Mr. Fornnarino's English 2, Practice Quiz 23

To answer Questions 13-18, please read the following passage from Chapter 14 of Haruki Murakami’s After Dark. Choose the best responses to the prompts next to the passage. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.

“A different clock in a different place. A round electric clock hanging on the wall. The hands point to 4:31. This is the kitchen of the Shirakawa house. Collar button open, tie loosened, Shirakawa sits alone at the breakfast table, eating plain yogurt with a spoon. He scoops it directly from the plastic container to his mouth.

He is watching the small TV they keep in the kitchen. The remote control sits next to the yogurt container. The screen is showing pictures of the sea bottom. Weird deep sea creatures. Ugly ones, beautiful ones. Predators, prey. Miniature research submarine outfitted with high-tech equipment. Powerful floodlights, precision arm. The programme is called Creatures of the Deep. The sound is muted. His face expressionless, Shirakawa follows the movements on the screen while conveying spoonfuls of yogurt to his mouth. His mind, however, is thinking about other things. He is considering aspects of the interrelationship of thought and action. Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? His eyes follow the TV image, but he is actually looking at something deep inside the screen—something miles beyond the screen. He glances at the clock on the wall. The hands point to 4:33. The second hand glides its way round the dial. The world moves on continuously, without interruption. Thought and action continue to operate in concert. At least for now.” (Murakami, 187-88)

To answer Questions 18-23, please read the following passage from Chapter 18 of Haruki Murakami’s After Dark. Choose the best responses to the prompts next to the passage. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.

Chapter 18, page 244

“And as for Eri, we can see no change in either her pose or her expression. She seems totally unaware that her little sister has crawled into bed and is sleeping beside her. Eventually, Eri's small mouth does move slightly, as if in response to something. A quick trembling of the lips that lasts but an instant, perhaps a tenth of a second. Finely honed pure point of view that we are, however, we cannot overlook this movement. Our eyes take positive note of this momentary physical signal. The trembling might well be a minuscule quickening of something to come. Or it might be the barest hint of a minuscule quickening. Whatever it is, something is trying to send a sign to this side through a tiny opening in the consciousness. Such an impression comes to us with certainty.

Unimpeded by other schemes, this hint of things to come takes time to expand in the new morning light, and we attempt to watch it unobtrusively, with deep concentration. The night has begun to open up at last. There will be time until the next darkness arrives.” (Murakami, 244)

To answer Questions 24-27, please read the following book review of Haruki Murakami’s After Dark. Choose the best responses to the prompts next to the review. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.

“During her night in the city, Mari first meets Tetsuya Takahashi, a young musician who claims to have met her before when they were brought together on a double date with Mari's sister and Takahashi's friend. Mari and Takahashi subtly flirt over coffee until he heads off to late-night band practice, leaving her alone in the restaurant again. But soon after his departure, a woman named Kaoru comes in looking for Mari. Kaoru runs a "love hotel," where a Chinese prostitute has just been beaten and robbed but speaks no Japanese. She calls Takahashi for help, and he tells her he just left Mari who, coincidentally, speaks Chinese. With this, Mari is drawn into the world of the hotel and the lives of the people who work and stay there.

While Mari moves through the night, we follow her and also return back to her house to watch Eri in her sleep. As the story unfolds, we are left to unravel the connection between the individual who beat the prostitute and Eri. Is he the man in the bare room? By the end of this short novel, Mari is safely back home and has plans to leave Japan to study in China --- but her sister is still in a deep sleep. Mari is undeniably altered, learning about herself and her city and finding a new love for the sister from whom she has felt emotionally estranged for so long.”

“Review-After Dark by Haruki Murakami,” Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman on December 22, 2010 <http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/after-dark#>