After Dark - Haruki Murakami

 I hadn'r come across this short novel by Murakami before.   I'm very glad I did.   Firstly, of course, I like short novels and some of Murakami's others have been needlessly long.   Secondly, Murakami really embraces the possibilities of brevity in After Dark.

It's the middle of the night.   Ordinary citizens are in bed.   Those still out and about have a reason to be so.   Mari is a student who doesn't sleep much.   This is because her older sister Eri is asleep all the time and has been for months.   No one knows why.   She must be awake some of the time because she eats and looks after her personal hygiene, though nobody sees her do so.   Mari is in Denny's restaurant when she is approached by Tetsya Takahashi.   Takahashi is out and about because he plays trombone in a jazz band and night is only time they can practice.   Takahashi approaches Mari because he recognises her.   A couple of years ago he was on some sort of date with Eri and Mati tagged along.

Eri is now, as we know, asleep.   We watch her sleeping.   Murakami does this as if we are watching through a surveillance camera.   The TV is on in Eri's room.   There is interference on the TV.   It interferes with an image of a man in a chair, whose face is hidden, who appears to be watching Eri sleep.   Or is he actually in the room?   Later, Eri is the one who is on the TV.   In the other place or dimension she is awake.   She can see the man in the chair in her bedroom.   She goes out through a door in wherever it is the TV is broadcasting from.   Which somehow leads her back into her room and bed and sleep.

Back in Denny's Takahashi has gone.  Kaoru takes his place across from Mari.   In fact Takahashi has sent Kaoru to find Mari because Mari is fluent in Chinese and there is a Chinese prostitute who has been stripped and beaten at the love hotel, the Alphaville, which Kaoru manages.   The man who abused her is Shirakawa, who works the night shift at his firm fixing any IT problems.   Then he goes home and watches TV as dawn breaks and the novel ends.

It is all beautifully done.   I enjoyed After Dark as much as I enjoyed1Q84.   Strongly recommended.