South of the Border, West of the Sun

by Haruki Murakami

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.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Romance, Contemporary, Magical Realism, Novels

194 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 5, 1992

About the author

Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Growing up in Ashiya, near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (1979) after working as the owner of a small jazz bar for seven years. His notable works include the novels Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009–10); the last was ranked as the best work of Japan's Heisei era (1989–2019) by the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun's survey of literary experts. His work spans genres including science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction, and has become known for his use of magical realist elements. His official website cites Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan as key inspirations to his work, while Murakami himself has named Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy and Dag Solstad as his favourite currently active writers. Murakami has also published five short story collections, including First Person Singular (2020), and non-fiction works including Underground (1997), an oral history of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), a memoir about his experience as a long distance runner.
His fiction has polarized literary critics and the reading public. He has sometimes been criticised by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, leading to Murakami's recalling that he was a "black sheep in the Japanese literary world". Meanwhile, Murakami has been described by Gary Fisketjon, the editor of Murakami's collection The Elephant Vanishes (1993), as a "truly extraordinary writer", while Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his oeuvre.

Reviews

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Companion Intervenes

I re-read “South of the Border” immediately after re-reading “Norwegian Wood”, as part of my training regime for Murakami’s “1Q84”.

Although they were written five years apart and were separated by “Dance Dance Dance”, they are good companion pieces.

They stand out from Murakami’s other novels because they explore love and its consequences almost exclusively.

Although some things and events go unexplained, there is little of the surrealism and absurdity that characterizes most of his other works.

Strangely, whereas “Norwegian Wood” concerns the recollections of a 37 year old protagonist about relationships in his late teens, “South of the Border” concerns the recollections of a 37 year old protagonist about a relationship that originally started and finished before he turned 13, so he was not yet a teenager.

While the protagonist in “Norwegian Wood” seemed to get his girl (or one of them) at the end, there was some doubt in my mind whether the relationship had lasted until the time of narration.

In “South of the Border”, the intervening period has brought the protagonist, Hajime, a permanent relationship, marriage, parenthood and business and financial success.

However, his apparent contentment and happiness is jeopardized by the intervention of Shimamoto, his girlfriend from the age of 12.

The Bond of Only-ness

The first quarter of the novel is a relatively straightforward narration of Hajime’s first 30 years.

He is born in January, 1951 (which makes him almost exactly two years younger than Murakami himself).

He is an only child, as is Shimamoto.

He detests the term “only child”, because it implies he is “missing” something, as if he is an incomplete human being, yet somehow spoiled, weak and self-centred as well.

Hajime is not just interested in Shimamoto because neither of them has any siblings, he’s fascinated by the fact that her left leg is slightly lame, yet she "never whines or complains".

Nobody else at school finds her as striking or charming as him, even though he recognizes that she has not yet developed an outer “gorgeousness” to match her inner qualities.

So while they develop a deep relationship, she wraps herself in a protective shell that separates her from other students.

Unfortunately, the relationship comes to an end the year after when they go to different junior high schools.

Relatively Unfaithful

Hajime gets on with life, even getting another girlfriend, Izumi, who he thinks is cute, even if she isn’t conventionally pretty.

She is the oldest of three children, though still sensitive enough at 16 to be able to say, “I’m scared. These days I feel like a snail without a shell.”

Yet as much as she tries her best to give Hajime all she can, she is destined to make him realize his capacity for hurt:

”...I didn’t understand then...that I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.”

Just after Hajime’s 18th birthday, he is preparing to start four years of college in Tokyo, which effectively spells the end of the relationship.

However, it ends on even worse terms, when Izumi discovers that he has been having a passionate affair with her cousin, while she has been deferring a sexual relationship with him.

At 37, he learns that his betrayal permanently damaged her, so much so that she lives a life of isolation in an apartment block where all of the children are afraid of her.

He has ruined her life.

So ultimately the novel is concerned with the hurt we cause in the pursuit of our own needs and illusions.

A Lame Excuse for Stalking

Despite his capacity for hurt, Hajime has a sympathy for outsiders, non-conformists who don’t quite fit in.

It reveals itself in his attraction to women who are lame, of whom there are several in the novel.

Just before he meets his future wife, Yukiko, when he is 28, he sees an elegant woman limping in the street.

He follows her for some time, wondering whether it is Shimamoto, until she enters a café, from where she phones someone for support.

The man who comes to her aid demands that he leave her alone and gives him an envelope with a large amount of money in it.

Meanwhile, the woman makes her escape in a cab, ramping up the mystery about her identity.

He can’t believe his luck. Why did this happen? Did it really happen at all? What does it all mean?

If not for the envelope, proof that something must have happened, it would have continued to be a riddle, “a delusion from start to finish, a fantasy I’d cooked up in my head, ... a very long, realistic dream that somehow I’d mixed up with reality”.

For Hajime, as long as he has the envelope, it means that this whole event actually occurred, that his quest was real and not an illusion.

Everything Falls Into Place

At 30, Hajime marries Yukiko, after which they have two daughters and he establishes two jazz bars (one of which is called the “Robin’s Nest” and the other we know only as “my other bar”) at the prompting of his father-in-law.

Up to this point, Hajime has been relatively faithful, apart from "a few flings when Yukiko was pregnant", relationships that he seems to excuse in the same manner that his father-in-law justifies his own affairs (they allow him to let off steam and actually reinforce the primacy of marriage).

So much, so normal.

He seems to have developed a knack for stopping just short of being self-destructive.

Until one day his success results in some magazine coverage that reunites him with old school friends who trigger a sense of nostalgia for his past relationships.

And with this nostalgia comes Shimamoto.

Hollow Inside

Enough of the plot, I want to explore some of the metaphors.

To all intents and purposes, Hajime has been happy in his marriage:

”I could not imagine a happier life.”

However, the emergence of Shimamoto makes him realize that he has been harbouring feelings about his past with her:

”Everything disappears some day. Like this bar...Things that have form will all disappear. But certain feelings stay with us forever.”

To which Shimamoto responds:

”But you know, Hajime, some feelings cause us pain because they remain.”

To this extent, she has a better insight into Hajime than he does himself.

Holding onto the past can create a darkness inside us that is destined to hurt not just ourselves, but those around us.

By the end of the chapter, he is looking into the mirror, confronting the fact that he has become a liar, that there is something dark inside him:

”For the first time in a long while, I looked deep into my own eyes in the mirror. Those eyes told me nothing about who I was.”

It’s an existential crisis of sorts, he is on the boundary of sanity and madness:

”If I never see her again, I will go insane. Once she got out of the car and was gone, my world was suddenly hollow and meaningless.”

To the extent that Shimamoto is a twin of himself who completes the one person, she has gone missing and he is once again incomplete.

Missing Persons, Minding the Gap

So what to do about his hollowness and yearning?

Hajime falls in love with the idea that he and Shimamoto were “star-crossed lovers” who were simply born under a bad sign, whose love originally perished under an unlucky star, but can be revived:

”You could say I’m happy. Yet I’ve known ever since I met you again that something is missing. The important question is what is missing. Something’s lacking. In me and my life. And that part of me is always hungry, always thirsting. Neither my wife nor my children can fill that gap. In the whole world, there’s only one person who can do that. You.”

