Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Le passage de la nuit

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Le passage de la nuit by Haruki Murakami

8 reviews

itspeachie's review against another edition

mysterious reflective

4.75

fallen angels atmosphere—lonely people rubbing elbows in the nebulous city underworld over the course of a single sleepless night. those surreal in-between hours that are transformed under darkness’s “thin skin,” when the secure are fast asleep and the untethered, the existential, and the ones running from their shadows pace the neon streets and sit awake in restaurants/love hotels/office buildings/empty parks. I need to see this as a film directed by 90s wong kar-wai.

Midnight is approaching, and while the peak of activity has passed, the basal metabolism that maintains life continues undiminished, producing the basso continuo of the city's moan, a monotonous sound that neither rises nor falls but is pregnant with foreboding.

Such places open secret entries into darkness in the interval between midnight and the time the sky grows light. None of our principles have any effect there. No one can predict when or where such abysses will swallow people, or when or where they will spit them out.

The new day is almost here, but the old one is still dragging its heavy skirts. Just as ocean water and river water struggle against each other at a river mouth, the old time and the new time clash and blend.

Could she be dreaming? Or is the hint of a smile on her lips the trace of a memory? 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.

The night has begun to open up at last. There will be time until the next darkness arrives.

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mewpasaurus's review against another edition

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mysterious relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Haruki Murakami has this way of writing his books in which you know the ending will probably either be a non-ending or somehow unsatisfactory, but yet we, as readers, are okay with that. After Dark is no different; the characters are neither protagonists or antagonists, they merely exist in a world that swirls around them and continues whether they do or don't participate. His books are interesting in that way; the characters are just dressing to the atmosphere or story he's trying to convey, not particularly main characters.

After Dark really focuses on the passage of time and how the city the characters move and operate during the quiet hours of deep night/early morning. There are good, bad and neutral aspects just as there are good, bad and neutral people that operate in that time span. None of their stories have resolution and they aren't supposed to. After all, it's only the passage of one night in a very busy city.

Overall, I found this enjoyable and enigmatic. It's one of the things I've always enjoyed about Murakami's work.

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koberreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I read this book twice. This is my secone time. My First read felt calm and reflective and might even annoyed the mysteries or magical realism of Murakami’s stories are yet again, surprise surprise, unanswered or simply stayed a mystery. A calm moderately dark novel that you can finish reading in 3 hr flight and after reading it, you would mostly like satisfied you read it rather than just buying on flight wifi and browisng social media again as if you cant do that on the ground or played your nitendo switch.

I read it again the 2nd time because I want something that would make me feel reflective about life especially regarding our dark side and how we all have such dark side but our darksidw is mixed with our more kinder tendicies so no one in real life is purely/mostly good or purely/most evil. We are in the middle, the gray area. We should just know how to manage it

Also read it because it is one of Murakamis writing that I can tolerate compared to his other books that are too sexual or has incest in it. Damn I know Murakmi and the writer of game of thrones like too much Sigmund Freud writings but come on.. no need to expound or put that in every book or explained in so much gross detail. Glad this one is not like that. No graphic sex here even if the setting is partly in a love hotel hahhahahah compared to other Murkamis books where the characters are not even near such a hotel but act like they are filming for “p*rnhub” hahahaha. I am okay with sex. Just dont like it if Murakami either makes it too graphic (rather watch porn than read porn if that happens) or makes it about incest again or both. Be glad that “After Dark” short novel is nothing like that

Read it if you want to know about the darkside of Human Nature and just be prepared to indulge in mysterious magical realism of Murakami that he will never explain to you. He always leaves it to you to interpret such things

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lupolucas's review against another edition

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lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

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flowerssss's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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af444af's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Have always hated open-ended endings, and this book is unfortunately one of them. Very interesting read nevertheless. An interesting approach to the idea of the universe; that it is not only made out of one, but many realities.

enlighten me, but why is there a part where Mari kissed her sister on the lips??

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vayudev's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wonderful book, definitely has this unique Murakami style, but still stands apart from his other, more similar books. I really liked it!

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marxlee's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

"It's true, though: time moves in its own special way in the middle of the night"

In this book Murakami takes us in the dark time of the day (night) with not a specific character, but with some throughout the hours. I chose to read this book because I thought it would be one thing (because I saw a review) but of course it was another, as we are talking of a Murakami work. It is not my favorite, but it isn't the worst too. A good thing about it, for me, is that it made me want to walk alone in the middle of the night, but we kind of do it with the characters, which is good.
There are three parts I'd to say some things.

1. This layer, like some kind of transparent sponge kind of thing, stands there between Eri Asai and me, and the words that come out of my mouth have to pass through it, and when that happens, the sponge sucks almost all the nutrients right out of them. She's not listening to anything I say—not really. The longer we talk, the more clearly I can see what's happening. So then the words that come out of her
mouth stop making it all the way to me. It was a very strange feeling."

" other places people describing the feeling of not being heard or seen on a conversation, but never like this and you know... I relate the most with the way the chracater chooses to describe it here and finishes with "it was a very strange feeling", because indeed it is.

2. "I do feel that I've managed to make something I could maybe call my own world... over time... little by little. And when I'm inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I'm a weak person, that I bruise easily, don't you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It's like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere."
When Mari says this, that making a world for herself probably means she's a weak person I want to disagree with her and want to tell her that some people want to make a world of their own but can't even stand the thought of it, so creating their own world would require much work and care and courage. Perhaps love too, self love.

3. "In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount."
Me, and maybe an important amount of people, should work on that. On combining your alone-stuff and your collectively-stuff.

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