‘Time moves in its own special way in the middle of the night,’ a bartender says in Haruki Murakami’s eerie new novel. And it’s not just time that can seem out of joint during the witching hours, Murakami suggests. After Dark explores the ways in which the night can heighten our sense of isolation, and threaten our conception of reality. It’s also an engrossing story and an easy read, yet another example of the much-admired Japanese author’s skill in couching challenging, intricate themes within beguilingly simple narratives.
The story centres on the lives of two young sisters over the course of one night in Tokyo, between midnight and daybreak. One, Eri Asai, is sleeping a ‘too pure, too perfect’ sleep, and has been for months. She seems to be suffering from hikikomori, the peculiarly Japanese form of hermitry that sees thousands choosing to withdraw entirely from social life. In fact, all of the characters in After Dark have isolated themselves to some extent, and much of the plot is driven by their attempts to re-engage with the world around them, or their refusal to do so. Eri’s sister, Mari, meets a jazz trombonist whose troubled upbringing has left him struggling to communicate with anyone but his instrument. Mari is asked to help a Chinese prostitute isolated from everyone around her by the language barrier and by the viciousness of her job. The prostitute has been beaten up by a Japanese businessman who works all night long to avoid being with his family. Mari herself spends the night away from home because she can no longer bear to watch her sister sleeping her appallingly deep sleep. Alienation is one of Murakami’s most enduring themes, and it is explored in depth here.
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