After Dark by Murakami: A Surreal Night-Out
Between the time the last train leaves and the first train arrives, the place changes; it's not the same as in the daytime.
Night always remains a mystery for us humans. Even in the present age, when the art of illumination has achieved the capability to leave nothing for imagination, after the night falls, we feel that there is a warp in reality. The background of a dark sky, with the accompaniment of a pale moon, causes discomfort while we are alone. Our primal instinct starts imagining unknown forces roaming around us, and old fears start igniting, which only the break of dawn can cure. 'After Dark' is the result of the twisted wordsmithery of Murakami exploring the theme of the effect of dark hours on the human psyche.
When the midnight hour approaches Tokyo, we find Mari reading a book and sipping coffee in an all-night diner, and a young man trying to strike up a conversation. Both of them have decided to stay awake for the night for different reasons. In parallel, we also visit the happenings inside the room of Eri, her sister, who hasn't awoken from her sleep for two months. As the clock ticks and the night deepens, we find several creatures coming out in the open, and one of them injures a Chinese prostitute in Alphaville, a love hotel. Mari has to interfere. And in Eri's room, an unplugged television flickers on. We are in for a very dark night that may help us discover something new inside us while desperately waiting for the light of dawn.
After Dark is a novel in which we get plenty of Murakami. The usual density of his prose is on full display here. We will experience the chill and loneliness of a cold city night, even if we read it on a packed train during mid-noon. This precision of ambience is what strikes me first while reading any Murakami novel or short story. Even if the scene is still, we feel its ambience vibrate around us. There are elements of surrealism in the novel, but instead of the wierdly comic kind that we observe in books like Kafka On The Shore, in After Dark, we find shades of horror and a strange creepiness. We also find the abundant references to music, a narrative that happens on two levels, which finally meet, and, of course, the feline references.
The narration of the book is very unique. It uses 'we', a first-person plural narrative. The narrator is something like an un-interfering camera that can access anything without being seen. It also takes us readers to witness the scenes that it sees, describing all that we see in the minute details. This approach creates a voyeuristic impact on the narrative and adds to the creepiness of the plot. Usually, this narrator just introduces us to the setting of the scene and then just narrates the rest of the chapter in a conventional style. But when the chapter deals with the sleeping Eri and the narrator gets more involved in the narration, we feel the total impact of this technique.
Spoilers ahead.
After Dark works as a spooky horror tale and also as a metaphor in which the darkness of the night alludes to the corners of our soul that are infested with murk. Mari is the soul that has fled from her life because she's unable to face its challenges. She's living in darkness, uninterested in her surroundings. Her meeting with different characters like Takahashi, Kaoru, and others infuses an optimism that leads to the book's climax.
Eri, the sleeping sister, may be her alter ego, her hopeful side, that she has put on a long sleep. The enigmatic Man With No Face, who's intently observing her, is the throbbing violence that lurks around her and may engulf her at any moment. We see the obvious parallels between this figure and another abusive character in the story. Like other Murakami novels, After Dark is also a journey for its protagonist to know oneself and ends optimistically when the emerging dawn replaces darkness, both literally and figuratively.
I've read many reviews of After Dark that criticise its climax, saying it's too abrupt and unclear. But I felt that it followed the usual Murakami style of an optimistic end after a surreal journey. But honestly, I felt that the climax lacked any impact and was a bit convenient after all that we went through to reach it. Still, After Dark is definitely a book worth visiting.