As promised, here is the next installment of our continuing series in the Murakami Haruki read-it-and-review-it challenge.
After Dark is the latest novel by Murakami Haruki to be translated into English (as of 2010, it is no longer his latest novel with the Japanese publication of the first volume of his 1Q84 trilogy. It’s also the shortest of all of Murakami’s works I’ve read to date.
The book takes place during a single night in various parts of downtown Tokyo – particularly near the Shibuya and Shinjuku districts. The entire plot of the book itself seems to be a disjointed documentary of sorts, as it follows a handful of colorful characters through an evening’s worth of late night exploits in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.
The cast of characters include a young jazz musician, a withdrawn Japanese college student who happens to be fluent in Chinese, her drop-dead gorgeous supermodel sister, a psychopathic salaryman with a taste for Chinese prostitutes and a former female pro-wrestler-come love hotel manager.
The requisite forms of your typical Murakami novel are all present in After Dark. These include but are not limited to the following:
Copious jazz references
Descriptive analysis of what the characters are eating
Inexplicable supernatural phenomenon
More jazz references
Failure of one or more characters to emotionally connect with each other
Characters have long expositions of seemingly meaningless topics
What’s different about After Dark from previous novels by Murakami is its lack of focus on one single character who drives the story in favor of focusing on several different characters and how the relate to one another. Also lacking is an “ah-ha” moment where the author reveals the true nature of the current of hidden machinations that have conspired against the story’s protagonist(s) – revealing the true nature of the complexity of the novel’s plot and resolution thereof.
The novel itself really has no definite point of resolution for the characters – much unlike other novels my Murakami. In the case of After Dark, without giving anything away to the reader, you are forced to determine the eventual outcome and meaning of what you have just read for yourself, without any solid clues from the author. This can be refreshing for some and a total turn-off for other readers. I personally fall directly in the middle of these two dichotomies.
The Good:
I enjoyed Murakami’s change-up in narrative style in this outing. The quick jumps in narrative from one character’s POV to another gave the store a cinematic feel.
I also enjoyed some of the characters – particularly Kaoru, the retired pro-wrestler, now love hotel manager. Some of the characters in the novel are rich enough in concept you’d wish Murakami would just go off on a tangent with certain characters. Hopefully, this may happen in a later novel.
The Bad
The novel meanders though its dialog much like every other Murakami novel however, there appears to be no purpose or payoff in the end for the reader when compared to other works by the author.
I was also disappointed at the failure of the author to capture anything pertinent about modern Japan. Hemingway once said that writers write what they know. Murakami came of age in the 70s and 80s and most of his literary output focuses on this period of time in modern Japan.
However, After Dark is about the hear and now. Considering how much the keitai has changed the face of Japanese social interaction and culture, I was hoping to see more of that porting of modern Japan featured in the novel.
Finally, the purpose of the novel itself seems muted compared to some of the post-modern concepts that Murakami has thrown at his readers. Takahashi, the jazz aficionado even enunciates the apparent purpose of the novel early one, stating that Tokyo itself becomes transformed late at night. This transformation is punctuated by the more supernatural goings-on in the novel. Ultimately, though, this notion of a mysterious city, transformed by nightfall is pretty cliched – even obvious.
In the End
After Dark is a fair novel by Murakami Haruki. Its probably the most vanilla work of his I have read. I would suggest it for readers new to Murakami who feel intimidated by what they may have heard about the author’s other work however, I would feel the level of disinterest the entire novel seems to invoke would driver new readers away rats from a sinking ship. In this case, I would much more likely recommend Hard Boiled Wonderland or even (gasp!) Nowegian Wood for starters.
There is much more to the book than this – particularly when you contend with and attempt to interpret the supernatural portions of the book revolving around Mari and her sister. This portion of the novel could generate endless debate in terms of symbolism and meaning. I won’t go into this here as it would probably spoil the novel but rest assured, there is some intellectual payoff for having read After Dark. However, it wasn’t as fun to read as A Wild Sheep Chase.
I often play video games and by extension of that hobby, I often read about the goings on in the video game industry. In that vein, I came across a very interesting article at Kotaku [kotaku.com] regarding the untold story of probably the worst job you could ever have in the video game industry (outside of quality assurance testing): game programmer at a Japanese software company.
Indeed... Where else?
Basically the article brings accusations, founded on comments from many anonymous software engineers working in Japan’s long-successful games industry, that its bread and butter, the engineers who build the games we play are very under paid and very overworked.
Well, anyone familiar with Japan will note that this accusation could apply to more than half the working population of Japan itself. I won’t debate that however I would like to offer some anecdotal evidence to back up some of the claims in the Kotaku article.
