South of the Border, West of the Sun : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Murakami gets gritty
Review: It's clear that this book polarises even fans of Murakami and it is not hard to see why. Although there are some similar elements to other Murakami stories, the whole premise of this book is rather different. This is a much more traditional romance, rather gritty and hard by Murakami standards, few if any truly fantastic elements, no attempt to tie down the loose ends at the conclusion.

This novel is a retrospective by a man in his late thirties who seemingly has everything and is yet dissatisfied. This in itself may put off many readers. The book is written entirely in the first person but unlike many of MH novels, the other characters seem both more realistic and better defined. With one exception, I found the steps of the narrative quite believable.

This is not a deep look into life's inner meaning but I think it will be thought provoking to readers who can identify (at least emotionally) with the main character - there are also many references to Tokyo life which may seem meaningless to some. This combination of obstacles may limit the appeal of the book rather sharply.

I found the translation much better than Gabriel's earlier effort at MH although why oh why does Meidiya become Meijiya and Shinjuku Gyoen become Shinjuku Goen. Beats me.

For those who don't like the sex scenes, I recommend Amy Yamada.

Rating:
Summary: by far not as captivating as "norwegian wood"
Review: I'VE PICKED UP THIS BOOK SOON AFTER READING "THE NORWEGIAN WOOD" WHICH I HUGELY ENJOYED AND JUST COULDN'T PUT DOWN, SO I HAD QUITE HIGH EXPECTATIONS FROM THIS ONE, TOO. ALTHOUGH THE FIRST CHAPTERS SEEMED TO LEAD TO AN INTERESTING, EASY TO READ STORY,WITH MANY ELEMENTS THAT REMINDED ME OF "THE NORWEGIAN WOOD", BY THE TIME I WAS FINISHED WITH IT, I REALIZED THAT THIS NOVEL LACKS THE MAGIC SPELL THAT KEPT ME ENTRANCED IN "THE NORWEGIAN WOOD". THERE ARE A LOT OF UNSOLVED MYSTERIES AND LOOSE ENDS (MAINLY CONCERNING THE CHILDHOOD GIRLFRIEND WHOSE LIFE WE KNOW ALMOST NOTHING ABOUT), WHILE IN OTHER PLACES, THE STORY SEEMS TO LINGER AND THE PLOT IS VERY SLOW-PACED, MAKING THE READING A BIT TEDIOUS AND KEEPING YOU WONDER "SO, WHAT'S COMING NEXT ?". ALL THE SUSPENSE THAT BUILDS UP AMOUNTS TO NOTHING AS A LOT OF ACUTE QUESTIONS REMAIN UNANSWERED. ALTHOUGH NOT SO ENCHANTED WITH THIS BOOK, I WON'T REFRAIN FROM READING THIS AUTHOR'S OTHER WORKS BECAUSE, AFTER ALL, YOU COULD SAY MURAKAMI HAS GOT HIS UNIQUE, PARTICULAR WRITTING STYLE.

Rating:
Summary: Not Murakami's best work
Review: This is a well written book written on the first person. It is an account of the main character's life and more specifically of his romantic endavour. It is a slow and intimist story.

The narrator starts by by telling his first loves and the story goes back to the present. Because the character is given enough psychological depth, we get to understand better his frustration (the feeling that the life he lives is not his) and dilemna (following his love and true feeling or leaving his life as it is).

It is a perfectly fine book, however I wasn't grabbed by the story as I had been grabbed by other books from the same author. Part of it comes from the fact that the story line is a little flat and banal in my opinion and at times indulges in plain sentimentalism. While the characters are admirably built for the most part, the story lacks the youthful frankness of "Norwegian book" and the fantastic elements of "spoutnik Sweetheart". There are many similar themes however: remaining true to one's feeling, love for an unreachable woman, suicide and music.

Yet, I have to admit that even though I was irritated by the book I felt compelled to finish it.

Rating:
Summary: A Profoundly Moving Experience
Review: As a recent Murakami fan, I find this the most moving of all ("Dance, Dance, Dance" and "Norwegian Wood" are two others I have read). Hajime, like heros in his other works, finds himself in one moral delima after another. (Can one man fall for two women?) Murakami does not overextend himself or his hero. The viewpoint is exactly inside of Hajime for the entire book. So much so that the reader cannot help but identify with the hero. Even his moral indiscretions seem perfectly natural.

The story is full of fading memories, haunting fantasies, sudden departures, lingering guilt and suicides... spices that add flavor to a life in search of meaning. In one way, the women in Hajime's life symbolize aspects of this search and his star-crossed lover, the ultimate meaning of existence.

