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After Dark

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After Dark

By: Haruki Murakami
Narrated by: Judy Bennett
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About this listen

 Here is a novel, set in Tokyo, of mysterious and intriguing chance encounters.

The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. The musician has plans to rehearse with his jazz band all night; Mari is equally unconcerned and content to read, smoke, and drink coffee until dawn. Then they realise they've met before through Eri, Mari's beautiful sister.

The musician soon leaves with a promise to return before dawn. Shortly afterwards, Mari will be interrupted a second time by a girl from the Alphaville Hotel - a Chinese prostitute has been hurt by a client; the girl has heard Mari speaks fluent Chinese and requests her help.

Meanwhile, Eri is at home and sleeps a deep, heavy sleep that is "too perfect, too pure" to be normal. Her pulse and respiration are at the lowest required level. She has been in this soporific state for two months. And so Eri has become the classic myth: a sleeping beauty.

But tonight, as the digital clock displays 00:00, a faint electrical crackle is perceptible, a hint of life flickers across the TV screen in Eri's room, though the television's plug has been pulled.

©2007 Haruki Murakami (P)2007 Hodder and Stoughton Audiobooks Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Magical Realism Fantasy Magic

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Critic reviews

"Darkly entertaining" ( Publishers Weekly)
"A seductive and gratifying intellectual and romantic adventure." ( Kirkus Reviews)
All stars
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It was ok, not a top-tier Murakami story and would have worked better as a short story. Narration was fine, but I've heard much better for a Murakami eg 1Q84, Wind Up Bird. If you're looking for something you can listen to in one go you could do worse I suppose.

Not one of his best

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Thoroughly enjoyable performance and story. The plot included a number of Murakami’s usual preoccupations and therefore would be a useful introduction to his narrative world. Agree that the performance took a while to warm up but I wound up enjoying her idiosyncratic delivery.

An excellent introduction to Murakami

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I like the length of this book, short and sweet. The narrator took some getting used to, but portrayed the book well.

Not a favourite, but a good listen.

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I loved it but it is far too short. It seems like the author just gave up.

Far too short.

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This book is all set on one night in Tokyo. The story takes place in a world between reality and dreams and combines the authors trademark surrealism with his fascination with alienation and loneliness. This is not his best offering in my opinion but is a very worthwhile one. If you are new to Murakami, then I would recommend starting with 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles' or 'Kafka on the Shore' as I think they are more accessible and a better introduction to the authors amazing abilities.

One Darkly Descriptive Evening

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often felt fear for what was coming next, took hope from last sentence of book

after dark/after thoughts

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I am a massive fan of Haruki but this book does not seem to be a creative narrative at the standard of his other hook. I did enjoy it though but less...
The insight of the life inside the love hotel was intriguing and new.

I did not enjoy this book as much as Haruki's othe

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I managed to complete this in one sitting on a very hot first Friday in August spent at Adaland in Turkey and at the end felt that I'd enjoyed more thrills and spills that those who'd spent the day on the water slides. I've seen this one described as a tone poem - and there is very much in the novel which stays firmly in the poetic whilst seeming just to follow passively behind the narrow narrative progression of this story. It also functions quite adequately as a screenplay with tracking and panning directions for a film camera which seems to be the narrative point of view. Ultimately, though, I soon forgot about the justification and classification of this fantastic piece of writing.....a night in Tokyo informed by Blue Note Jazz and the inflections of Jean Luc Godard - could it be more pretentious, could it be more private, could it be more enjoyable...? I don't think so.... Not the average Murakami - but then what might that be...something complete fresh within his oeuvre, perhaps as close to social realism as he is likely to get....but so different from anything else. Wonderful stuff.

From Adaland to Alphaville

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Yet again Murakami's detail to what others think tedious sets him above the rest. Great narration. Great story

Another interesting short tale

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One all night in Tokyo in company with half a dozen characters. Each wrestling with their predicament or their demons, mostly predictable enough. But all the while we are invited to see the sleeping sister move through different shades of reality or unreality. The clarity and detail of writing , the directness of the conversations and the absence of expressed emotion all make this an intriguing listen for one not versed in Japanese literature. The reading was good but perhaps overplayed the accents.

A Tokyo experience

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