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

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: when i set out to write this, i saw that there were already 59 reviews written about this incredible book. so i won't talk too much about the plot. murakami's book forces the reader to deal with questions of loneliness, pleasure, obligations, lying, death, and love in compelling and powerful ways. as with norweigan wood, the plot is deceivingly simple. underneath the plot of the story lies an intricate web of human emotion and experience. another BRILLIANT murakami novel.

Rating:
Summary: A deeply compelling and disturbing novel
Review: "South of the Border, West of the Sun" stands among the most powerful experiences I have had this year: it is a truly unique and moving love story, an examination of sorrow and loss in all of their complexity, and it offers no easy answers. Possibly it offers no answers at all. In this work Haruki Murakami expands the inexpressable sadness and beauty of his short fiction into the scope of a novel, and in the process makes them deeper and more acute-- painfully so, in fact. "South of the Border" is an unusual book in that, despite the turbulence of the plot and the immediacy of the characters, it is neither plot- nor character-driven. That is, it is not "driven" at all; unanswered questions, unspoken secrets, and inexpressable desires are so abundant that the usual novelistic devices of tension and release, conflict and resolution, no longer apply. We are in entirely new emotional territory, and thus in this work you will find no "stürm und drang," no catharsis, nor anything so simple and heavyhanded as conventional irony. Nor, as I have said, will you find an answer. What you will find is a meditation on love and longing-- beautiful, disturbing, and profoundly meaningful. It is a sorrowful masterpiece which, in a strange echo of the narrator's own predicament, I have found impossible to forget.

Rating:
Summary: not quite as good as his others
Review: Murakami is the master of unattainable love. But the Sheep Novels and Norwegian Wood are better at getting to bottom of that emotion than this slim novel. Murakami fans will still want to read it (it is by no means BAD, just don't expect an epic), but if you are considering this as your first Murakami reading, I suggest you take a look at his other works first.

Rating:
Summary: Whew!
Review: Ever read a book or see a movie that leaves you unable to immediately follow it with another? I'm still thinking about this one weeks later. The thoughts of the main character closely parallel my own, especially along the lines of being an only child and how that somehow enables him to cause severe pain without ever intending it. He struggles with issues that are constantly with all of us, have I done the right thing? If I take this path, what will I miss down the others? How could I have done such a thing? It won't enlighten you, but it will get you thinking. Kudos to the translator! It is a beautiful book.

Rating:
Summary: PROBABLY IS A WORD YOU MAY FIND SOUTH OF THE BORDER.
Review: ...BUT NEVER, EVER WEST OF THE SUN." Imagine the disappointment of listening to music in childhood, imagining it to be something otherworldly (the lyrics are not in your own language, and you have no idea what the singer is singing about). It is almost mystical and mysterious, and you think "south of the border" must be an amazing place. The disappointment and disillusionment you must feel when you reach adulthood and realise the song is just talking about Mexico shatters any illusions you may have had in those innocent days of childhood. This is the case with the narrator of the story, who narrates a seemingly simple story of unrequited love that began with childhood friendship and afternoons listening to various music that formed the soundtrack for the rest of his life. The story is deceptive in its straightforward quality: very under-the-radar, so to speak. The narrator, Hajime, a Japanese man who owns successful jazz clubs outside of Tokyo, weaves a tale that can either be interpreted on its surface level... a love story, complete with loss and tragedy. Or it can be delved into more deeply. "South of the Border" certainly has its obvious double entendre. It can signal the beginning of a sexual awakening (it is no coincidence, either, that the main character is named Hajime-which means "beginning"). Also for the children, narrator and his friend Shimamoto, (we only ever learn her last name, which is another indicator of the wall that she kept up to shield herself from the outside world) "South of the Border" was something far off, exotic and unattainable. In a sense, this is exactly how Hajime felt about Shimamoto. He felt he lost her after they lost contact, and that love could never be equalled. Later when he discovered what "South of the Border" meant he felt like he had been deceived.

The book is filled with imagery of this sort that can conjure up many deeper meanings than are obvious. The narrator tells of his life and girlfriends he has had and how he has hurt some of them, one of them irreparably. In his life, he always returns to thoughts of Shimamoto and to the girlfriend he hurt (Izumi). Meanwhile, his life goes on. He finds that he has very little motivation for anything, and after college becomes a textbook editor, which he hates. He meets his wife, Yukiko, when he is 30, and Yukiko's father takes a liking to Hajime, which is fortuitous in that it allows him to alter the path of his professional life and open the jazz bars... but this leads to a great deal of destruction in his personal life. Shimamoto reappears after not having seen Hajime since they were young teenagers. Eventually they confess that they are still in love with one another, although Shimamoto is quite different and very mysterious. Shimamoto enters and leaves Hajime's life easily, and the reader never learns the details of her alternate life. You only discover that she has effectively turned Hajime's life upside down.