On a basic level, this is a straight forward love story with some blatantly hot sex. Not suitable for young children and the clinically depressed!

Rating:
Summary: affairs of the mind and the envelope
Review: I was in the process of breaking up with my ex-girlfriend when I read SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WEST OF THE SUN. I was still breaking up with her when I finished the book, an hour later.

I bought the book at a book shop one morning while on vacation in London. I went book-shopping with a girl I'd talked to on the internet with for three years. For some reason, we'd never arranged to meet until that day. We both had busy schedules.

My girlfriend was supposed to go with us. At the last minute, she decided not to go. She got angry with me. The internet girl was already waiting at the train station, I'd calculated. It was too late to call the whole thing off. So I went down to talk to her. I didn't get back to the hotel until past dinner time.

We were having cucumber sandwiches at a pub when I started reading the book. We were in the elevator up to our hotel when I finished it.

'Do you like her better than you like me?' my girlfriend kept asking, about the internet girl. 'Do you? Do you? Do you?'

'I don't know.' That was all I could say. Not the best answer, I know. I wasn't trying my best to keep her. I was in a sinister mood. Maybe it was the fact that my girlfriend had locked me out of the hotel when I returned from book-shopping.

Now, I suppose I'm far too young to feel regret as sharply as Murakami's narrator in this short novel feels it. Not being an only child, and not having any close female friends from childhood, I can't judge his narrator's transformed infatuation with Shimamoto. I can, however, say that I found it extremely believable.

Not everything in SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WEST OF THE SUN goes together perfectly, which is something of a Murakami trademark. The 'thing with the envelope of money,' as a friend of mine put it, 'is just plain freaky.'

'Like a math problem with too much information,' says my friend.

I think the 'too much information' sticks out in SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WEST OF THE SUN precisely because the rest of the book is so profoundly believable. I kind of like it that way. Murakami is drawing our eyes away from the main story for just a second, and showing us something else. It nags us, and, after awhile, we start to think that, well, maybe the 'too much information' is the 'REAL' 'POINT' of the story.

Did the narrator sleep with Shimamoto? I'm sure he doesn't even know the truth. And he's not even real.

Are the narrator's wife's suspicions justified? Or is this just an 'affair of the mind'? Either way, does it matter? Wrong is wrong, isn't it?

I like when books make me think.

I do NOT like when the way they make me think jeopardizes my health.

See, I met this internet girl again. I left Rome to see her once again. I almost caught a knife in the back from the aforementioned ex-girlfriend. I guess I would have deserved it. I was cursing Hajime all the way back to London: 'Darn it, had your story been clear-cut, I wouldn't desire such round closure in mine, and the desire for that closure wouldn't have led me to almost get STABBED.'

Oh, well. For being a little TOO loose-ended -- what with Shimamoto's TOO mysterious disappearance/death?/line of work -- it might have been a five. A nice, quick read over cucumber sandwiches and decaf lattes at any random London jazz cafe. For background music, let's go for Nat King Cole.

Rating:
Summary: Convincing portrayal of male self-justification.
Review: One thing is certain - Murakami is a master of the written word, and this translation more than does his elegant, sparse yet densely image-filled style justice. However I have yet to be convinced of his powers as a storyteller.

This book is full of subtle and tightly-wrought emotions: longing and nostalgia, love and disappointment. The central character, Hajime, is a self-justifying and selfish middle-aged man portrayed in a very honest fashion. He is relatively successful and wealthy with a lovely wife, yet he still longs for the mysterious love of his childhood, the beautiful Shimamoto. Of course, she duly appears one day at the bar of one of his fashionable jazz clubs, causing Hajime all sorts of mixed feelings. What is more, during the years they have been apart she has gone through a whole set of mysterious events of her own that are never explained, and which complicate the renewed realtionship further. To add to this the novella is haunted by the spectre of Hajime's ultimately disastrous teenage relationship with another girl, Izumi, who somehow becomes the monstrous living embodiment of all the bitterness and bad feeling of failed love affairs.

Many reviewers seem to have seen this book as a beatifully-painted tale of love lost. It would seem difficult to say this without being at least a little as self-absorbed as Hajime. This is a tale told through him, through his very lop-sided view of his own past, through his memories coloured by retrospective slef-justification. His complete lack of understanding of Izumi, his wife, and indeed ultimately Shimamoto too, show a coldness towards women that he disguises as 'love'. So this is a book about love, but only in as much as it is a tale of the lies and stories we weave around our lives that we call love. There is very little real love here.

