After Dark and Haruki Murakami

After Dark is I think the second most recent book by Murakami. Murakami is the most internationally read Japanese author. His novels often deal with dreams, unconscious impulses, cats, and a variety of bizarre-ness.

After Dark is a shorter work and a bit more spartan than his typical style. Murakami often has surreal Kafka-esque dream sequences and talking cats in his books. After Dark is a mostly straight-forward story of a girl who enjoys going out late at night and reading her book at Denny's. There is a series of tenuous connections between the book's several different plotlines but really very little happens to the protaganist Eri Asai - the girl who stays up all night long.

I won't recap the entire book but I do recommend either Kafka on the Shore or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as good introductions to his style. After finishing After Dark and most of his books I am usually a bit perplexed. Fortunately, I never feel like I missed something but rather that this confusion is part of his process and that I am intended to feel a bit out of sorts.

After Dark is a novel about duality, and alienation. The climax of the novel centers around a violent and random act. I wouldn't say it is the most satisfying book that I have read of his.

His other more recent book is a memoir called "What I Talk about When I Talk about Running." He briefly journals about his overall progress running, but mostly focuses on how running enables him to better write novels and how he came to be an author. He started out as the owner of a jazz bar, and when he heard about a writing contest he wrote and mailed in a novel. Eight months passed and he had almost completely forgotten about it when he received a large package containing the manuscript and the first place award.

He had never really considered himself a writer, but after this he considered whether he had a talent or an obligation to pursue it. At first he would write after closing the bar but after awhile he realized that he simply couldn't really write and keep the bar. He took a chance and sold the bar. His wife would work while he wrote and after a year he sent his second book to publishers. He started running because he was gaining weight from sitting at a desk instead of some sort of more physical work. He views his running as a sort of training for writing. It clears his mind and also keeps him in a habit of constantly exerting himself.

I am aiming to create that same sort of habit within myself, where I cannot help but write daily. I am sure it will always be work but if I can develop the resiliency to continue to write even on the days that I feel very little motivation to I will be happy.