Customer Reviews

South of the Border, West of the Sun (Panther)

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Ever since I first read Murakami starting with
"Sputnik Sweetheart" I am hooked on to everything he
writes. I do not know what he does to me but everytime
I read what he writes - its like a tidal wave lashing
over me and I cannot help it. I love the feeling. I
cherish it for a long long time. South o the Border
begins with a 37-year old narrator Hajimme - the owner
of an upswanky jaz bar in Japan talking about his life
- from where it began to where it is.

A Japanese love story; indeed, a Japanese Casablanca:
it doesn't sound too promising, does it? But ignore
the blurb - they've got to get people to pick it up
after all - and dip a toe into the world of Haruki
Murakami. This is, perhaps, the perfect place to start
for newcomers - no wells; no sheep; no slightly
off-kilter worlds, just a simple, if morally complex
story exquisitely told. It's the prose stye (insert
here a discourse on the art of translation, but the
voice is Murakami) which will seduce you, not the
narrator - he is morally ambivalent, and not in a good
way. In the hands of such an accomplished writer,
however, one is easily drawn in to Hajime's world.

Hajime would like to be a good man, but he has
impulses; impulses which cause him to damage those he
loves. The simple tale revolves around his childhood
sweetheart finding him and endangering everything he's
worked for. So far, so predictable; but the way in
which Murakami teases out Hajime's character, and
faces up to the moral dilemmas without judging his
motives - they are simply laid out for us to observe -
produces a true feeling of uncertainty in the reader,
and compels you through the story wishing that both
outcomes were possible. A cunningly crafted tale,
carried off with thoughtful aplomb, and the ideal
jumping-off point for further exploration of this most
intriguing of authors.

After the translated works of Birnbaum and Rubin, it is a revelation to see how someone else translate and interpret Murakami's work (this does not mean that the writer of this review doesn't acknowledge the fantastic translations of both translators) . No doubt, Philip Gabriel has done a fantastic job with his translation of this book.

This story is about a middle-age man who in his teenage years finds and then loses the girl, only to meet her again years later. During these years he has hurted a lot of people, including himself. Now, happily married, settled and being a succesfull businessman, it's time to set things straight. Or not? When the woman he once loved (and still loves) enters his bar, things are beginning to change. Will he sacrifice everything for this woman, including his beloved wife and daugthers?

Unlike Dance, Dance, Dance or The Wind Up, this story is more down to earth. Nobody is perfect. Even if you live a happy married life. Unconditionally love doesn't exist, even when you know who you're true love is. Questions always remain and people have to accept this fact. Again Murakami succeeds in letting the readers to think and reconsider again what "life", "love" or "marriage" mean. The answers on these questions remain vague. But isn't that what is all about?

This romantic novel left me stunned, staring at the ground, picking out patterns, wondering about the consequences of everything I have done in my life. Unlike Jay Gatsby, I've never thought you could repeat the past, but that hasn't kept me from dwelling on it, pondering the wake of destruction left by my own dreams. Reading this book I felt like Hajime was at times my Japanese twin, living an unaccountably successful and comfortable life haunted by obsessions more animated than reality itself. Sometimes I fall into a trance - a girl in the car next to me reminds me of an old love, a phrase overheard takes me to a place thirty years ago - and I can't really lift myself from it for several days. My wife asks what's wrong and there's no way to explain. It's like a dream that sticks to you all day long or a name that's on the tip of your tongue all weekend but you just can't remember it. That was the experience of South of the Border, West of the Moon, a surprisingly flat and simple story with perfectly chosen oddities and enough specificity to create an unforgettable world. You know the way some short stories are exquisite jewels perfectly set? That's this book.

Odd to say, but my first reactions to Murakami were much like those I had for Samuel Beckett--I didn't quite understand what the man was up to, but he intrigued me nonetheless. With both of them I've gone out of my way to read everything they've written and hope one day to catch up. This book, the latest I've read by Murakami, I was able to approach with confidence. I still may not know what he's up to, but I think I know how to read him. What you may think of as 'plot' is more of a device to present an uncontrollable world around the narrator, a vastness of the unknown, and Murakami's characters can only deal with it without ever solving it. This novel is brilliantly emotional and spiritual, a search for what is important and necessary over what is desired. Murakami also has an amazing writing style--he sustains an emotional tension from the first word, and it never abates until the precise moment he wants it to, when there is either epiphany or despair at never reaching the former. I doubt this is good Murakami to start with--for that, I would more easily recommend _The Elephant Vanishes_ to whet your whistle, but this is a compact and highly effective book to come to later, once you're ready to sit back and listen to Murakami unwind as he sees fit.