First however, let it be said that much has been said about the current, rapid decline in the Japanese game industry. The country that brought us Mario, Zelda, Pac-Man, Nintendo, Sega and Playstation is losing its mojo, big time. The reasons for this however are as complex as they are numerous. I won’t go off onto that tangent either (maybe in a later post) but back to that anecdote:
This is not my story – it was told to me by a dear friend who in turn had it related to him by a number of Japanese gaming industry professionals he had befriended. This story is true and may give insight as to why Japan’s gaming industry is completely, hopelessly, doomed.
The game in question
The Playstation 2 currently ranks as the best-selling video game platform of all time (in terms of worldwide sales). In 2001, the most anticipated title to be released for that platform was Metal Geal Solid 2: Sons of Liberty [wikipedia.org]. This was the then, next generation sequel to the massively successful Metal Gear game series. The game was in development for 2-3 years and has since sold millions of copies world wide.
According to the story, the entire 3D engine for the game (arguably the most complex part of the software itself) was designed and programmed by a single man. This man, a software engineer with programming kung-fu that would make Neo from the Matrix look like the people who go to the Best Buy Geek Squad for help, wrote the entire 3D game engine from scratch. Alone. No simple feat that.
As the story goes, the programmer in question was typical of the engineers featured in the Kotaku article: 60+ hour work weeks, very little pay and lots of unpaid over time. How little pay? I was told this fellow was getting paid the approximate equivalent of $27,000 US per year. This was before taxes and social security. Add to that Japan’s high cost of living and that ends up being not a lot of cheddar for a whole lot of work. I heard that this one engineer was on the verge of a nervous breakdown or at least workplace burnout.
Granted, this story is not unique to Japan’s gaming industry alone. A whole new generation in Japanese are coming of age, coping with the prospects of being terminally overworked and underpaid (sans the safety blanket guarantee of lifetime employment that their parents and grandparents had the benefit of).
This is not the only reason Japan’s gaming industry is in decline – many cultural and demographic factors play into the current downward spiral the industry is caught in. However, I’m sure the long hours and low pay for herculean efforts (that could be avoided by simply choosing not to re-invent the wheel for every game) certainly aren’t helping the situation.
Well, now that the 21st Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver are over, maybe I can stop watching prime time Olympic coverage on NBC and get back to updating this site with posts.
Congratulations to Asada Mao, Takahashi Daisuke and Kim Yu Na on taking the podium at the winter games. It’s apparent now more than ever that Asia pretty much owns the sport of figure skating if not lock or stock but at the very least the barrel.
So… Keeping with the promise that I’d plow through as many of the works of Murakami Haruki as I could stand, only to regale you, dear reader with the fruits of my accomplishments, the following is my review of Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Warning… Spoilers ahead.
This was actually the very first novel by Murakami Haruki that I attempted to read and yes, I chose to read this novel based on the name of the book alone. You have to admit, it is a pretty awesome title for a book.
Summary:
In what is essentially a deconstruction of the fabled, cliched detective noir, the book opens, like many of Murakami’s works, with the introduction of our nameless protagonist. Note that unlike the Rat Trilogy, our hero is not just some nameless Jazz aficionado, he’s a highly skilled, well paid investigator and troubleshooter. The most remarkable part of our hero is the fact that his brain has been modified – the two main hemispheres of his mind have been separated, compartmentalized in order to make him this ultimate detective. This has some interesting consequences for our hero but more on that later.
The detective is hired by a scientist who, having taken his work underground in order to avoid being discovered, to investigate some sinister form of sci-fi industrial espionage. Meanwhile, in another time and/or place, a different nameless hero traverses a wild, overgrown and broken-down wasteland, encountering many strange characters and eventually learning to read dreams from the skulls of dead animals.
Here there be spoilers:
The rub – our two nameless protagonists are one and the same. The scientist has hired our detective not to have him investigate machinations against him but in order to monitor him. It turns out the scientist was the one who implanted the experimental brain mods into our hero’s head. It also turns out that our hero is the only patient, out of many who have received this experimental surgery, who survived. His survival is attributed to a portion of the implant the scientist saw to install in the detective’s head – a consciousness within a consciousness that provides a cushion to prevent some ind of debilitating mental breakdown. The implanted consciousness contains a small, pocket world – the one containing our other protagonist. The trouble is that the wall between these two worlds has begun to deteriorate. Once failure sets in with the implant, the real world will disappear for the detective and the pocket universe within his head will take over. The rest of the novel turns into a race against time to try and prevent our hero from falling out of one world and permanently into another.
End Spoilers
Aside from some minor sci-fi inflections, Hard Boiled Wonderland starts off as a really bad, very mundane and cliched version of a detective novel. At some points within the book, the author tries somewhat ham-fistedly to channel either Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. If you’re not prepared for reading Hard Boiled Wonderland as classic detective fiction turned on its head (which is what it is), you’re probably going to hate it.
