After Dark

Haruki Murakami has been described as one of the world’s most popular cult novelists. His idiosyncratic narrative style and use of the surreal have garnered him comparisons to writers such as Kurt Vonnegut and Franz Kafka, and his writing style is often classified as magical realism. Murakami’s novels often involve multiple narratives that come together, including After Dark, Kafka on the Shore, and 1Q84. After Dark mostly follows Mari Asai through Tokyo at night, but it also contains subplots, following Eri Asai struggling through a surreal sleep realm, and Shirakawa, the violent office man, whose plot has little in the way of a conclusion. Characters in Murakami’s novels often engage in long, quirky conversations about esoteric topics that help advance the novel’s themes and character development. Examples of this in After Dark include most of the chapters where Mari and Takahashi are together, Mari and Kaoru’s conversation about Alphaville and irony at the bar, and Mari’s discussion with Korogi when Korogi reveals her life’s story.

Murakami’s writing involves complex and purposely ambiguous symbolism. The meaning is often unclear, meant to elude the reader or invite multiple interpretations of the events he depicts. After Dark is riddled with cryptic events: characters’ reflections remain in mirrors after they leave, Eri gets transported “inside” a television as an enigmatic Man with No Face watches her sleep, and a web of synchronicities connects otherwise unrelated characters. The novel does not have a concrete conclusion, as is standard in Western storytelling; instead, it closes on an open-ended note, allowing the reader to imagine for themselves what comes next.

Murakami’s works are highly influenced by Western culture. In his early years as a writer, Murakami consciously rejected the Japanese ethos of community and collectivity, turning to Western ideas of individualism. Western media, mostly music, film, and literature, often plays an important thematic role in Murakami’s works. The love hotel, Alphaville, was named after a Jean-Luc Goddard film; Takahashi is a jazz devotee; and the novel’s title comes from “Five-spot After Dark,” a well-known jazz standard. Murakami has since come to terms with his rejection of Japanese values, and other stories delve deeper into Japanese history, like The Windup Bird Chronicle, 1Q84, and Killing Commendatore.