This book reminds me of the old French song "Plaisir d'amour" - "the pleasure of love lasts but a moment, the sorrow of love lasts all one's life."

"South of the Border, West of the Sun" shares some common elements with the other Murakami fiction ("Sputnik Sweetheart", "After the Quake", "Hard-boiled Wonderland", and "The Windup Bird Chronicle") I've read so far: Self-centered men, elusive women, mysterious events. But this novel, less otherworldly than his other works, is a realistic portrayal of a failed romance. And the setting, social structure, and mores are very Japanese, in spite of the Western pop cultural content.

I have the impression that the novel is autobiographical, but whether or not that is true, Murakami conveys the emotional upheavel of a passionate extra-marital affair with great precision and insight, in spite of the barriers imposed by culture and language.

Philip Gabriel has done an excellent job with the translation. There were a couple of instances where I thought he might have made a better choice of language, but they were so minor that I didn't bother to note them. We always know we are reading a story about Japanese people, occuring in Japan, but they are real people and they speak a language we can understand. The translator seems to have erected no barriers between them and us, which is a remarkable accomplishment, given the differences between the Japanese and English languages.

"South of the Border, West of the Sun" lacks the weirdness and fantasy of Murakami's more recent novels, and will disappoint readers who like that aspect of Murakami's work, and who don't like adult love stories. But this novel easily stands comparison with the best of modern American fiction.

Highly recommended.

A worthy successor to Endo and Mishima, Murakami writes of the spoiled restlessness of Japanese Baby Boomers, unburdened by memories of their nation's near devastation. This mysterious little tale is narrated by an only child who grows up, despite his denials, to be self-absorbed and obsessed with his own powers to please or destroy women. Never mind that he has a near-perfect marriage, family, and career. The character of Shimamoto-his first love--with her inexplicable tragic appeal, is one of the most fascinating I've recently met in the pages of a novel. Likewise, the dreamy quality of the narrator's obsessions and delusions-e.g., thinking he spots Shimamoto or another damaged woman he once loved only to realize that they are not who he thinks, or that they can't see him even when he's rapping on the window of their cab. I suppose that only an Asian novel could be so spare yet haunting. When the narrator Hajime, whose name means Beginning, realizes after the fact that he was attracted to Shimamoto because the irresistible look in her eyes meant Death-well, we know we're not reading a familiar story.

What I've come to realize in reading Murakami is that closure and completeness do not exist in his world, much like they don't in our own lives. South of the Border is on the surface a simple, male-perspective romance novel. But beyond that, and what makes this so much more than that, are the language and the warmth of the characters.

What could have ultimately failed as a book, because if we break it down to its core, there is very little complexity and really, the book is just an account of a wayward soul drifting through life and remarking on his own inequities. Where this novel excels is in its celebration of the moment.

The moments Hajime sits with Shimamoto and listens to records, the briefest of moments when she brushes against him, the moments he spends with his daughters. All these moments, described in such beautiful detail make us think of our own lives and how we often forget those few seconds where the world stops and for whatever reason we can enjoy life for what it is, a series of moments.

This simple novel does something else--in a way it will skew your vision for days after reading it. Perhaps not immediately, but it will creep up on you and take hold at some point. South of the Border dispels with the idea that life can be a dream and that fanciful thoughts can in anyway replace reality.

We see that echoed in the title, the song South of the Border being so important to young Hajime and Shimamoto because at that time, without understanding the English words, that Cole was describing some magical place south of the border, some dream-like world where amazing things awaited.

Of course we find out through the characters that the song is simply about Mexico and that like life itself, this idealism the song held in their youth, was a lie. The Term West of Sun again echoes this sentiment, that strange instance where farmers forgo life to travel til dead towards the west, finding life itself empty and undoable.

Whether you are a fan of Murakami or not, you should read this book. Read it for its simplicity and then, think about the book below the surface. I think you'll find that Murakami offers here a very rewarding and fast-paced read.

Approaching middle age, with a successful career and a loving wife and family, Hajime enjoys what seems on the surface a contented life. Yet something is achingly missing; all his life, he has kindled the warm memory of his long-lost childhood sweetheart, Shimamoto, who had understood him in a way no one else ever would. Both were only children, sharing a solitary nature and a passion for books and music. When Shimamoto unexpectedly reappears in Hajime's life, his desire for her engulfs him, threatening to destroy the life he has built for himself.

