Published by Harvill Secker, 2007, softcover, 202 pages, condition: very good.
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. They realise they've been acquainted 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 p********e 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; pulse and respiration at the lowest required level. She has been in this soporfic state for two months; 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, though the television's plug has been pulled.
This really isnt a novel to be rushed. This is a novel to be savoured and appreciated, and I think this quote here captures a large part of the book:
"She reads with great concentration. Her eyes rarely move from the pages of the book- a thick hardback. A bookstore wrapper hides the title from us. Judging from her intent expression, the book might contain challenging subject matter. Far from skimming, she seems to be biting off and chewing it one line at a time.
The words and the language seem very simple, but theres much meaning here. This girl is more interested in this book than her surroundings; it is more stimulating that the people around her. The title remains hidden; its a suggestion that just because we can see the outside it doesnt necessarily mean we know what is on the inside. We can observe, and we can see, but we can never truly perceive something in its exact form. This a theme Murakami carries throughout the book.
For example, take the man who abuses the p********e in the love hotel. He seems like an ordinary man, functional, capable of going to work and able to maintain a relationship. But hidden in the depths of his ordinariness is a secret darkness, a need to hurt people. But what is the need? We never truly know. Surveillance can only tell so much. We know he speaks of a need, but whether or not that is some malevolent desire or a choice he has to make because someone has some leverage over him, we will, again, never actually know. Night-time Tokyo is captured through a camera lens; its forever gazing on the symbolic surface level of the characters existences, through which Murakami slowly begins to reveal their inner workings. But he never comes to any conclusions. We can only glimpse and peer in. As the hours approach ever closer to dawn, we see a little bit more.
