After Dark by Haruki Murakami

via Goodreads.com

Rated: 5/5 stars

Eyes mark the shape of the city.

– page 3, 11:56 PM

Have you ever felt that a certain book could have been written just for you? After Dark is mine. Possessive, I know, that’s how it feels but then since when has a book never been personal? It’s a quiet and observant work of art, one that just states it purpose in an understated inflection that belies its significance, its message to us.

This is my first Haruki Murakami and I have fallen in love. I’ve tried so much, struggled to express into words the soft-but-firm clinging strings of the spell that the night has cast upon me. So far, I haven’t found a short version, After Dark is the long one, and it’s come close.

Commuter trains of many colours move in all directions, transporting people from place to place. Each of those under transport is a human being with a different face and mind, and at the same time each is a nameless part of the collective entity. Each is simultaneously a part of a self-contained whole and a mere part. Handling this dualism of theirs skillfully and advantageously, they perform their morning rituals with deftness and precision: brushing teeth, shaving, tying neckties, applying lipstick.
– page 241, 6:50 AM

This fact of being an individual entity and a part of an ever morphing jigsaw puzzle of existence simultaneously, has always been on the fringes of my awareness and reading this it fills me with some contentment, now that I’ve finally seen it put in a coherent arrangement of words.

Mari has made her way through the long hours of darkness, traded many words with the night people she encountered there, and come back to where she belongs.
– page 243, 6:52 AM

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Currently reading: After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Isn’t it a beauty?

I’ve been eying this one up for a good time too. The title alone caught my attention since I’m a night animal myself. I’m at page 181 of 244, I’m not sure what to say and I mean that in a good way. I could probably gather my thoughts properly if I wrote after reading it but I’m trying to do like an in-between kind of thing.

Goodreads blurb

At its center are two sisters—Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny’s toward people whose lives are radically alien to her own: a jazz trombonist who claims they’ve met before, a burly female “love hotel” manager and her maid staff, and a Chinese prostitute savagely brutalized by a businessman. These “night people” are haunted by secrets and needs that draw them together more powerfully than the differing circumstances that might keep them apart, and it soon becomes clear that Eri’s slumber—mysteriously tied to the businessman plagued by the mark of his crime—will either restore or annihilate her.

“The Polar Express” – Aizu, Japan – Hideyuki Katagiri – Featured Photographer

A stunning glimpse of a Winter Wonderland!

PhotoBotos.com

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“The Polar Express” – Aizu, Japan – Hideyuki Katagiri – Featured Photographer

This has got to be one of the most spectacular winter photos I have ever seen.  Is that train bound for the North Pole?  I knew Japan was beautiful, but my mind would have a hard time dreaming up a more beautiful winter wonderland.  So please, take another sip of hot coco, warm up by the fire, and enjoy Hideyuki’s amazing photo. Once you have soaked it all in please visit his site at http://500px.com/hideyuki-5.

Take it away Hideyuki:

This photo was taken two years ago.  This is the first bridge over the Tadami River in Mishima, Fukushima, Japan and famous for  the  Japanese railroad.  By the way, Fukushima divides into  three areas – Aizu, Hama dori, and Naka dori.  Here in the Aizu area the nature is very special. In winter, Aizu receives the heaviest snowfall  in almost…

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