This short work is a masterful and complex window into the subtle interplays of our own narratives of ourselves and our lives. However, perhaps because the central character is utimately a fairly empty person, and there is no real moral resolution, this has an effect on the enjoyment of the novella as story, whether one admires it as technically and emotionally-accomplished writing.

Perhaps all great writers do this to you!

Rating:
Summary: A weakly romantic story with suspense fell short
Review: After an exciting read of 'Norwegian Wood' and a disastrous 'Windup Bird Chronicle', I hesitatingly picked up 'South of the Border', as highly recommended by a friend who also recommended 'Norwegian Wood', stating 'South of the Border' is just as compelling, if not more. It is a short book, with easily read page format. The story lines are clear and somewhat compelling, however, it was disappointing the way Murakami carried them out. Hajime, a seemingly ordinary young Japanese, except being the only child of the family, had a lonely childhood with only one friend, though the ultimate attraction of his life. In Hajime's later years, several women came into the picture, including this childhood friend of his, then a stunning beauty with mystery, a girl that he had badly hurt by having sensual contact with the cousin, who later died and a girl who finally became his wife... Even the success of Hajime's career of being a yappy jazz bar owner couldn't relate him less of these women. However, these women are more or less ambiguous touches of his life, never leaving any trace of clue towards the truth, even with Murakami's contrived endeavor. The mystery about Shimamoto, the childhood friend of Hajime, shined a bit in the peak of the story line, but faded away with her disappearance in the end, without any indicator of who she was, what she did and so on, except being excessively wealthy and protected. Not that I have anything against Murakami's romantic suspense stories, but this one seemed to be a work out of absentmindedness and casual imagination. BTW, the sex scenes in the book also look absurd since they seem to be thrown in by Murakami simply trying to be exotic and eyecatching, as they don't have much to do with the whole theme of the book, let alone the possibility of being offensive to some female readers...

Rating:
Summary: lovely
Review: haruki murakami is a master of the written word ... south of the border, west of the sun is a lovely, romance ... and not in the traditional sense of the word ... or the idea ... life and love are cyclical things, coming and going and going and coming ... this book is a reverie ... and ode ... a noirish look into ourselves ... reccomended to anyone who likes to read and think at the same time ... just wonderful ...

Rating:
Summary: Not particularly interesting
Review: There are some nice elements in this novel and more than a few hauntingly elegant passages. Overall, however, I found South of the Border to be disappointing.

This is a character study in which the characters fail to captivate. The protagonist Hajime a successful bar owner who is struggling to reconcile a childhood decision to allow his one true love to slip out of his life. She reappears twenty five years later and sends his life into a tailspin.

Hajime's reflections start out interesting, but become increasingly cliched. Shimamoto, his mysterious childhood flame, briefly captured my attention but soon became tiresome; I eventually started to hope that she'd simply stop coming around.

Many of the elements that I found so captivating in Murakami's excellent Wind Up Bird Chronicle show up in this novel as well - most notably his use of multiple story lines that don't all come together by the novel's conclusion. In Chronicle I felt that these threads formed a fascinating tapestry, but in this case I simply found them distracting tangents. Hajime's business dealings with his father in law and the subplot about Izumi a former girlfriend are examples; they're neither interesting stand-alone elements, nor do they add to the story. Murakami is a brilliant author and there are some effective scenes in South of the Border, but in my opinion, this is not one of his stronger works.

Rating:
Summary: Whoa!
Review: I was first introduced to Haruki by one of my Japanese friends. She had with her one of the original Japanese to English translation of Norwegian Woods. I devoured it in a frenzy. I went back to my friend and told her that this would be my FAVORITE BOOK to date. And then she told me that Norwegian Wood is a 2 part series... but unfortunately, she didn't have it. I searched all around for the 2nd part, but that was back when there was a little copyright problem or something with the publisher (??) and it coudln't be imported into the states. So I paid (dollar amount) for both the books. A few weeks later, they started selling the books in the states for like (smaller dollar amount) a piece...haha anyhow... my point is, I really loved Norwegian Wood. So I started to devour all of Haruki's books...

...Then I found South of the Sun West of the Border. I would have to say that this book ranks right up there with Norwegian Wood. I can't say it's better. I felt Norwegian Wood was much richer than this book, but this book just tickled me in the right spots. I don't really know what it is about Haruki, but I find him refreshing from the books that they make you read in the school system.

And I gave this book to one of my friends, and he claims it was a life changing experience. He's not hooked on Haruki, too..as well as few others I've introduced the books to. Get it!