few hours, the sun is going to rise, and you are going to take the first train back home.
set in an unnamed entertainment district (probably shinjuku) in late night tokyo, in the weird and magical witching hours between the last train home at midnight and the first trains out at dawn. follows a small cast of separate characters, telling a snippet of a different person’s night in each chapter. all these characters are tangentially connected in some way, as ships passing in the night: a college girl who spends her overnight smoking in denny’s rather than going home; her beautiful, Snow White-like sister, unconscious in a long lasting and inexplicable sleep; the faceless man who watches her sleep in another realm behind her TV screen; a former showman-style women’s wrestler turned love hotel owner; and more.
if i can best describe the vibe of this book, it would be edward hopper’s painting “nighthawks.” to me, this is a love letter to the magic of night time in the city: the blissful autonomy of solitude in the cover of darkness; the kind of vulnerability you can only share in fleeting, nighttime encounters with people you may never see again; sitting in those ordinary places that transform into liminal spaces after dark (shoutout denny’s after midnight); and the certain knowledge that in a few hours, the sun is going to rise, and you are going to take the first train back home.