After Dark...(4/4)

I have read the latest work of Haruki Murakami, After Dark, and it is disappointing...some critics, which are written by most likely those fans of Murakami, are commenting that the recent works of the writer like Kafka On the Shore are no longer magnificent. To me, I appraise quite much his story of 'Kafka', as I think the story is like a panorama view of the world of Murakami. However, After Dark is a bit out of the scope of the traditional beauty of words Murakami has written. The story, happening from 11:56pm to 06:52am, is a from dusk to dawn interpretation of a night, or perhaps the 'nuit blanche' of the writer. The flow of the story is plain and the elements are quite loose. I partly believe that there is some problem about the translation. Too bad that I cannot really read the original version in Japanese, but unlike other translated editions I have read for Murakami's stories, the fluency of sentences and phrases in this one is unsatisfactory. The part about the elder sister of Mari is really odd. I doubt how the original version actually writes. After all, it appears to me that After Dark is a darker side of the writer / translator that I have known so far.