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scp871 's review for:
After Dark
by Haruki Murakami
Firstly, there is no fucking way this book is well renowned?? This book is the EPITOME of “she wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts.” I am not kidding. This book is superficial in nature. There are moments where I saw, and I felt, emotional depth to certain scenes—but then the following page immediately hit me with some stupidity like “I knew you weren’t like other girls” and “oh my sisters is so pretty and I’m so ugly”.
Secondly, this book reminds me of a very specific feeling. You know how when you used to play dolls and every play session needed some kind of “learning lesson” or “moral of the story”? Because that’s what you are taught? That everything requires a deeper meaning? Yeah. That’s how this book feels like. I fucking kid you not. All the characters trauma dump to each other, and side characters who are given some backstory, basically are the voice of reason to the protagonist(s). They go like “hmm, maybe you shouldn’t run away from your shadow, because the thing that is truly following you is a completely different thing.” And then the other character goes like “you are so right, how did I not think about that before? Thank you.” And then you put your dolls away all smug-like even though you ended the play session in a completely nonsensical way.
And the end? Maybe it’s age regression, that Mari took her clothes off, got in bed with her sister, and kissed her on the lips repeatedly…okay, it sounds very incesty, but you see, I’m trying my fucking hardest to interpret a single-faceted scene…and well, maybe I shouldn’t that. The man who wrote this had some “bisexual is so quirky and I should add some ambiguity to the end of this book because I am so dark and mysterious and deeply emotionally disturbed” thought processes going on while writing this scene. The theme of “sisterhood” felt so arbitrary to the already wacko story plot, but I did see potential: ngl, there were a few paragraphs that I could relate to regarding unnatural distance from someone you used to share ‘the same heartbeat with’…but again, you get thrown back to “WEE WOO WEE WOO, THIS BOOK IS ACTUALLY NOT THAT DEEP EXCEPT THE AUTHOR OVERUSES RHETORICAL DEVICES TO COMPENSATE FOR THAT.” His metaphors in this book are the equivalent of ‘50 shades of gray’: “his eyes were smooth and rich like chocolate or something like that”. I know that’s not how the freaking quote goes but you get my point. WACK.
Bruh. This book was lame. And don’t even get me started with Takahashi. He talks so fucking much. About absolutely fucking nothing. And he’s always talking about the pretty sister and how he thinks she’s so pretty and blah blah blah. I’d be fine if there was no substance to his character or existence, like, cool, nice…but it’s the fact that murakami actively tries to add depth to something that doesn’t have it.
Secondly, this book reminds me of a very specific feeling. You know how when you used to play dolls and every play session needed some kind of “learning lesson” or “moral of the story”? Because that’s what you are taught? That everything requires a deeper meaning? Yeah. That’s how this book feels like. I fucking kid you not. All the characters trauma dump to each other, and side characters who are given some backstory, basically are the voice of reason to the protagonist(s). They go like “hmm, maybe you shouldn’t run away from your shadow, because the thing that is truly following you is a completely different thing.” And then the other character goes like “you are so right, how did I not think about that before? Thank you.” And then you put your dolls away all smug-like even though you ended the play session in a completely nonsensical way.
And the end? Maybe it’s age regression, that Mari took her clothes off, got in bed with her sister, and kissed her on the lips repeatedly…okay, it sounds very incesty, but you see, I’m trying my fucking hardest to interpret a single-faceted scene…and well, maybe I shouldn’t that. The man who wrote this had some “bisexual is so quirky and I should add some ambiguity to the end of this book because I am so dark and mysterious and deeply emotionally disturbed” thought processes going on while writing this scene. The theme of “sisterhood” felt so arbitrary to the already wacko story plot, but I did see potential: ngl, there were a few paragraphs that I could relate to regarding unnatural distance from someone you used to share ‘the same heartbeat with’…but again, you get thrown back to “WEE WOO WEE WOO, THIS BOOK IS ACTUALLY NOT THAT DEEP EXCEPT THE AUTHOR OVERUSES RHETORICAL DEVICES TO COMPENSATE FOR THAT.” His metaphors in this book are the equivalent of ‘50 shades of gray’: “his eyes were smooth and rich like chocolate or something like that”. I know that’s not how the freaking quote goes but you get my point. WACK.
Bruh. This book was lame. And don’t even get me started with Takahashi. He talks so fucking much. About absolutely fucking nothing. And he’s always talking about the pretty sister and how he thinks she’s so pretty and blah blah blah. I’d be fine if there was no substance to his character or existence, like, cool, nice…but it’s the fact that murakami actively tries to add depth to something that doesn’t have it.