After Dark / by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami is a widely-publicized Japanese author whose works reflect a penchant for western tradition. In After Dark, he explores the theme of urban alienation through several disassociated youths amidst the witching hours of a Tokyo night.

To cite a western pundit's definition of 'metropolis' would be too small. "[Tokyo] is an urban creature. . . a single collective entity created by many intertwining organisms. " (p. 3). Near midnight in a city diner sits Mari reading alone until approached by Takahachi, a once-acquaintance who strikes up a conversation. Meanwhile across town, Mari's sister Eri lies asleep--deeply asleep--monitored by a mysterious guardian-presence manifested through an almost dreamlike trance. As the story's events unravel new characters are introduced--night people whose grim occupations highlight a nocturnal stream of consciousness and whose actions inadvertently accentuate Mari and Eri.

More of a post-modern montage than fantasy or horror, the story exists in both reality and dreams providing an almost metaphysical quality underscoring the action. Eri never speaks and yet is 'spoken through' by rehashed memories just as Mari's perspective--though never blatantly stated--is understood by the end.