In Summary:
Someone once described this book as a Japanese-style mash-up of Raymond Chandler’s LA noir and Blade Runner. That person deserves a punch in the face. However, what Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World does resemble is an interesting mishmash of the basic trappings of a detective novel, Murakami’s penchant for detached characters in strange situations and the breakdown of reality as we know it, as found in the works of Philip K Dick. In fact, the jump in reality and duality of the book itself would be right at home within the confines of one of Dick’s sci-fi stories. The only exception is that Murakami has substituted Dick’s paranoia with Jazz and scotch and that, is pretty cool and most certainly worth a read.
One of my resolutions for this new year has been to read more. Lately, it seems like all I ever do read are blog posts and excerpts from IT publications.
That said, I’ve decided to combine this task with the ability for me to further pontificate on all things Japan by establishing the semi-official, Giant Enemy Crab 2010 Murakami Haruki Challenge.
This year, I will attempt to read or re-read all of the Murakami Haruki paperbacks I own that have been sitting on my bookshelf, gathering dust for a number of years.
I’ll post a summary and review of each novel as I finish them. In no particular order, I’m going to attempt to run the gauntlet of the following books:
Noticeably absent from this list is Norwegian Wood, Murakami’s most well known and acclaimed work to date. I’ve had far too many people recommend this book to me and unfortunately, due to that fact alone, I won’t be reading it at this time. I know it sounds weird or contrarian but when I decide to sample an author’s work – particularly one who has written as much as Murakami, I tend to read a bunch of their other books before diving into what the collective consciousness regards as their magnum opus.
For the bonus round of the 2010 Murakami Challenge, I will either attempt to track down an English translation of Pinball 1973 or just go buy a copy of Sputnik Sweetheart from Amazon.
And for those asking, “Who is Murakami Haruki?”, here you go: [wikipedia.org]
I’ve posted here before on how Hollywood has recently set its sights on adapting any intellectual property from the world of Japanese manga and anime that it could get its hands on.
Recently however, the Japanese film industry has taken cues from Hollywood and have begun some live action film adaptation of their own.
So without further adieu, here is the trailer for the upcoming Japanese live action adaptation of the 70s anime watershed, Space Battleship Yamato:
If you’re old enough, you may remember this show called Starblazers [wikipedia.org] that aired on TV back in the late 70s which of course was simply the original Yamato anime adapted for the English speaking world.
Of note, the Japanese live action Yamato will feature eternal, Nippon bo-hunk heart-throb, Kimura Takuya [wikipedia.org] in the role of series hero, Susumu Kodai.
This of course means that, as far as the Japanese movie-going public is concerned, this film is already a guaranteed box-office smash. Space Battleship Yamato hits Japanese theaters sometime in 2010.
According to this Yahoo article [yahoo.co.jp], after operating for 29 years in Japan, Wendy’s is closing its doors for good in the Land of the Rising Sun.
As 2010 dawns, all remaining 71 Wendy’s hamburger restaurants in Japan will close their doors, leaving Japan without any Frostees for good. The prospect of living without cups of chili, extra-thick milkshakes you eat with a spoon and essentially, very cheap, America-sized hamburgers has induced what the article refers to as “Sayonara Wendy’s Fever” as hordes of Japanese have flocked to the restaurants to grab a bite to eat before they close for good.
This has actually caused Wendy’s to run out of meat to serve customers. I guess this means a lot of people had to settle for just desert.
I used to eat at the Wendy’s at JR Kyobashi Station in Osaka all of the time. The food you could get there and the overall dining experience was almost a carbon copy of what you’d find in the US (albeit augmented with the trad awesome Japanese service and sans “Biggie” sized anything).
I am certain their departure will be missed by a good portion of Japan’s expat population as alternatives to McDonald’s and Mos Burger [mos.co.jp] are now fewer and further between.
Usually at this time of year, I’d be busy embedding youtube links into this post from the annual NHK Kohaku Utagaisen [about.com].
Unfortunately, this year, it appears that NHK – the producer and broadcaster of the annual song and dance contest has decided that Youtube is bad, mmmkaaay… and has taken action to remove as much content from last night’s broadcast from the net as possible.
Welcome to 2010. Maybe one day some one or some event will drag the big media companies in Japan kicking and screaming into the 21st century – despite how much wishful thinking that may be.
With the World Series MVP award under his belt, the New York Yankee and former Yomiuri Giant, Hideki Matsui is being traded to the Anaheim Angels [mlb.com]. The trade is not yet official, barring a positive outcome of a physical for the injury-prone Matsui but if all goes well for Godzilla, he will net around $6 million for a one year stint as the DH for the Angels.
Some Angels fans might wonder what exactly they might be getting with the 35 year old Japanese slugger. Ticket sales. A massive increase in ticket revenue may be in store for the Angel’s near future. Matsui is still considered a baseball god in Japan and considering Angel stadium’s close proximity to Disneyland, I’m sure Japanese travel agencies are already writing their ad copy for their new spring vacation package deals.
