Product Description

'A story of love in a cool climate, intensely romantic and weepily beautiful-it is startlingly different: a true original' Guardian

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2807 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In South of the Border, West of the Sun the arc of an average man's life from childhood to middle age with its attendant rhythms of success and disappointment becomes the kind of exquisite literary conundrum that is Haruki Murakami's trademark. The plot is simple: Hajime meets and falls in love with a girl in elementary school but loses touch with her when his family moves to another town. He drifts through high school, college and his 20s before marrying and settling into a career as a successful bar owner. Then his childhood sweetheart returns weighed down with secrets:

"When I went back into the bar, a glass and ashtray remained where she had been. A couple of lightly crushed cigarette butts were lined up in the ashtray, a faint trace of lipstick on each. I sat down and closed my eyes. Echoes of music faded away, leaving me alone. In that gentle darkness, the rain continued to fall without a sound".

Murakami eschews the fantastic elements that appear in many of his other novels and stories, and readers hoping for a glimpse of the "Sheep Man" will be disappointed. Yet South of the Border, West of the Sun is as rich and mysterious as anything he has written. It is above all a complex, moving and honest meditation on the nature of love distilled into a work with the crystal clarity of a short story. A Nat King Cole song, a figure on a crowded street, a face pressed against a car window, a handful of ashes drifting down a river to the sea are woven together into a story that refuses to arrive at a simple conclusion. The classic love triangle may seem like a hackneyed theme for a writer as talented as Murakami but in his quietly dazzling way he bends us to his own unique geometry. --Simon Leake, Amazon.com

Synopsis
Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.

About the Author
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo.

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Customer Reviews

A sentimental man's middle-age crisis
South of the Border, West of the Sun is written in the first person [as far as I can tell quite characteristic of Murakami] and is the narrative of a Japanese man's love life. I am not a great fun of autobiographical or psedo-autobiographical writing as I prefer the polyphony of a novel to the sometimes monotonous and narcissistic style of those works.
This is no exception; the main character rambles about: his preferences in women, his sensitivities in love issues, his experiences, his boredom, his feelings. There is little connection or understanding of anything around him or how the other characters in the book feel, it is a one man's story and a particularly emotional, self-absorbed kind of man for that matter.

*** slight plot spoiler following***
I assume it was the purpose of the author to show the fragmented human experience by not allowing us to learn the truth about any other character -we only know what the main character knows and he doesn't know much- but I felt disappointed by the end. The second part of the book continuously promises to give you the story of the Shimamoto but we learn nothing which makes the narrative even more subjective. Is Shimamoto really the interesting, beautiful, tragic woman Hajime fantasizes about or is she merely a construction of his imagination providing the mystery and drama that a narcissist needs to feel life worth living. [I use the word narcissist randomly but as a matter of fact characteristic of the hero which is pointed by Murakami himself through Hajime's wife when she points out that 'you don't ask anything'].

***end spoiler****

It is fairly well written and consistent piece of writing and if you are interested in reading the monologue of a middle-aged man going on and on about his sensitivities it might be time well spent, for my point of view there are enough men in my life going on and on about their feelings as it is, the next book I'll read will either be complex novel with multiple heros or at least it will have a more intriguing main character.

Melancholic view of modern contemporary life
This minimalist novel tracks the life of a middle aged man in Japan. Born in 1951, he grew up in a suburb outside one of Japan's great cities. At 12, he fell in love with one of his schoolmates, a girl called Shimamoto. However, she soon left town with his parents. After that, life went on for him. At high school he started going out with girls, he went out and study literature at the university, after that he was employed in a boring job at a publishing company. Fortunately for him, at thirty he married the daughter of a rich (if somewhat shady) man, the owner of a construction company. With the help of his father in law, he decides to open a bar, which becomes succesful. Married with two girls, owner of a succesful business, life seems to go fine with him now. Until he meets again Shimamoto, and life threatens to unravel for him. A fine melancholic novel by Japan's Murakami, about the solitude of modern life, it includes some steamy and even graphic love scenes.

Another Marvellous Murakami
I thought this was a beautifully written book. I have now read every single Murakami book (except the new one, waiting for that in paperback). Some I haven't liked and some I have loved. This one I loved.

Murakami takes a simple tale of a man's childhood crush and turns it into a gut wrenching tale of obsession and loss. If anyone has ever been in love with someone to the point of obsession (unfortunately I have) then this story will bring you to tears.

I would say this is in my top 3 Murakami. My favourite is Wind Up Bird Chronicle.... Don't worry I am over the guy I was obsessed with now. I think ;-)