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After Dark

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After Dark

By: Haruki Murakami
Narrated by: Judy Bennett
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About this listen

 Here is a novel, set in Tokyo, of mysterious and intriguing chance encounters.

The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. The musician has plans to rehearse with his jazz band all night; Mari is equally unconcerned and content to read, smoke, and drink coffee until dawn. Then they realise they've met before through Eri, Mari's beautiful sister.

The musician soon leaves with a promise to return before dawn. Shortly afterwards, Mari will be interrupted a second time by a girl from the Alphaville Hotel - a Chinese prostitute has been hurt by a client; the girl has heard Mari speaks fluent Chinese and requests her help.

Meanwhile, Eri is at home and sleeps a deep, heavy sleep that is "too perfect, too pure" to be normal. Her pulse and respiration are at the lowest required level. She has been in this soporific state for two months. And so Eri has become the classic myth: a sleeping beauty.

But tonight, as the digital clock displays 00:00, a faint electrical crackle is perceptible, a hint of life flickers across the TV screen in Eri's room, though the television's plug has been pulled.

©2007 Haruki Murakami (P)2007 Hodder and Stoughton Audiobooks Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Magical Realism Magic Fantasy

Critic Reviews

"Darkly entertaining" ( Publishers Weekly)
"A seductive and gratifying intellectual and romantic adventure." ( Kirkus Reviews)
All stars
Most relevant  
Nice short book, finished it in a day
Voice got a tad Annoying, recommend it though!

A quckie

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One of the less known novels of Murakami, "After dark" is an absolute gem of a read, an ode to the night and the weird people that live in it.

Delightfully eerie gem

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Its a short book, this one. You can't help but be drawn into the crisscrossing stories of the characters; their quirks, hobbies, and mysteries. The narrator does an excellent job adjusting her voice for each character. I've read many of Harukis books over the decade. This one stands the test of time as one of my favourites.

A thoroughly entertaining listen.

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What would possess Audible to use a woman with an English accent, who uses a cockney accent for some characters in a book written by a Japanese writer about Japan! It literally was INAudible

this is the worst narration I have ever heard

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The strange narration using a cockney accent and other "off" vocal stylings completely destroyed a simplistic Japanese narrative piece... I have no clue who in the studio thought "Hmm yup - This is a good idea"

Who OK'd this narration!?

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