So what about that sort-of-masked man? We’re left to fill in the blanks, though it seems a pretty good bet he has something to do with the depersonalization of contemporary life. Godard’s movie is hint enough.
Murakami’s metaphysics in After Dark also have a bit of the fairy tale. Who will be Eri’s prince? Or is Mari the real Sleeping Beauty, sleepwalking through life, waiting to be awakened?
These are all good questions, and the answers — I’m not telling — sit nicely on the page. Murakami is a fine short-story writer as well as a fine novelist. The middle ground he stakes out in this novelette can still make the earth move, even if it doesn’t recalibrate the universe.
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