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"  Haruki Murakami&amp;#039;s characters tend to watch their lives from up high. They want to belong. They want purpose. They want love. But they&amp;#039;re too removed to get any of that on their own. So what Murakami gives them is a reality rattling so mysterious and illuminating that they&amp;#039;re literally shaken back down to earth.  The sisters at the center of Murakami&amp;#039;s latest novella, After Dark, are no exception. Over the course of a single night in Tokyo, we follow Eri and Mari as they confront their self-imposed disconnection. Eri wanders through Tokyo&amp;#039;s underbelly, meeting a female ex-wrestler and a battered Chinese prostitute. Her sister sleeps soundly at home. Too soundly, in fact -- she&amp;#039;s been asleep for two months. Yet, whether awake or asleep, these sisters share the same overwhelming ennui that all Murakami&amp;#039;s characters do. And we watch and wait as he does his thing -- tilting, shifting, reorientating them. After Dark is not Murakami&amp;#039;s best work -- there&amp;#039;s an intrusive narrator spoon-feeding meaning you&amp;#039;d prefer to find on your own. But Murakami&amp;#039;s humor and pop culture references remain, as do the underlying questions about the human condition. In another writer&amp;#039;s hands, you might feel like you&amp;#039;re back in freshman philosophy. And this is why even average Murakami is good. He&amp;#039;s not preachy or pessimistic. His stories contain questions, not absolutes. If only Nietzsche and Sartre had made questioning the meaninglessness of existence so fun. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3094/afterdark062707/>