After Dark
— Not in the same league as Murakami's best work. Not that his English language publisher would have you believe that.”
- Haruki Murakami
- Vintage (2008)
I’ve been a devoted Murakami fan for years, mainly because he has always echoed and expanded my own thoughts and feelings. I came to him after a number of “classic” Japanese writers. When I was at university and Harvill released one translation after another, I hardly read anything else, including my study texts. Murakami even introduced me to his namesake Ryu – bought accidentally as a gift – who, like Haruki-san, has very little to do with literary tradition.
Times change, of course, as do people. Lately, I’ve started to feel like Julio and Tenoch in the wonderful final scene of Y Tu Mamá También. Like two old friends who, having been through a lot together, meet up after a time and suddenly find they have nothing more to say to one another.
After Dark is one of Murakami’s in-between books, like Blind Willow Sleeping Woman or After the Quake, though here we’re presented with a single story. By turns cool, kooky and ethereally atmospheric, with the sort of stuff that David Mitchell used to imitate in his early work, the book is full of the usual Murakami charm. Yet against expectations of something more than ‘the usual’, it offers little in the way of substance, being on the whole rather slight and inconsequential.
Aside from any mixed feelings about After Dark, Murakami is now a commercially important author on the Vintage roster. Unfortunately, that means his oeuvre is prone to being fetishized and turned into marketable products, utilising the naff artwork of monochrome Japanese waifs, mock brush paintings and crap typography. Bring back the Jamie Keenan covers! And just what is the point of a Murakami Diary? Whatever next: the Murakami Back To School Kit?
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Hello you, I'm Mike Padgett. I'm not a Princeton curator, Knoxville mayoral candidate, Kentuckian pastor or Arizona journalist, I just share the same name. In fact, I am a consultant working in user experience and information design.
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October 14th, 2008 at 22:54
[...] I recently moaned about the commercial fetishization of Haruki Murakami’s work, I can see this happening again with Natsuo Kirino. Kirino apparently has a back [...]