A tender painter of negative spaces

Until a friend of mine in England asked for my opinion in e-mail about Haruki Murakami's After Dark, I kept forgetting that I haven't read the novel. I've lost time and peace of mind to read a novel for many months.

TIME on August 20, 2007 carried a short article on the Murakami. One quotation in the article is worth citing here.

"Murakami is a tender painter of negative spaces."
John Updike

He is. That's why we read his works. In the blinding light of positive spaces of our secular world, I need darkness to keep my vision.