He wants to overcome his hollowness by filling in the 25 year gap since they last saw each other:

”‘It’s strange,’ she said, ‘You want to fill in that blank space of time, but I want to keep it all blank.’”

As Hajime swings between sanity and insanity, Shimamoto disappears and reappears.

Indeed, the reverse is also true: as Shimamoto disappears and reappears, Hajime swings between sanity and insanity.

She is both the focus of his sanity and the cause of his insanity.

She keeps his hopes alive with the promise that they will “probably” see each other in “a while”.

Gradually, he realizes he has to do something about it, he has to account to his wife, Yukiko.

Only it doesn’t come easily:

”I was struck by a violent desire to confess everything. What a relief that would be! No more hiding, no more need to playact or to lie...But I didn’t say anything. Confession would serve no purpose. It would only make us miserable.”

So the fear of misery justifies the continued deceit.

South of the Border, West of the Sun

The title of the novel is a lyric from a song played by Nat King Cole.

Both Hajime and Shimamoto had romanticized what might lie “south of the border”.

She thinks it is “something beautiful, big and soft”, only to discover when she grows up that all it refers to is Mexico.

So they realize that all of their romanticism is misplaced, it’s a fabrication.

Similarly, “west of the sun” describes a medical condition called “hysteria syberiana”, which affects farmers in Siberia.

After months of exposure to the harsh winter, they sometimes head off in search of some land west of the sun:

“Like someone possessed, you walk on, day after day, not eating or drinking, until you collapse on the ground and die.”

They succumb to their illusions and eventually die, because they fail to take care of reality.

So eventually Hajime realizes that Shimamoto is a distraction, perhaps even an illusion, that he must turn away from:

”I would never see her again, except in memory. She was here and now she’s gone. There is no middle ground. ‘Probably’ is a word you may find south of the border. But never, ever, west of the sun.”

At the same time, he realizes that the envelope has gone:

”I should have thrown that money away when I first got it. Keeping it was a mistake.”

To quote Shimamoto, “some feelings cause us pain because they remain.”

The envelope had to go, just as his feelings for her had to go.

Though there is a lingering doubt as to whether the envelope was ever real.

So ultimately we are forced to question whether the return of Shimamoto actually occurred or whether it was a fabrication of a mind that had gone lame.

Did Hajime’s self-delusion, his existential crisis, develop into a full on nervous breakdown, his own version of hysteria syberiana?

Did he just make it all up?

Was it just "a very long, realistic dream that somehow I’d mixed up with reality”?

Rain in the Desert, Rain on the Sea

Murakami also uses the metaphor of a desert which appears to be lifeless until it rains, when the dormant life revives and blossoms.

Hajime’s obsession with a relationship from the past transforms his marriage into a desert.

The darkness of his self-delusion sucks all of the life out of the reality of his relationship and his parenthood.

Yet Hajime can’t sort it out from within his delusion.

So, in a way, Yukiko wins back their marriage with almost superhuman patience and insight and persistence.

She has to rain on the desert of their relationship.

Yet her effort isn’t so much superhuman as quintessentially human.

She reveals that she too has had needs and gaps that she wanted to fill, that Hajime has ignored her needs and vulnerability, that he has been selfish to think he is the only one to have suffered from a hollowness.

Throughout the novel, the presence of Shimamoto is associated with rain or water, like some noir pulp fiction.

However, just as rain forces us inside to keep dry, it is also a source of water that revives life.

“South of the Border” finishes with Hajime contemplating a sea with rain falling on it.

Murakami is typically ambiguous.

There might be a sense in which rain on the ocean cannot revive dormant life, that the sea remains lifeless or unaffected beneath the surface, that it simply can’t see that it is being replenished.

However, the ocean might also be a sea of possibilities, it is full of life and Hajime simply has to make a choice so that the rain can make a difference.

While Hajime contemplates all this, Yukiko comes and rests a hand lightly on his shoulder.

We get the sense that the two of them have together made a choice, that the “new life beginning tomorrow” that they have promised each other might just happen.

So whether or not the reappearance of Shimamoto was real or an illusion, she was the trigger for Hajime to realize that his marriage was the real thing and that he didn’t need to seek something else “South of the Border, West of the Sun”.

It’s a lesson both to be with the one you love, and to love the one you’re with, because they are usually, and should be, the same person.

[Kelly Egan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whatever Murakami book I am reading, I find myself stepping back into the same world as before, with all of the same characters and themes of wells and transience and strangely poignant details like gold lighters and classical music records and the myriad spaghetti dinners--the mundane details of everyday life spun into a dreamy tapestry. The fact that every Murakami book I read seems to feel the same is a good thing in this author's case. His tone is something quite distinct. Every time I read him I feel I'm wrapping myself in a wispy cocoon of emotions and floating once again in that wistful introspection, melancholy, disassociation.

Nothing is permanent. Murakami captures Mono no aware amid the frenetic modern day Tokyo. His world is surreal and yet also emotionally filling--a perfectly imperceptible blend of fantasy and the real. The voice of the narrator is always the same, delving with an endearing, compelling introspection into the deep well of his psyche, and always doing so amid a rising urgency; in a race against time and the dissolution of the form of things; in a race against some phantom clock whose measure only the most sensitive can grasp and whose ticking threatens that all might be swept away with the next gust of wind. The sense of time in these novels is always strangely skewed--we are following a character for some time in a day to day mode, wherein a particular depth of thought suddenly holds us in mid-air, and suddenly we are jumping fifteen years, only to find the characters still dwelling in the past as though it were yesterday. Murakami achieves illusory momentums that give way to long bouts of ruminating stillness. Finishing the novel is like waking from a dream where you've just...yes you've just ... learned ...something.

[Boysie Freeman (not my real name, it's just my Internet name) · Rating 1 out of 5]

At first I dislike this book but now I am confident to say that I hate it.

It's about this shallow and whiny man who wronged every women he put his hand on (probably because he is so deep, no one can understand him since he's the only child, yes, you gotta remember how painful it is for this Hajime guy to be the only child)... except his childhood sweetheart who is so deep that she never has a real personality but some random emo appeal which cannot make me care less. The author tried so hard but she turned out to be a sphinx without a secret. Meanwhile our hero remains an emo for the rest of the book, and maybe the rest of his life. He's got everything he wants but he cannot stop complaining and fancying about that girl whom he had a crush on, yet never actually knows. Did I mention she's the only child also?

Years after they collided in some cliche fashion: the rain, the bar, some cocktails and jazz music playing and OMFG she's so mysterious. They made love (yeah how unpredictable) and then she disappeared because the book would be deep if it's an unhappy one, and then the guy was like "WTF happened was that all a dream?" because the money is gone (yeah if you have read then you know I mean what money) but no it was real and he came back to his poor wife. And his wife is the only likeable character out there.

The writing is just okay and readable. If you have read a lot you should probably not regard Murakami as those authors who offer the most beautiful prose out there. This look like a second attempt of Murakami after the success of Norwegian Wood (which is an emo saga to me). Seriously he should stop abusing pop culture references.

[emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

pretty sure this was on my to-read list because someone said it's the best murakami.

but that must've been a cruel prank.

reading murakami books is always a balancing act between how weird and cool his brain is and how much he hates women. 

i will let you guess where this one, which is not magical and centers around infidelity, lands.

so many completely insane things happen in this book: two guys in a bar who can't even speak about how a woman aged because it's too horrifying and disgusting; a guy who thinks it goes without saying that he would cheat on his wife whenever she's pregnant; a father-in-law being like "actually i'd prefer it if you would cheat on my daughter"; a motif of women with leg disabilities that is handled about as well as you would expect.

and then there are the normal misogyny tropes: a woman who doesn't know she's beautiful and that's what makes her beautiful. a woman who is despised by other women because she's simply too hot. women who are supposed to be attractive being continually described as teenagers.

it's so bad.

bottom line: as always, i am praying for haruki's wife.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

DOPPIO SOGNO



Hajime, il protagonista e voce narrante, vuol dire “inizio”: è nato il 1 gennaio 1950.
O qualche giorno dopo.
È figlio unico, circondato da coetanei che appartengono tutti a famiglie numerose.



Anche Shimamoto è figlia unica, e i due si scelgono, crescono insieme, anime gemelle, in simbiosi emotiva e sentimentale. Hanno dodici anni.
Shimamoto ha una gamba offesa dalla poliomelite, ha un padre con una ricca collezione di dischi e i due bambini crescono ascoltandoli: in particolare quello di Nat King Cole che da il titolo al romanzo, South of the Border, West of the Sun. Crescono anche condividendo un’altra grande passione: la lettura.
Ma prima che il loro gemellaggio dell’anima si possa trasformare in qualcosa di più, e di diverso, possa aggiungere un lato sensuale ed erotico, Shimamoto trasloca, e le due anime si allontanano e perdono. Adesso hanno diciassette anni.



Hajime cresce, conduce una vita sessuale abbastanza intensa incrociando amori e storie (per esempio con la cugina della stessa fidanzata Izumi), fino al matrimonio con la madre dei suoi due figli. Il suocero è ricco e gli permette di coronare un sogno: aprire un jazz bar.
A questo punto, Shimamoto è a sud del confine della memoria di Hajime, oltre il raggio del ricordo, sparita perfino dal radar del sentimento.
Così crede Hajimi, così crediamo noi.
Ma così non è.



Ma così non è: perché quando vent’anni dopo, Shimamoto si presenta al locale di Hajimi, bella ed elegante, e con poche parole apre oceani di mistero oscuro che sapientemente dosa senza rivelare, tutto sembra possibile, Hajime è pronto a mandare all’aria la sua solidità familiare per buttarsi tra le braccia della sua amica d’infanzia, ora finalmente in grado di essere donna della vita.
Ma Shimamoto scompare di nuovo, come vent’anni prima. Scompare così all’improvviso che viene da chiedersi se sia mai riapparsa, se non fosse solo un’illusione. Se non sia stato tutto un sogno. E quindi, probabilmente, per Hajime lo scollamento tra desiderio/sogno e realtà è destinato a durare, a perseverare, il suo mondo ideale non si congiunge con quello reale: non gli resta che, novello Bovary, tornare all’ovile familiare ed essere riaccolto dalla moglie Yukiko, paziente tollerante comprensiva.



Il Giappone post 1945 era sconvolto dalla guerra, distrutto dall’atomica, un paese da costruire, più che ricostruire. Fare figli era parte di questo processo.
Così probabilmente s’inquadra la menomazione che Hajimi sente di aver subito crescendo figlio unico. Un aspetto che a me ha costretto a un quadruplo sforzo di comprensione, perché al contrario di Hajimi, io ho sempre desiderato, e sognato essere figlio unico.
Incontrare Shimamoto che è nella sua stessa condizione (evidenziata e simbolizzata dalla poliomelite) è un automatico istintivo immediato riconoscimento.
È probabilmente una propensione blues, da non intendere nel senso musicale, ma come inclinazione alla malinconia che li porta vicini, isolandoli dal resto del mondo.



Quanto siamo padroni del nostro percorso e quanto invece è già scritto? Dove riesce ad arrivare la nostra volontà, le nostre scelte deliberate, e dove invece subentra il caso, se non addirittura il destino?

Ricostruire, e raccontare, la trama di un romanzo di Murakami non è facile: in questo caso, però, il compito è meno complesso del solito. Perché in questo romanzo Murakami è meno sfuggente del solito, meno immerso nei suoi universi paralleli. Forse per questo, pur non essendo il suo più acclamato, è quello che io ho preferito, quello dove l’ho percepito maggiormente in grado di collegare i fatti con i sentimenti, la realtà esterna con quella interiore. Qui i possibili intrecci degli altri universi esistenziali (ma per Murakami anche fisici) si racchiudono nel rimpianto: rimpianto di quanto non vissuto, non realizzato, non percorso.
E, quindi, perduto.


Multiverso, realtà parallele, viaggio tra dimensioni…

[Martine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never fail to be impressed by the way Murakami captures mood and feelings. Even in his less fantastic novels, of which this is one, he draws you into a world that is all his, and so full of possibilities and connections that you feel you could grasp them if you reached out. Except you don't, because in Murakami's universe it's easier to stay put and wait than to get actively involved. It's about memories and reminiscences, about wishes and alternate realities, and if you were to reach out and touch anything, you would break the carefully crafted atmosphere, leaving nothing but some loner's neurotic ramblings about the things he should have done but sadly never did. You wouldn't want to do that, now would you?

South of the Border, West of the Sun is set in a familiar Murakami landscape where lonely men listen to jazz and classical music, get obsessed with mysterious women with death in their eyes, and crave a connection with just one fellow soul. This time around, the protagonist is Hajime, a man in his late thirties who seems to be going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. Reasonably happily married and the successful owner of two jazz bars, Hajime seems to have it all, except for two things: he can't really connect to anyone, and he is haunted by memories of the women he has wronged. Most of all, he is haunted by the memory of his childhood friend Shimamoto, the only person in his life to whom he has ever been close, but of whom he lost sight at age twelve. And then Shimamoto suddenly reappears in his life, tempting him with promises of closeness and understanding and confusing him profoundly.

As stories of mid-life crises and marital infidelity go, this one is nothing out of the ordinary. It follows Hajime through his obsession with Shimamoto and his insecurities, regrets and justifications, leading him all the way to some modicum of self-discovery. So far, so generic adultery novel. What sets the book apart from countless other such books is its mood. Like other Murakami books, South of the Border, West of the Sun is a mood piece. It has a dreamlike, timeless quality, a mellow intensity, and a jazz-and-rain-fuelled melancholy which occasionally drips off the pages. It evokes loneliness and obsession in a way few other authors manage to evoke them. It's like being submerged in a bath of longing and nostalgia, and I, for one, really enjoy that sort of thing. There's something quite cathartic about it.

