[REVIEW] Haruki Murakami, After Dark
Nov. 6th, 2008 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldUntil recently, I haven't been reading much literary and/or mainstream fiction because I've been consumed by Deep Space Nine relaunch novels and their equivalents in the Next Generation universe. Yes, they're media tie-ins, but should I care about that? Discovering what happened in Bajoran space after Sisko's return, or what happened to the Enterprise and even Voyager crew after the events of Nemesis and the Starship Voyager's rapid destruction of the Borg's galactic transportation network with future technology more than does it for me.
But it isn't the only thing that does it, at least not now. One of the non-tie-in novels I've come across and read recently is Haruki Murakami's novel After Dark. It was an enjoyable enough novel, with different characters--an excessively studious young woman, a stranded and scarred amateur rock guitarist, a women trapped as a hikikomori, a beaten Chinese prostitute--all interacting over space and time, mostly not heading in any particular direction, in a way that brought to mind Robert Altman's movie Short Cuts
My problem with After Dark is that it read flatly, as flat if not flatter than some of the tie-in novels I've also been reading of late. It may be, I hope, that Murakami's literary style just doesn't appeal to me. What I'm afraid is that it might be another case of translation sapping a work of its original energy. To me Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles comes off as a novel of ideas, lacking the literary flair and style ?that I'm told characterizes Les particules élémentaires. What frustrates me here is that while I have the French that I'd need to read and at least start to appreciate the style of Les particules élémentaires, I very doubt that I'll ever acquire the Japanese language skills to appreciate After Dark in the language in which it was written and be able to judge for myself. Alas.
But it isn't the only thing that does it, at least not now. One of the non-tie-in novels I've come across and read recently is Haruki Murakami's novel After Dark. It was an enjoyable enough novel, with different characters--an excessively studious young woman, a stranded and scarred amateur rock guitarist, a women trapped as a hikikomori, a beaten Chinese prostitute--all interacting over space and time, mostly not heading in any particular direction, in a way that brought to mind Robert Altman's movie Short Cuts
My problem with After Dark is that it read flatly, as flat if not flatter than some of the tie-in novels I've also been reading of late. It may be, I hope, that Murakami's literary style just doesn't appeal to me. What I'm afraid is that it might be another case of translation sapping a work of its original energy. To me Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles comes off as a novel of ideas, lacking the literary flair and style ?that I'm told characterizes Les particules élémentaires. What frustrates me here is that while I have the French that I'd need to read and at least start to appreciate the style of Les particules élémentaires, I very doubt that I'll ever acquire the Japanese language skills to appreciate After Dark in the language in which it was written and be able to judge for myself. Alas.