Though "South of the Border" is on one level a straightforward love story, the novel is infused with the haunting, dreamlike quality Murakami has perfected. There is a sad warmth to Murakami's writing that makes this quick-to-read novel perfect for curling up with on a rainy afternoon.

While beautifully written and engrossing, "South of the Border" doesn't quite measure up to the later novel "Norwegian Wood," which contains many of the same themes and inspires in the reader the same bittersweet feeling. Having read both novels, I felt that "Norwegian Wood" was almost a more developed version of the same book, although the latter instead tells the story of a young man coming of age.

Like Toru, the protagonist in "Norwegian Wood," Hajime is an intense loner torn between two women, who seem to represent the dueling Freudian impulses of life and death. Shimamoto is a dark, fundamentally broken character who we sense is somehow doomed; while Hajime is irresistibly drawn to her, his wife Yukiko pulls him in the opposite direction, toward life and the present.

Those who have read other books by Murakami will recognize some other familiar themes, including the role of music in the novel's plot, suicide, a backdrop of 1960s political upheaval, and an eroticism that permeates the book. Although it is no "Norwegian Wood," this novel blankets you in a sweetly melancholy atmosphere that lingers with you long after you put it down.

This is an interesting tale, one that certainly does deviate from what we're used to from Murakami. It's much more "Norwegian Wood" than "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," in that there lacks a particular fantasy element. But although the strange and absurd is lacking, the same kind of mystery that infuses many of Murakami's books is still present. We are presented with Hajime and follow him from his early childhood through middle-age, watching him go through the growing pains associated with love and friendship. He seems almost mediocre in every way until he marries the right woman and has a string of good luck that results in him living a pretty comfortable life owning and operating two successful bars. Trouble strikes when a girl from his childhood, his first love, comes back and throws his life for a loop.

What impressed me the most about the book is that - and this is more for those who have read a lot of Murakami - you keep thinking that something strange is just around the corner. The mystery is so all-encompassing that only something fantastic would explain everything. Instead, the mystery remains at the end, much as it does in real life.

So why the slightly lower rating? The process of reading the novel was wonderful, but ultimately, I left the book feeling lukewarm or at least unsatisfied. That's merely my opinion. The reading of it was fantastic (4 stars), but the final impression was ok (3 stars).

Read it if you're a fan, try another one of his books if you're new to him.

At first read, this would appear to be among the weaker of Murakami's recent works - perhaps a self-indulgent tour of sentimental moods from the past as an antidote to the gravitas of books such as "Wind-Up Bird." The translation, as well, seems hastily done, with the protagonist speaking in a loose, casual tone we're not quite used to. And character-wise, we really have only Hajime and Shimamoto to guide us, rather than the usual cast of unusual everybodies.

That being said, "South of the Border..." indeed packs a punch as substantial as Murakami-san's other work, when read with the same intimacy and closeness with which it was written. Sure, there are the usual basic motifs: sex-mad women, drinking alone, vintage American jazz, and heartbreak. Something is a little off-key, but buried beneath candy-like prose. So what? What distinguishes this book is what churns beneath the surface. It happens when Murakami, with his readers mesmerized, brings in his prosodic "heavy artillery" to lift the tale skyward. Physical and metaphysical transformation, deep body/soul trauma, and on-the-dot symbolism round the story out as a deep-structural tragedy that unravels itself with a devastatingly effective certitude. Frighteningly well done.

It's as much about destruction and selfishness as it is about togetherness and harmony. Two only children are in love - then come apart - then unite with shaken souls and memories of things completely irretreivable, much later in life. Hajime and Shimamoto, in another space-time, stayed in touch, married, and conceived an only child as a mirror of themselves. In this world, perhaps, they were happy - perhaps Hajime's idealism was intact and Shimamoto's intelligence given more room to breathe. Instead, at the sound of the crow, we infer this child's birth and death and realize that its presence in this world is limited to that of ashes in a remote stream. Murakami's device of bodily transformation, which also shows up in "Sputnik Sweetheart" for example, is most poignantly realized in "South of the Border" when Shimamoto becomes the beautiful woman and mother in a lopsided universe. Ultimately, with the death of the child who never really lived, readers unwary enough to have liked Hajime and Shimamoto (and held hope for their future) are mercilessly slammed to the ground. It's often said that tragedy is distinguished by the fact that it leaves more questions open than are resolved in the narrative; this tragic tale, though, answers every question with a profound finality. Even the final breath is anticipated and confronted, until there is really nothing more that can be said.

So read it carefully and watch for the crow. Ashes floating downstream were never so sweetly devastating.