Much has been said about Hajime, the protagonist of South of the Border. Like many Murakami characters, Hajime is not an action hero; he spends most of the book waiting for fate to deal him a lucky card, and when he finally gets it, he doesn't really know what to do with it. Nor does he seem to notice that the cards he was initially dealt were actually quite good. He is a dreamer and a drifter, floating through a world in which he doesn't seem properly anchored, feeling rather than observing, longing rather than acting. He is haunted by memories and wallows in his own mistakes without having the guts to address them. He is not necessarily the world's most attractive protagonist, but all the same it is interesting watching the world through his eyes, sensing his guilt and sharing his cravings. And if he doesn't seem to be all that different from countless other Murakami protagonists, well, so be it. That's Murakami for you -- writing the same story featuring the same protagonist over and over again, but in a way which keeps you coming back for more.

As for Murakami's refusal to tie up the loose ends in this book, which seems to baffle certain reviewers, I like that. I like that we never find out exactly what Shimamoto has been up to for all these years. I like that her disappearance remains unexplained. I even like the fact that we never find out her first name (Hajime keeps calling her by her family name, even when they are having sex). It adds an air of detachment and mystery to the novel, which in turn just adds to its dreamlike quality. It allows you to fill in the blanks yourself, and at the end of the day, that is what I like most about good fiction -- its ability to make you fantasise and write parts of the story yourself. Maybe that's why I like Murakami so much; he draws me into brilliant moodscapes and leaves me there, thinking, feeling, wondering what I would do in a given position. Sometimes I wish I never had to leave his world, but alas, even the best jazz gets tedious after a while...

[BookHunter M ُH َM َD · Rating 4 out of 5]

ربما يقول شخص غريب إننا نعيش حياة مثالية. صحيح أنني كنت متأكدا من ذلك في وقت ما. كنت متحمسا لعملي و أكسب كثيرا من المال. أملك شقة بأربع غرف نوم في أوياما و كوخا صغيرا في هاكوني. عربة بي أم دبليو و أخرى جيب شيروكي. عائلتي سعيدة. أحب زوجتي و ابنتيّ. ماذا يمكن للمرء طلب أكثر من ذلك؟ لم يكن بإمكاني تصور حياة أفضل.

كان يعيش حياة هانئة قبل أن يقابل حبه القديم الذي انزوى في حنايا القلب و ظن أنه لم يوجد أبدا في يوم من الأيام

عرفت منذ قابلتكِ أن هناك شيئا مفقودا. السؤال المهم هو ما هو هذا الشيء المفقود؟ شيء ناقص فيّ و في حياتي. و ذلك الشيء الذي فيّ جائع دوما و عطشان. لا زوجتي و لا طفلتيّ يمكنهم سد هذا الفراغ. في العالم كله .. ليس هناك سوى شخص واحد يمكنه ذلك.

هل كان يعيش الوهم أم الحقيقة أم أن الحياة أصلا هي وهم و لا توجد حقيقة مادية إلا ما صنعته قلوبنا و أفئدتنا؟

أنتِ هنا. على الأقل تبدين كما لو أنك هنا. لكن ربما لست كذلك. ربما هذا ظلك فقط. أنت الحقيقة ربما في مكان أخر. أو لعلك اختفيتِ منذ أمد بعيد. مددت يدي .. لكنك اختفيتِ خلف سحابه.

فى عشق بيستنانا وعشق بنستناه
وعشق بينسينا العشق اللى عشقناه

القلب اللى بيجرحنا فى حاجه اكيد جارحه
وجراحنا بتفكرنا بالقلب اللى جرحناه

و قد يكون كل هذا العشق هو عشق الذات و قد لا يكون إلا عشقا واحدا ينتظر فرصة خفقان القلب بصدق.

ما لم أفهمه أنذاك أن بإمكاني أن أجرح مشاعر فتاة بشكل سيء لا تشفى منه أبدا. و أن بإمكان المرء بمجرد العيش أن يدمر إنسانا أخر بشكل لا يمكن إصلاحه.

الحقيقة المحزنة أن بعض الأشياء لا يمكن أن تعود للوراء. حين تبدأ في السير إلى الأمام لا يمكن أن تعود كما كانت. إذا انحرف شيء صغير يبقى هكذا للأبد.

أما جنوب الحدود فهو بالفعل خارج الوطن و ربما سقط سهوا من حدود القلب و أما غرب الشمس فلطالما كان الوجهة المفضلة للرحيل المؤقت الذي لابد له من عودة مرة أخري تماما كشمس لا تغيب إلا لكي تعود و لا تعود إلا لأنها أدمنت الغياب. و ما بين الغياب و العودة يتجدد الحنين و يضيع العمر مرتين. مرة في الغيبة و مرة في الحضور.

[Pakinam Mahmoud · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية مشوقة علي الرغم إن الأحداث قليلة ..إسلوب موراكامي كالعادة سهل ،عبقري و ممتع جداً في نفس الوقت..يمكن الحدوتة تبان عادية بس لما هاروكي يمسك قلمه ويكتب أكيد حتبقي مش عادية:)

قلم موراكامي ساحر..مش بس عشان هو بيعرف يدخلك في عالمه الخاص و المجنون ساعات لكن كمان بيقدر يخليك تدخل في أعماق شخصياته وساعتها بتكتشف وتعرف حاجات عن نفسك وشخصيتك إنت ممكن تكون مكنتش واخد بالك منها..
والغريبة إن ده بيحصل معاه سواء في رواية من ٥٠٠ صفحة أو حتي في قصة قصيرة من عشر صفحات..
محدش بيعرف يعمل كدة غير موراكامي...😍

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel starts out as a coming-of-age story of a young Japanese man. Like other Murakami novels we have cats, Western culture and music – both American pop and European classical music. To the cats we can add lame women because there are two in this story.



Another theme of this book is that the main character and several others are an “only child” and the characters discuss what this means. This makes a lot of sense in Japanese culture with its exceptionally low birth rate. (A low birth rate to the point where the Japanese population is declining because deaths exceed births. See chart below - by a million people within five years.)

There really isn’t much plot. The young man is bored by his job as an editor. But after he marries, his wife’s wealthy father sets him up as a nightclub owner. The young man finds his calling designing and opening night clubs in Tokyo. And buying BMWs.

As time goes on he becomes overly focused on thinking back to his early innocent relations with girls and trying to figure out what went wrong and what his life would have been like if he had stuck with another girl. He follows women around who remind him of this or that old girlfriend.

Everyone thinks of these 'alternate life scenarios' in passing. What would my life be like if I had married Diane or Tamara? But this man becomes obsessed by thinking of these. Even after he has a wife and child, a woman appears who reminds him of one of these earlier flames and he becomes obsessed with her.

As with some other Murakami novels I found the resolution of the story to be unsatisfactory. Introducing some amount of fantasy or mystery is great but you can’t just leave us hanging at the end with absolutely no explanation of what was going on. Why did the woman keep disappearing and where did she go? I felt that way about Murakami's IQ84 as well. In both novels the science fiction/fantasy part of the novel seemed tossed in just for the heck of it and didn’t seem to be necessary to the plot.

