So, for the first chapter (marked as occurring at 11:56pm) you would start reading at 11:56pm. To add to the ambience, I’ve heard it suggested that you read the book in concurrence to the time of each chapter. There’s also a special spot on Murakami’s website dedicated to listing all the music he mentions in (most) of his books. He mentions Hall & Oates and Pet Shop Boys! I would suggest that whenever a song is mentioned, look it up on YouTube (there’s also a Spotify playlist dedicated to this) and play the song, I found it made for a more enjoyable experience, that dragged me even further into the world. The ambience and atmosphere that Murakami creates using a relaxed plot, references to music and movies, and simple - almost tired sounding - dialogue, all work to create the encompassing experience I mentioned earlier. Without further ado, we’ll hop into the 3 reasons why I think this is Murakami’s underrated masterpiece: “Time moves in a special way in the middle of the night.”

The plot is very simple, but has magical elements trademark to Murakami mixed in, adding a mysterious veil around certain scenes and causing you to question whether they are dream or reality.Īlthough I have not read every Murakami book (far from it), I think it is his most fun read, yet it still deals with issues of self-identity among other things present throughout his work. This works to help set the atmosphere of the novel, which is encompassing and magical in a nighttime way- unique to this Murakami novel alone. This novel takes place, as you would guess, after dark and has clocks at the start of each chapter indicating the time of night. This is Murakami’s attempt of bottling up the seemingly simple but infinitely complex nightlife of Tokyo. It was then translated and published in English in 2007. A fter Dark was released to the Japanese audience in 2004.

After dark murakami review