After Dark
Thu, July 5, 2007 at 07:07PM 
After Dark
Written by: Haruki Murakami
Read by: Judy Bennett
Translated from Japanese by Jay Rubin
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Price: £19.99 Audio CD
“11.56pm. Eyes mark the shape of the city. From the eyes of a high-flying night bird, we take the scene from the air.”
Haruki Murikami takes us to a Tokyo coffee shop with awe inspiring observations. It’s just before midnight as we fall from the ether to gaze at a young woman called Mari. She’s smoking and reading a book; waiting for dawn.
Judy Bennett’s pleasant voice plays our nameless narrator. She unfolds the night before us, the introductory jazz tones still ringing pleasantly in my ears.
Mari is interrupted by a trombonist called Takahashi who recognises her and knows her sister Eri. We later learn that Eri is has been asleep for two months. Like a voyeur we enter her bedroom to watch Eri sleep. We see her television supernaturally switch itself on, and then suck her into its identical room within.
Murakami compares the world of coffee shops and love hotels with Eri’s parallel universe. The what is, and the what could be. Eri tries to escape to what Mari is trying to escape from.
We listen in on Takahashi and Mari’s conversation, leaning in like gossip mongers. They’d met a few years ago; Takahashi was taken with Mari’s beautiful sister. While Eri grew to rely on her beauty, Mari went to a Chinese school, thus learning to speak Chinese fluently. Takahashi calls on her knowledge to help a friend, Kaoru, the manager of a love hotel called Alphaville.
Kaoru ’s ‘voice’ is superb! She reminded me of an East End market trader; brash and tough. A Chinese prostitute is been beaten up by a businessman we actually meet later in the story. He leaves the girl battered, taking her clothes and belongings with him, he also doesn’t pay the room bill.
Judy Bennett reads Murakmi’s descriptive narrative without imposing her own presence. Each of the characters are dynamic. Nothing can accentuate the perfection of Murakami’s story telling. But Bennett does complement it.
Murakami is addictive. If you want more…
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