While I am revising this review, I should add, take a look at alternate explanations in messages from other GR readers below, such as Karen's interpretation in Message #5 below, Em's in #9 and Dafne in #11. Maybe this isn't fantasy or magical realism after all?

Still, I thought it was a good read and worth a 4.



Haruki Murakam is one of my favorite authors and I have read many of his novels. Below are links to my reviews of some I enjoyed.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Wind/Pinball: Two Novels

Sputnik Sweetheart

Norwegian Wood

South of the Border, West of the Sun

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

1Q84

Kafka on the Shore

Tokyo photo from npr.org
Graph from japanstandardofliving.weebly.com

[Mutasim Billah · Rating 2 out of 5]

".....the sad truth is that certain types of things can’t go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can’t go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that’s how it will stay forever."

South of the Border, West of the Sun is a short novel by Haruki Murakami. Here, we read the story of one Hajime's journey from childhood to middle age. The novel explores themes of post-war capitalism and culture in Japan in the 20th century, infidelity in relationships and unrequited love besides usual Murakami-esque themes of alienation, loneliness and longing.

The story gets its name from the Nat King Cole song by the name of South of the Border. Jazz music is a central to the themes in the story, as we sit back in dazzling jazz bars, sipping cocktails listening to Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington.

Meanwhile, West of the Sun part of the title refers to a disease called Siberian hysteria. In the text, Shimamoto describes Siberian Hysteria, a nervous disorder, using an analogy where as a farmer who operates on a dry and barren run with the horizon North, West, South and East. He conducts himself in the same routine day after day, year after year. Eventually he becomes hysteric, walking East until he faints from exhaustion and passes away.



Nat King Cole


Hajime was born in post-war Japan, at a time when the country's economy was thriving and a baby-boom happened, when the birth-rate was significantly high and the number of families with single child were rare. Hajime, being a single child, is shown to suffer from a degree of alienation due to this, and develops a relationship with books and music. In comes Shimatoto, also a single child, with whom he develops a friendship. Unfortunately, circumstances separate the two children at a young age.

"For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.

We watch Hajime spiral through life in his semi-isolation as he struggles with his longing for the past with Shimatoto. Eventually, she returns to his life, only Hajime is now 36, and a father of two. Shimatoto remains a metaphor for the what-ifs and what-might-have-beens of unrequited love.

I didn't enjoy this as much as some of Murakami's other novels. Yet it was a worthwhile read on 20th century Japanese culture and the trademark Murakami-soundtrack allowed me to finish the novel with relative ease. My lack of interest in the plot may be due to my inability to relate to the characters and themes in the story.

Happy reading!

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly engrossing tale of love, desire and the male human condition, with the immense added bonus of Haruki Murakami's unsurpassably eloquent prose. Tells the story of only child Hajime and his experiences and relationships with the three most significant women in his life and how they are all involved in his eventual mid-life crisis in his mid 30s, when he is supposedly happily married with two children and a successful business. This work is not only one for lovers of Murakami, this has much wider appeal and is an accessible introduction to this modern master for anyone who is yet to taste his beautiful prose. 9 out of 12.

2011 read

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really didn't enjoy this book, but it did make me think about why, so at least it had that going for it.

I found Hajime an infinitely unlikeable character, but I couldn't put my finger on the details of why. He had no problem doing things that would hurt the women he claimed to "love", even as he said that there must be something wrong with him for doing so. I think of "that's just the way I am, nothing to be done" as the worst, laziest possible excuse for bad behavior toward others.

But it wasn't until I got to the end of the story that I began to be able to articulate what I disliked about Hajime, and therefore the book. Hajime loses the only dream he's ever had in life, Shimamoto, though he knows absolutely zero about her as an adult (somehow that doesn't matter...he just wants the dream, not a real person). He is crushed at the somehow dismal prospect of providing dreams for others (his family), instead of pursuing his own dream no matter the cost. I found that utterly depressing. A character that a) can't generate new dreams in life, and b) is miserable about the newly discovered prospect of providing for the dreams of people he claims to love, is utterly unappealing to me. I wonder if Hajime was meant as an illustration of a total failure of a human-in-relationship, or whether he was supposed to be a somewhat sympathetic character and I just hated him anyway.

The only book I can compare it to that I really did like is Lolita. Reading that book, it was crystal clear that we were reading a story offered to us by a wildly unreliable (first-person) narrator, and that this story, presented to us as star-crossed, tragic love, was really about something else entirely--the danger and blindness of sick obsession, a child's loss of her right and ability to define and direct her self. I could appreciate South of the Border on this level, thinking of how Hajime's narration about himself was completely unreliable, and underneath there was a story about someone who spent his life driven only by what he wanted, with no understanding of or interest in his impact on others. Interestingly, this also somehow leaves him completely unable to understand his impact on himself.

[Mohamed El-shandidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

" حين أنظر إليكِ أشعر بأني أحدق بنجم بعيد ، مبهر و لكن الضوء آتٍ من عشرات آلاف السنين ، ربما لم يعد النجم موجودا  ، مع ذلك يبدو أحيانا أنه حقيقى أكثر من أي شيء آخر.  "

هل يمكن أن نعيش أسرى لماضينا ، نعيش مُقيّضين بحبال ذِكرى عابرة ؟
تعيش تحت ضوء نجمٍ جميل تعتقد أنه يعيد لك الحياة و لكن ما هو إلا ضوء باقٍ من أحداث غابرة.


هاجيمي فتي وحيد لعائلته يتعرف على " شيماموتو " في مدرستهم الابتدائية , كانت شيماوتو وحيدة مثله و هو ما كان نادرا تلك الأيام ، لتنشأ بينهم رابط صداقة منذ طفولتهم.

يكبر الطفلان و تتفرق بهم السبل  ، و ليبدأ هاجيمي حياةً جديدة مليئة بالمحاولات و بالفشل و بالنجاح بعد ذلك ، و لكن تبقي ذكرى شيماموتو في قلبه دائماً لا ينساها.

و يتقدم هاجيمي في العمر و ينشئ عائلة سعيدة و تأكله الحياة بزخمها و تعبها و لكن هاجيمي مازال مقيداً بالماضي ، فحبه الأول لشيماموتو  لا يزال عالقاً في ذهنه ، فيصير مُعلّقاً بين الماضي و الحاضر لا يدرى من هو بعد الآن.

"  لأول مرة منذ فترة طويلة ، حدقتُ عميقاً في عينيّ في المرآة ، لم تخبرني تلك العيون شيئاً عن نفسي و ما كنتُ عليه . "



و من ثم يأتي اللقاء المُرتقب بين هاجيمي و شيماموتو بعد فراق طويل ليبدأ هنا اختبار هاجيمي هل سيمضي قدما في حياته الجديدة أم سيختار أن يصير سجيناً للماضي فربما كان يعرف نفسه و يعي هدفه حينها ؟

القصة تعتقدها لأول وهلة أنها سرد ممل للأحداث  و لكن الحقيقة أن هاجيمي يمثل الصراع الداخلي بين القلب و العقل ، نرى فيها السعي وراء الهدف من الحياة و هل يجب له أن يكون كاملاً مثالياً .

