Murakami's After Dark: It's always darkest before the dawn

I never thought I’ll read another Murakami book. Kafka on the Shore was…. (I can’t say anything than curse words for that, don’t know why, but I’ll write something about it later)

I was really planning to read After Dark since I saw it on our school library, like, maybe a year (or two) ago- back when I was fangirling over Kafka on The Bookstore (because I was just planning to buy it). After I finished that abominable book, I never felt like reading Murakami again, and the copy of After Dark was gone on our library’s shelf, so I have no choice but to read Palahniuk, my Psych Professor’s favorite (the title was “Tell-All”… never really finished that one). But last Tuesday, miraculously, the After Dark book just found a way back to the shelf where it belongs! COOL! Whoever did read that for almost two years?! Checked the card to know who borrowed it, and it was just last December! 2014! The book took me only almost 25 hours to finish! It’s just a thin book!

Well, so I’ll go straight to what I read… It’s about a mysterious, almost omnipresent camera (no, maybe not omnipresent because it’s present on one place at a time, and is also the narrator) that watches the city, the busy crowd, and then a girl named Mari. She’s spending a night in a family restaurant, reading. Probably she’s planning to stay there until dawn, but an acquaintance of her sister came and recognized her. They just talked to each other about anything, mostly about Mari’s older sister- Eri, who is asleep, and ‘refuse to wake up’ as her sister thought. But then the camera checked on Eri, who is mysteriously transported to a different place. She woke up in the middle of the night just to find herself in a very strange place, into nothingness. Then she’s transported back to her room. While Mari and Takahashi (Eri’s acquaintance) talks, a lot of other things happened in the city that’s supposed to be sound asleep. A young girl is violated, another girl trying to hide from something, a man getting rid of evidences, reflections left on mirrors, bars playing jazz music and Curtis Fuller’s ‘Five Spot After Dark’ playing in my head.

I don’t think I fell in love with the book, but I still find it worth reading (and I’m also a fan of Suga Shikao, but I can't help my eyes finding errors: 'Ringo Juice' is translated as 'Bomb Juice'! WHAT THE HELL!). It is indeed dreamy, but a little horrifying, to know that some things like that really happens while our eyes are closed.The story felt like a painting by Salvador Dali, realistic but dreamy. It’s like a tour in the middle of the night, the time when ghosts are supposed to appear.