![]() I disliked the way Murakami portrayed Mari and Eri is opposites of each other. Murakami seems under the belief that women are obsessed by their own breasts (if you think you are dreaming wouldn’t you pinch yourself? Slap yourself? Apparently, if you are a woman, you would likely grab your breasts). ![]() Eri meanwhile is sleeping, but her sleep is disturbed by an ominous presence. Takahashi goes on to play at some club or whatnot and Mari, who is studying Chinese, ends up helping the Chinese prostitute beaten by Shirakawa. Takahashi recognises Mari and approaches her, the two talk about fake-deep things. Set in Tokyo, this slight novel takes place over the course of a single night, rotating between four characters: we have Mari Asai, who is Not Like Other Girls™, who is spending her night reading at Denny’s, a restaurant chain, Takahashi Tetsuya, trombone player who is as dull as a brick and prone to spouting sexist comments (A girl is reading? A girl knows what a trombone is? MADNESS!), Eri, Mari’s beautiful sister who seems trapped in a realm between dreams and reality, and Shirakawa, a man who beats up a Chinese prostitute in a love hotel nearby Mari. ![]() Credit where credit’s due, Murakami certainly knows how to create and maintain a certain ambience. ![]() Having heard a lot about the genius of Murakami over the years I was excepting something a bit more out of After Dark, a novel which, at the risk of incurring the wrath of Murakami aficionados, failed to captivate me. ![]()
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