" لا أحد سينسج لي أحلاماً بعد الآن ، لقد حان دوري لأنسج أحلاماً للآخرين. "



جنوب الحدود هو اسم أغنية ل"نات كينج بول" و لكن سأدعك لاكتشاف ما هو غرب الشمس فلكل رأيه الخاص فيه.

- الرواية بها مواقف غير لائقة من الممكن تخطيها .
-جزء كبير من القصة فيها وصف لموراكامي نفسه فقد كان موراكامي طفلاً وحيداً كذلك ، يجد عزاءه في الكتب و الموسيقي مثل البطل تماماً ، و موراكامي لديه" بار " كذلك مثل هاجيمي ، و ضف أن زوجة هاجيمي تدعي يوكيكو و زوجة موراكامي تدعي يوكو فالتشابه كبير الحقيقة 😅.
- القصة فيها شوية ملل بس كانت ممتعة و تدعوك لتكمل و تعرف الأسرار بها  ، عن الحياة و الحُلم و الخط الفاصل بينهما ✨

[Ivana Books Are Magic · Rating 5 out of 5]

They say that Murakami is one of those authors you either love or hate. I can actually understand how his style of writing might not be for everyone’s taste, but I happen to love him. His unique writing style always had a sort of hypnotic power over me. I feel enchanted when I read his novels, almost like I’m entering some magical world. Moreover, at times it is almost like I’m in the book myself, a silent observer, but nevertheless, a person very much present. Do you know that feeling you feel a part of a book right from the start? You only started reading it but you already feel immersed in it? When the first sentences draw you in completely? You’ve just started to read it, but you know you’re going to love it. I don’t know exactly how Murakami does it, but I could make a guess. It is the ease with which he creates his characters, revealing their inner world before our eyes in ever more detail with each page we turn. He is so brilliant at capturing the mood of his protagonists that we can’t help feeling for them and feeling with them. At times it might even seem like we know his characters better than ourselves.


Both his writing style and the general mood of his books have something very unpretentious about them. Murakami writes simply but beautifully; it makes me wonder how he sounds in original (I doubt I’ll ever become fluent in Japanese, so I will have to keep relying on translations). This simplicity and minimalism in writing works very well in this novel, adding another layer of sophistication to it. That is the world I would be tempted to use if I had to describe his books in one word: sophistication. His writing, for most part, doesn’t seem lyrical to me, yet there are always those special moments when his writing style becomes amazingly graceful and poetical. He certainly has his signature style. Murakami uses metaphors and symbols with much ease, creating with them a thing of delicate beauty.


Murkami’s exploration of theme of human loneliness can bring Kafka to our minds. Indeed, I can see many similarities between them, not just in the choice of themes explored but in the writing style as well. Kafka had this way of making surrealistic/fantastical elements in his work seem perfectly plausible. Murkami uses them in a slightly different way, he is more ambiguous, and when it comes to certain events, you’re never quite sure whether the event being described is real or imagined. Both writers know how to employ fantastical/surreal to their advantage. Somehow those elements are employed so skilfully by these two writers, that they manage not only to deepen their descriptions of human loneliness and isolation, but give them additional meanings. Murakami’s works feel a bit dreamier than Kafka’s and they do have different styles but there are similarities between them, no doubt about that.


I was amazed at how easy I found it to sympathize with and feel for the protagonist of South of The Border, West Of The Sun. The protagonist of this novel, Hajimi, is not by any means a perfect man. It seems that he has a perfect life, though. Married with two children and a successful job- what man could want more? Yet, underneath it all, Hajimi is somewhat unhappy and obsessed with his past. He owns jazz clubs, he is married to a woman who adores him, his marriage is by no means build on false pretences- and yet he is so utterly dissatisfied with something, it is like there is something deep inside of him, a worm of doubt eating up his life. If there was something in Hajimi’s life that he hated, he could understand it, but there is mystery in his unhappiness, it runs deep. He is a happy man in many ways and he doesn’t hide it, he feels grateful for it even, but there is always a but…. both in life and in literature.

Some might see Hajimi as an irresponsible man undergoing a mid-life crisis, but I don’t think is it so simple. This novel is much too complex for something like that. If feels more like a psychological study of character than just a story about some guy discontent with his life. The richness of this book is composed of many layers. One of them can certainly be found in its philosophical exploration of the human condition. What does it mean to be human? Why do we always want more? The existentialism is subtly played out in this one, much like music in a jazz bar, it echoes through the room until it becomes a part of you and nests itself somewhere deep in your heart. You either hate it or love it. That’s the way with Murakami. People tend to either be utterly moved by his writing or feel it does nothing for them. Obviously, I fall into the first category. I agonized for and with the protagonist, perhaps even more that he did himself.


What (or whom) is Hajimi looking for, this man who seemingly has it all? Perhaps it all comes down to his past and a spirit of lost love (the most potent of spirits, right?). Hajimi grow up as a single child in a time when it wasn’t usual for parents to have only one child. This turned him into an oddity of some kind, perhaps something that we would referred to (In Victorian, colonial and postcolonial literature) as ‘an other’. However, he manages to find another ‘other’- Shimamoto, a girl who is, like himself, a single child. Together these two finally feel complete, but unfortunately they lose touch when they families move away. This childhood friendship/ love continues to haunt our protagonist. Suddenly, Shimamoto reappears and Hajimi, now a married man, is captured under the spell of her mystery. As the years pass, Hajimi becomes more and more obsessed with Shimamoto.


Why is this old love so important to Hajimi? Because it is what itching fingers are to a painter. Many of my illustrating friends told me they feel it, a need to draw that is almost physical, you can actually feel your fingers itching, longing for a pencil even if you don’t have a clear picture of what you would like to create in your head. For some people love might be like that. Like that physical and spiritual need for creation that artists feel. A yearning for the other than goes deeper that most romantic relationships. It is not so much sharing and friendship, as a creation of something new. Love, for some, might be that great mystery, that only thing that can give us fulfilment. Hajimi certainly doesn’t idolize Shimamoto, he doesn’t sing praises to her….He is just utterly and completely fascinated and drawn to her. It seems like something that is genuinely stronger than both of them. Can this connection between them be read as a metaphor for something else? Certainly it can, as a metaphor for great many things, but I suppose it is fair to say that it can also be an exploration of the theme of love itself. The mysterious connection between a man and a woman.


That would be the premise of this story. To discover what happens next, you’ll have to read the novel. When you do that, you can draw your conclusions about the characters, the story and the message of this book. For me, one of the best things about this novel is that can be read in so many ways. An existentialist might say that Shimamoto is just a symbol of the absurdity of this world, those more inclined to pessimism might add that Shimamoto represent the unattainable for happiness can’t be achieved. Romantics might see it as a simple love story. A bitter cynic might say that Hajimi is a loser and that the novel is a quasi-intellectual masturbation (and a cynic would be wrong because bitterness is a bad method to read anything). A feminist might call Hajimi a pig (for mistreating the woman who not only worships him but is also the mother of his children). Psychologist might find reasons for Hajimi’s behaviour in his upbringing. One possible psychological examination of Shimamoto and Hajimi relationship could be those of ‘unrelated siblings’, drawing parallel with Heathcliff and Catharine (it is a natural tendency in humans not to marry childhood friends because on unconscious levels we perceive them as siblings- because we grew up together). As I said, there many possible readings of this one. It is up to us to find a reading that we like best.


