Some great lines from After Dark

This was my first Haruki Murukami. I've known about his him for a while, chiefly because of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but I've been interested in him more since PRI's The World ran a story about the extreme devotion of his fans. Some even write him letters asking him for advice. This confuses him but he answers them.

I liked this book, especially any scene that involves Mari, a 19 year old student who speaks Chinese. She's a strangely passive choice for a narrator but she works and I love the conversations she gets into with Takahashi (a young jazz musician who clearly likes her), Kaoru (the manager of a love hotel called Alphaville-Godard references are intentional-who seeks Mari's help with a beaten Chinese prostitute and illegal immigrant) and Korogi (a worker at the hotel on the run from vague but sinister villains.) The story also follows Mari's sister who is in some kind of metaphysical sleep and-possibly?-is having her soul sucked out through her (unplugged) television and it seems to be going to the office of the businessman who beat the prostitute. Yeah, that part was not very clear to me at all. Mari's sister is a model named Eri.

The thing about Mari is that she's so impassive in her interactions with others, it's easy to mistake her as disdainful, particularly in her first interaction with Takahashi-by the way, if everything in the novel was as strangely compelling as his conversation with her about Denny's menu, the book would have been a home run. She's just not disdainful though, she's just...I'm not sure. Weighed down by worries: why do others want to interact with her, are they trying to get to her pretty sister, why won't her sister wake up, how is she going to summon the courage to leave on her exchange program to China next week.

I really liked the way the intimacy of the late night/early morning hours sparked the deep metaphysical conversations between near or utter strangers. I fear the meaning of the book might be largely beyond me but part of it seems to be the intimacy engendered by the dark. Something about memory. Uhm, I don't think I totally got it but I liked it even if I'm not yet ready to embrace the cult of Murukami.

Some lines I liked:

Korugi stands there holding the remote control.

"You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking, 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction-they're all just fuel."

Korugi nods to herself. Then she goes on:

"You know, I think if I didn't have that fuel, if I didn't have these memory drawers inside me, I would've snapped a long time ago. I would've curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. I would have curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. It's because I can pull the memories out of the drawers when I have to-the important ones and the useless ones-that I can go on living this nightmare of a life. I might think I can't take it anymore, that I can't go on anymore, but one way or another I get past that." 

Takahashi leaves a convenience store at 5:24 am (part of the literary device is the precise marking of time between midnight and 7am):

The new day is almost here, but the old one is still dragging its heavy skirts. Just as ocean water and river water struggle against each other at a river mouth, the old time and the new time clash and blend. Takahashi is unable to tell for sure which side-which world-contains his center of gravity.

It's funny how you can watch a movie or read a book and know that it's intended for you to care about what is happening, but you just don't (I'm thinking about the movie "Crazy Heart" which I just watched this weekend.) And on the other hand, there's this understated goodbye between Takahashi and Mari is so melancholy and touching to me:

"I don't really want to go," Mari says.

"To China?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why not?"

"Cause I'm scared."

"That's only natural," he says. "You're going to a strange, far-off place all by yourself."

"I know."

"You'll be fine, though," he says. "I know ou. And I'll be waiting for you here....You're very pretty, did you know that?"

Mari looks up at Takahasi. Then she withdraws her hand from his and puts it into the pocket of her varsity jacket. her eyes drop to her feet. She is checking to make sure her yellow sneakers are still clean.

"Thanks. But I want to go home now."

"I'll write to you," he says. "A super-long letter , like in an old-fashioned novel."

"Okay," Mari says.

She goes in through the ticket gate, walks to the platform, and disappears into a waiting express train. Takahasi watches her go. Soon the departure signal sounds, the doors close, and the trains pulls away from the platform. When he loses sight of the train, Takahashi picks his instrument case up from the floor, slings the strap over his shoulder, and heads for his own station, whistling softly. The number of people moving through the station gradually increases.

6:40am:

The lavish morning light washes every corner of the world at no charge. Two young sisters sleep peacefully, their bodies pressed together in one small bed. We are probably the only ones who know that.