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With
over twelve million people crammed into its environs, Tokyo
is one of the most bustling cities in the world. With citizens
buzzing through its efficient, albeit crowded, mass transit
systems to towering glass and steel skyscrapers and businesses
of mass consumerism, one would think that the city itself
would go on nonstop 24 hours a day—and it does. This
is the primary background of Haruki Murakami's eleventh novel,
After Dark, which focuses on the denizens of Tokyo's
nightlife: Chinese gangsters, illegal immigrant prostitutes,
and workers at sleazy hotels, those individuals unable or
nearly unable to operate during the daylight hours when the
mass of Tokyo's population is awake.
One of
these individuals is Mari, a quiet, serious girl first seen
when she is holed up inside a Denny's, reading a massive book
quite unlike the books that most girls her age would be reading.
There she encounters college student and jazz trombonist Takahashi,
who remembers Mari from years before when he and a friend
went on a double date with Mari and her elder sister Eri.
The two strike up an uneven conversation in which, besides
learning of Takahashi's love for Denny's chicken salad and
nearly burnt toast, the readers learn that Mari had been unable
to assimilate herself to the cutthroat world of the Japanese
education system and had gone to a Chinese school where she
nearly became fluent in the language. It is this aspect of
Mari—this "otherness" about her—that eventually
brings others to her.
A number
of Murakami's fans are critical of this short novel because
of the lack of a central point of view. In most of Murakami's
works, the protagonist is "Boku," a masculine personal pronoun
for "I," who is quite withdrawn from society but still able
to incorporate himself enough within it to survive. Through
this "Boku" filter, the reader is able to absorb Murakami's
literary world, and while all questions are not easily answered,
there at least seems to be some closure to these works.
After
Dark not only fails to offer a "Boku," but also fails
to offer closure. Who is the masked man looking at the slumbering
figure of Eri Asai? What will eventually happen to Shirakawa,
the office worker who severely beat a Chinese prostitute because
her period started just before they had intercourse? These,
among other questions, are left unanswered. The novel has
an unfinished or rushed quality to it, with seemingly unnecessary
threads, such as the love hotel and Shirakawa, being stuck
in a state of perpetual unraveling.
Yet,
it is this unraveling that makes After Dark a fascinating
read. After Dark goes against formulaic novels which
end happily or unhappily, neatly or semi-neatly. It leaves
most of the mysteries intact, just as one is unaware of what
becomes of others passed in the night or individuals with
whom one shares his or her secrets on a plane trip. Murakami
is very distant from his readers within the pages of this
book, as if he is trying to create a membrane between himself
and the text in order to keep his audience from reading too
much of the author into the book while exploring the denizens
of the night that appear after one has gone to sleep.
While
this technique of Murakami's might not seem overly effective
at first, it is showing a writer who is now close to 60 years
old changing his writing style and the characters within his
books. Here, Murakami continues to challenge himself and his
readers. Without Boku, the reader is without a guide and left
to figure out things for him or herself. Murakami wants his
readers to learn from his books, but he is not going to spoon
feed them—he is only is there to give them that first
push in the right direction.
While
not one of Murakami's best works, After Dark is evidence
of the growth of a writer who has already been writing for
a quarter of a century. While it might be a bumpy ride at
first, hopefully After Dark will lead to some quite
promising and rewarding works of fiction in the future.
(March,
2008)
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