What I find so ingenious about this novel is the way it explores numerous question, from why our past holds such a power over us to why is every human being sentenced to an isolation of some kind? This book raises questions, rather than answers them, but it does it so brilliantly, that you feel like the answer must be attainable. I loved the honesty of this book, the unpretentiousness of it. At times, I had a feeling that Murakami was telling me: “I don’t know the meaning of life and I can’t tell it to you.”, but in some instances I had a feeling I was seeing it with my eyes, in the story (in art) itself and that it is too complex a thing to put into worlds in a straightforward way. That is why we have art. That is why we have literature. To cross the bridges of everyday and banal worries to get to our cores, and examine them- as painful as it can be at times.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lost loves and existential romance haunt in what was for Murakami a tender and mellowed out novel, which oddly still had a gripping edge to it, but I can't pinpoint exactly why. Maybe it's simply down to the fact this is Murakami, and here, even though the story is a simple one, I never truly felt in the comfort zone, like there was an underlying menace, and that something unexpected was going to happen at any moment.
He loves a good sex scene does Murakami, and they can be found here also, but at least here his eroticism feels like it's in the right place and at the right time, and not crawling out of the woodwork at the oddest of moments like he has done before. He leaves his Kafkaesque side behind here, with no strange happenings or talking cats, but there are other Murakami trademarks like whisky and jazz that feel right at home.

In a nutshell, this is the tale of obsessive attraction told with a quiet psychological power.
The central figure is Hajime, born, as he tells us on the first page, early in the second half of the 20th century, he is your average person from a typical family. He is, in other words, part of the regeneration that repopulated Japan after World War II, and never experienced any real hardships. Typical Japanese families has several children, but Hajime is an only child, and that bothers him as people assume he must therefore be spoiled and self-centered. In his lonely world Hajime only one true friend, a girl named Shimamoto, who is also an only child, and they click really well.
After moving away he soon stops seeing Shimamoto until many years later after he is settled into family life with wife and kids. But in her unobtrusive way, she has stolen into his being, such that no other person can ever be fully meaningful to him. He has experiences with other women, including a high school sweetheart named Izumi, but Shimamoto is always present at the back of his mind. Then out of nowhere Shimamoto comes back into his life, after they had parted as 12-year-olds. She is as beautiful as Hajime had imagined, but with the passing of time something has changed, and she is gripped by a dark power about which she says nothing. The novel then shifts tonally and consists of their strange obsessive attraction, and the ineffable meaning that each has for the other.

One of the skills with this novel, is that Murakami creates a vague sense of perilousness as his characters go about their business. This is for the most part down to the psychological fragility that is the book's motif. There are deep cracks in the shells that each character lives within.
It is as if these lives can be fatally wounded with the slightest mistake, and, given the weakness and self-centered nature that is embedded in Hajime's core, the danger of that is always lurking close by. Like other Murakami novels I have read, it feels like there is an invisible force or mysterious power running through the pages, that compels his characters to the very harmful acts that will end up ruining them. I have to say, I didn't particularly think of Hajime as a likeable person, but I can at least understand some of his actions. He still loved his wife, he still loved his children, but without Shimamoto something was always missing.

Murakami's narrative style here is as spare and unornamented as a traditional Japanese room, and it's a stripped back style that suited the novel really well. A delicate and affecting work, and certainly one of Murakami's more realistic novels, but it's one that I still found had a dreamy quality to it.

[Mohammed · Rating 4 out of 5]

بدون قطط ناطقة ولا اسماك متساقطة من السماء، نجح موراكامي في إبهاري هذه المرة أيضا. أسلوبه الحساس والشغوف المغلف بالحنين يتسلل ويتغلل في الحنايا رغم أن البساطة هي اللغة المستخدمة.

تطرح الرواية تيمات متعددة، إن لم تجد إحداهن صدى في نفسك، فستفعل الأخرى ذلك. هل سبق وأن طرحت على نفسك اسئلة تتعلق بمدى سعادتك في الحياة؟ أن احترت فيما أن كنت ترغب أن تحيا بالطريقة التي تعيشها حاليا أم أنها رسمت لك دون تدخل منك؟ ألم تشعر يوما أن هناك نهرا من الحسرة يسري تحت القشرة الصلبة من الروتين اليومي والكفاح المضني. ألم تشعر يوما أنه بالرغم من أنك تعايش جموعا من البشر، تتبادل التحايا، ترد على المكالمات، تخوض النقاشات وتضحك للنكات، لكن مايزال يعضك ناب الوحدة الممضة، ولا تعلم لذلك سببا؟ هل تستغرق في التأمل محاولا التكهن بما جرى لبعض الأشخاص الذين جمعتك بهم الأيام وكانوا نجوما في سمائك ثم أفلوا وتفرق شملكم؟ هذه بعض أحاسيس هاجيمي، بطل الرواية، الذي قد تبغضه وتتعاطف معه في الوقت نفسه.

نهاية الرواية مفتوحة أو شبه مفتوحة على أقل تقدير، ولا اعتراضي لدي على ذلك. هناك نكهة من الغموض، احتفاء بالموسيقى، احتفال باللذة الجسدية وهي عناصر سبق أن وجدتها في رائعة موراكامي السابقة: (كافكا على الشاطئ). شخصيا أحببت الرواية كثيرا وارتشفتها ببطء ككوب قهوة في صباح شتوي. لابد أن اقرأ المزيد للكاتب وإن نجح في المرة القادمة فسيصبح أحد كتابي المفضلين.

[Barry Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the novel Norwegian Wood wishes it were.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is the literary equivalent of cloud paintings. I’m not talking John Constable’s clouds, which are dense with specificity from a keen and earthy eye; but rather New Agey cloud paintings, which are designed to be innocuous and calming, to not stimulate the eye, to induce a meditative state and readjust the spirit and turn one away from the tangible.

So South of the Border, West of the Sun is not all bad – it does satisfy all the above criteria for New Agey cloud paintings – and I have no beefs with calmness and spirit clarifying, but that’s not typically why I turn to art, whether it be paintings or literature. I typically turn to art to be engaged with the materials of that art. Of course I’m also interested in the overall effect of those materials, in the work of art per se, that unquantifiable essence of what has been accomplished; but I like this essence to be composed of tangible things, things I can chew on and wrestle with, things I can be viscerally engaged with.

This book is all essence and forced me to readjust my reading habits. I had to actually remove my focus from the words themselves, and to let them pass intact – like cloudy kidney stones painlessly through my urethra – through my reading eyes and brain and straight into my conceptualizing mind, where they formed something quite small for a novel of over 200 pages. The essence of this book is that “All things with form can vanish at any moment, but emotion abides”, an admirable enough concept that I wholeheartedly accept; but is that why I read, to ingest thousands of words that instantly vaporize in my mind leaving a paltry residue such as that? Zen koans can perform that feat in ten words or less. Again, I turn to art to be engaged with the materials of that art.