"Everyone just keeps on disappearing. Some things just vanish, like they were cut away. Others fade slowly into the mist. And all that remains is a desert."

This is a splendidly crafted novel and can appeal to the reader on many levels. (And Hajime's first girlfriend's father is a Japanese Communist dentist tennis fanatic who named the family dog Karl after Karl Marx. You will probably never see such an inventive character again in your life!)

Rating:
Summary: PROBABLY IS A WORD YOU MAY FIND SOUTH OF THE BORDER.
Review: ...BUT NEVER, EVER WEST OF THE SUN."

Imagine the disappointment of listening to music in childhood, imagining it to be something otherworldly (the lyrics are not in your own language, and you have no idea what the singer is singing about). It is almost mystical and mysterious, and you think "south of the border" must be an amazing place. The disappointment and disillusionment you must feel when you reach adulthood and realise the song is just talking about Mexico shatters any illusions you may have had in those innocent days of childhood. This is the case with the narrator of the story, who narrates a seemingly simple story of unrequited love that began with childhood friendship and afternoons listening to various music that formed the soundtrack for the rest of his life. The story is deceptive in its straightforward quality: very under-the-radar, so to speak. The narrator, Hajime, a Japanese man who owns successful jazz clubs outside of Tokyo, weaves a tale that can either be interpreted on its surface level... a love story, complete with loss and tragedy. Or it can be delved into more deeply. "South of the Border" certainly has its obvious double entendre. It can signal the beginning of a sexual awakening (it is no coincidence, either, that the main character is named Hajime-which means "beginning"). Also for the children, narrator and his friend Shimamoto, (we only ever learn her last name, which is another indicator of the wall that she kept up to shield herself from the outside world) "South of the Border" was something far off, exotic and unattainable. In a sense, this is exactly how Hajime felt about Shimamoto. He felt he lost her after they lost contact, and that love could never be equalled. Later when he discovered what "South of the Border" meant he felt like he had been deceived.

The book is filled with imagery of this sort that can conjure up many deeper meanings than are obvious. The narrator tells of his life and girlfriends he has had and how he has hurt some of them, one of them irreparably. In his life, he always returns to thoughts of Shimamoto and to the girlfriend he hurt (Izumi). Meanwhile, his life goes on. He finds that he has very little motivation for anything, and after college becomes a textbook editor, which he hates. He meets his wife, Yukiko, when he is 30, and Yukiko's father takes a liking to Hajime, which is fortuitous in that it allows him to alter the path of his professional life and open the jazz bars... but this leads to a great deal of destruction in his personal life. Shimamoto reappears after not having seen Hajime since they were young teenagers. Eventually they confess that they are still in love with one another, although Shimamoto is quite different and very mysterious. Shimamoto enters and leaves Hajime's life easily, and the reader never learns the details of her alternate life. You only discover that she has effectively turned Hajime's life upside down.

"Everyone just keeps on disappearing. Some things just vanish, like they were cut away. Others fade slowly into the mist. And all that remains is a desert."

This is a splendidly crafted novel and can appeal to the reader on many levels. (And Hajime's first girlfriend's father is a Japanese Communist dentist tennis fanatic who named the family dog Karl after Karl Marx. You will probably never see such an inventive character again in your life!)

Rating:
Summary: a successful exploration of unreleased sexuality
Review: "South of the border..." is a slow-moving and intense piece. Hajime and Hashimoto are two children in love - with desires, which could equal those of adults but which, because of the deficient power of expression due to young age, could find no release. The problem persists into their adulthood. The two find themselves separated while still at school but meet again some 25 years later, when Hajime, by then a middle-aged successful businessman with a family, struggles to come to terms with the realities of a largely unfulfilled life. After years of fantasizing about Hashimoto he finally meets her in the flesh when she unexpectedly enters one of his bars. The two pick up exactly where they left.

Moral dilemmas of all sorts in combination with life circumstances are a powerful divisive factor, of course, but is that the only reason why communication between the two characters stays largely at the level of what it was when they were children - that is essentially visual and non-verbal?

In the second part of the book Murakami explores with great perception, I think, the torments and turmoils of an unreleased sexulity, an unexpressed emotion and by extention of a relationship which is at a dead end. The reader moves slowly with Hajime through the tensions of his every conflict and through his every emotion with the speed and the power of concentration one could only expect of a T'ai chi practicioner.

Apart from all else, "South of the border..." is a wonderful, gripping and successful exploration of a mentality locked into itself and a mentality seeking expression. With great insight, the book looks into the roots of a passion between two adults, which sprang up in childhood, the childhood neither Hajime nor Hashimoto found the strength to abandon or to put behind them.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting...
Review: While considered by many Murakami afficiandos to be one of his lesser works, it remains one of my favorites. True, it lacks much of the wackiness we've come to expect from Murakami, but the end result is no less surreal. Like "Norwegian Wood," this novel is, at times, very emotional, but it has a deep psychological element that NW lacks. Like "Hard-Boiled," this novel depicts a mental struggle being carried out in the protagonist's mind - it's just more subtle. I think this novel will resonate with many men, especially those of middle-age. For all readers, however, this novel will invariably linger in your mind long after you finish it.

