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- Oe no Chisato- The Full Moon
- Alaalang Dilim
- A Dream Within A Dream(Edgar Allan Poe)
- Kafka on the Shore(Haruki Murakami)
- South of the Border,West of the Sun(Haruki Murakami)
- The Wind-up Bird Chronicle(Haruki Murakami)
- Norwegian Wood(Haruki Murakami)
- After Dark(Haruki Murakami)
- Audition Film Review
- Piercing(Ryu Murakami)
South of the Border,West of the Sun(Haruki Murakami)
May 24th, 2009 by heimeai
The complete review’s Review:
South of the Border, West of the Sun is an odd echo of Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (see our review), written five years earlier. In both the narrator is 37 (though in Norwegian Wood the focus is on the narrator’s university years, while in South of the Border the crisis is in the present). In both music serves as a significant backdrop — most notably, among the many tunes, the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” in the eponymous novel, and Nat King Cole’s “South of the Border” and “Star-Crossed Lovers” in the other. Women disappear from each narrator’s life, and much is left unspoken and unexplained. And there are strong autobiographical elements in both — like the narrator of this novel Murakami also ran a jazz bar, for example.
South of the Border is a novel about a midlife crisis. Hajime, the narrator is a single child, born in 1951 when there were few single children in Japan. He has a close childhood friend, Shimamoto, a girl with a partially lame leg who is also a single child. Young love does not quite blossom and they grow apart once they begin attending different junior high schools, but the connection between the two was obviously a strong one. She remains on his mind long after.
In high school Hajime has a girlfriend, Izumi; he hurts her deeply by having a wild, purely sexual affair with her cousin. He goes to college, gets a boring job, and finally gets married when he is thirty, to Yukiko. Her father offers him the chance to open his own business, and he takes it, opening first one and then a second jazz bar. It turns out that this something that he is good at, and that satisfies him.
Hajime and his wife have two daughters, and lead a fairly happy existence. But Hajime isn’t completely satisfied. For one his father-in-law has vaguely drawn him into shady businesses and then insider trading. And then there is the lingering memory of Shimamoto.
Hajime never really got her out of his mind, and he still turns (and occasionally runs after) every lame woman he encounters. Once he thought he saw her in the street and followed her, leading to a bizarre confrontation — an event that is never completely understood by him.
A magazine article about the successful jazz-bar owner leads a number of his old friends to get in touch with him again. One tells him about seeing Izumi, whose life has clearly not gone very well. And then, suddenly, Shimamoto appears in his bar.
Even then her presence is vague and unclear. She reveals little about her current situation, or what has happened to her since her youth. She fades from sight again, and reappears. Hajime is still drawn to her, and twice he goes on trips with her, putting his marriage in jeopardy. He is willing to give it all up for Shimamoto, but she has other sacrifices in mind.
Love is lost, time can not be regained. The past is done with, even if it haunts us. Eventually the midlife crisis is resolved: Hajime knows what he has to do.
When he was young the mysterious promise of what is “South of the Border” fascinated him. Eventually he learnt it meant nothing more than Mexico. “West of the Sun” is more elusive — Shimamoto gives the example of hysteria siberiana, an illness affecting Siberian farmers overwhelmed by the distance in and the plains of Siberia, heading off “like someone possessed” for a land west of the sun. Hajime conquers the urge and the illusion, staying in place.
A melancholy, subtle, simple and elusive story, South of the Border is not entirely successful. There is, perhaps, too little to it. The story moves forward rapidly, with only a few significant encounters and events. Murakami could have fleshed it out more. Nevertheless, it is a good, quick, and ultimately haunting read.
from:http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/murakamih/southotb.htm
Posted in Random Book Reviews | | |