Rating:
Summary: Pure Murakami, and what could be better?
Review: This is a short novel by Murakami's standards (only 213 pages) and that's a shame because it's an absolutely exquisite book. I just wanted to go on reading it forever. What it is is a warm, funny, poignant, insightful portrait of a man's mid-life crisis. Although it's set in Japan, the conflicts in the story are universal. This book would be irresistable even if Murakami hadn't thrown in an exquisitely crafted mystery that will continue to haunt you long after you've finished the book. Buy it, read it. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Tale of a Japanese Baby Boomer
Review: As with the other protagonist's of Haruki Murakami's novels, there is nothing outwardly extraordinary about Hajimi, the narrator of South of the Border, West of the Sun. He was born in 1951 during "the first week of the first month of the first year of the second half of the twentieth century." Hajimi (whose name means "beginning") is an ordinary, prototypical Japanese baby boomer. He grew up in a paradisaical postwar suburb and now, in mid-life, is the owner of a trendy Tokyo jazz club, drives a BMW and dotes on his two little girls. (Hajimi is so ordinary, in fact, that, were it possible, he would have had only three-quarters of one child, the better to fit his country's demographics.)

While everything seems so right in Hajimi's world, it is, at times, so very wrong. As an only child he was something of an anomaly in both his own family and in his neighborhood. "In the world I lived in," he says, "it was an accepted idea that only children were spoiled by their parents, weak, and self-centered. This was a given--like the fact that the barometer goes down the higher up you go and the fact that cows give milk."

Murakami fans will quickly recognize the social satire masked as self-deprecation and Murakami's deadpan tone of narration, something he employs even when describing the most surreal of events. South of the Border, West of Sun, however, is Murakami's most domestic and deeply moving novel, and it resonates with dense undercurrents throughout, although it has mistakenly been called "accessible" by those who have failed to understand its deeper implications. What is gone is the peripatetic pace of A Wild Sheep Chase, the private-eye swagger of Dance Dance Dance and the cultural and historical territory covered in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Instead, we have an almost-simple tale of lost love and redemption. But not quite. Hajimi does not live his live as an outcast. He is rescued by the lovely Shimamoto, another only child with whom he forges a bond worthy of soulmates. Their relationship, however, like most relationships of adolescent origin, does not survive into adulthood and Hajimi eventually, well, gets on with life.

Shimamoto, surprisingly to Hajimi, at least, does make another appearance in Hajimi's life. With cinematic melodrama, Hajimi spots her one day, sitting on a bar stool in his club as the pianist plays "Star Crossed Lovers." Hajimi's first thought is that fate has handed him a once-in-lifetime opportunity, an extraordinary chance. He can now consummate his long-lost love and rewrite his history.

Fate, though, often deals us a less-than-perfect hand. Hajimi is now happily married and Shimamoto, although troubled, wealthy and completely unpredictable, seems to be a woman without a past.

Murakami is a master at turning a state of consciousness into an inhabited world, blurring the boundaries of inner space and external reality. Although much of this metamorphosis is representative of contemporary Japanese culture, American readers, as well, find it familiar territory. Murakami makes extensive use of Western imports and global brand names, and his genius resides in the fact that he can see and write about the universal uniqueness that "everyman" possesses. In Murakami's hands, the ordinary is the only extraordinary.

Shimamoto, however, is a reckless and free spirit and not the type one usually looks to for spiritual completion and the mystery that surrounds her is a true mystery, much in the way that Freud's cigar was simply a cigar. Yet, the signature Murakami layered meanings remain; they are just compressed into a resonant, emblematic whole rather than being exploded into bits of colored light filtered through a prism.

Hijimi, the consummate Japanese Yuppie is an easy target for Murakami. He is affluent, unfaithful in a "sort of" way ("I never slept with any one woman more than once or twice. Okay, three times tops. I never felt I was having an affair with a capital 'A'."), and he indulges in a complacent routine of lap-swimming, child-chauffeuring and gourmet grocery shopping. And when this routine is threatened, we feel threatened as well.

Ironically, it is Hajimi's wife who provides the closure he is seeking but not in exactly the way he was thinking about. Yukkio's plump, serene domesticity contains a private hell he'd never suspected but one that provides the key to life in the earthly paradise of the here-and-now.

Those who think this book represents a lighter version of Murakami should read it again...or take a deeper look at their own lives. South of Border, West of the Sun may just be Haruki Murakami at his very best.