In his essay on marathon running Murakami refers to himself as boring, and now I'm inclined to believe him. The protagonist of this book is clearly a stand-in for Murakami, and is numbingly dull. He’s a “successful” family man who likes jazz and to have his balls licked, not much of a Curriculum Vitae that, so it’s augmented with a fixation on a girl he was friends with when he was 12. Granted, this is the “meat” (or rather tofu) of the plot, and is sweet and somewhat moving as it morphs through the vicissitudes of his life, though some of its impact was lost on me because now I don’t quite believe Murakami. I don’t believe he’s in touch with an inner purity aglow with a spiritual innocence. I don’t believe his romantic idealism. I don't believe in the transcendence of his imagination. I don't believe there are women who like to lick his balls. And not believing these things about him substantially lessened the impact of the main character’s final transformation into the first stages of a complete and interesting being.

Which begs the question – who wants to read a book whose main character doesn’t become interesting until after the final word?

But then is that possibly the point of this book? Given the delicate and profound beauty of the final image, and given the vapidity of the preceeding 200+ pages, is it possible that the book itself is an embodiment of the essence I previously pointed out; that the bulk of the novel itself represents the form destined to vanish and that the final emotionally charged image is what abides? I applaud Murakami if that is the case, at least for his conceptual gumption; but still I'd rather read a book that wasn't designed to be innocuous. Give me some meat on my words.

[zuza_zaksiazkowane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dałabym więcej gdyby nie to cholerne zakończenie. Jak można to było wszystko tak zostawić?? 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

[Dalia Nourelden · Rating 3 out of 5]

بداية لا اعرف ماذا اكتب
هل اتحدث عن الرواية ؟ لا يوجد شئ محدد لكتابته
موضوعها قد يبدو عاديا جدا
حياة شخص
حياة مثل اى حياة وتساؤل هام
هل انت سعيد ؟هل انت راض عن حياتك ؟
وربما تكون اجابتك انا لست حزين لكن هناك شئ ينقص ماهو لا اعرف ؟ مجرد فراغ لا تعرف ماذا يملئه .
اذا مالفرق ؟ ماذااضاف هاروكى ؟
حسنا بداية هذا الرجل من الروائيين القليلين الذين سحرونى عند اول رواية ولا زال سحره مستمر لذا فانا من محبى هذا الرجل
لنعود مالفرق ؟ الفرق هو هاروكى نفسه ، طريقة حكايته البسيطة ، شخصياته الوحيدة ، المختلفة ، العاشقة للكتب والموسيقى ، شخصياته دوما تمس قلبى ، أجد نفسى فى شخصياته ، فى كلماته ، فى افكارهم ومشاعرهم ، ودائما مايصل معى فى الوقت المناسب تماما
مأخذى على هذه الرواية هى احاديثه ووصفه فى بعض الاوقات ممايوصف بانه + ١٨ او +٢١ والتى كان الإقلال منها سيكون افضل

"أشعر دوما كما لو أني أكافح لاصبح شخصا آخر .كما لو كنت أبحث عن مكان جديد، أتمسك بحياة جديدة وشخصية جديدة....أظن أن هذا جزء من عملية النضوج ومع ذلك هي محاولة لاعادة تكوين نفسي...إذا اصبحت شخصاً مختلفاً يمكنني تحرير نفسي من كل شئ....أعتقد جاداً أن بامكاني الهرب من نفسي إذا ما بذلت جهدا لكني اصل دوما الي طريق مسدود ، أينما ذهبت أبقي نفسي ، ما هو مفقود لا يتغير ابدا، قد يتغير المنظر، لكني ابقي علي حالي ..الشخص القديم يا الكامل"

لكن هذه الرواية تجعلنى ارغب فى سؤال هاروكى عن شئ هام وجدته فى اكثر من رواية له ، ماذا بينك وبين حب الطفولة ؟ الفتاة التى يعرفها البطل فى طفولته ولا ينساها . يظل يقارن بين كل فتاة يعرفها وبين هذه الفتاة ، التى ربما لم تجمعهم صداقة او كما الوضع هنا ربطت بينهم صداقة وافترقوا لكنه لم ينساها يوما ولديه استعداد ان يترك كل شئ ليكون معها ، يبقى يتذكر لمسة يديهم التى لم تستمر سوى عشر ثوان

١/ ٦ / ٢٠٢٠

[Jr Bacdayan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am in love with Haruki Murakami’s novels. I guess it might be the resonance of loneliness emanating from all his works. It might be the fusion of pop-culture and philosophical musings. It might be the mysterious atmosphere he creates. I can’t really pin it down. Most of his novels are deceptively similar in their tones and backgrounds but each one has a different center. Each novel shows a similar scene, but each one with a different focus.

South of the Border, West of the Sun is a meditation on moving on, learning to live with your decisions, learning to change, to adapt with the current.

“After a certain length of time has passed, things harden up. Like cement hardening in a bucket. And we can’t go back anymore. What you want to say is that the cement that makes you up has hardened, so the you you are now can’t be anyone else.”

Our decisions, the choices we make, these affect not only things around us but also molds our identity. Little by little we change because of what we choose. We become someone different from the past, someone unrecognizable. We may not like these changes, but learning to accept who we are; who we’ve become is the most important step to moving on.

Hajime, whose name means beginning in Japanese, is a man from the past. A man fallen in love with Shimamoto, with Izumi, with Yukiko. His story uses these three women as markers for the shifts in his life. He loves, breaks, and loves again. Hajime moves on through each phase of his life different from who he was. Now he is in his thirties married with children and lives a comfortable and contented life until his past comes back to visit him.

“Yet here I am, hurting you. Because I’m selfish, hopeless, worthless human being. For no apparent reason, I hurt people around me and end up hurting myself. Ruining someone else’s life and my own. Not because I like to. But that’s how it ends up.”

You trudge along, sometimes without reason. Hanging on, if not for yourself, then for those around you. If your dreams are gone, you can use your life to fulfill the dreams of people you love. Let them have their happiness, if you can’t have it. Don’t step on their dreams and bring them your misery. If your dreams have faded, dwelling on them cannot give you happiness, if will only bring you more pain. But aim to not let the people you care about feel the same pain.

“And time passing is one thing that can’t be redone. Come this far, and you can’t go back.”

Sure, everyone has that greatest regret, some point in their lives where they say “what if”, leaving someone, choosing another, saying yes. There is that time where we would give everything to redo to choose again, but we cannot. It is all in the past. It is naturally human to crave for this, we seek what we do not know, we crave the mysterious but by doing this, we ignore what we have in front of us. We neglect the present where we can make a difference, and we dwell in the past where we can’t do a thing. So then the present becomes the past, and we realize its value only when we are powerless once more. Maybe we unconsciously love being powerless? Probably. Accepting one’s fate is never easy, learning to live through things that didn’t go as we wanted it to. But that is life. You act and your actions have consequences and you react and you live with it. It is never perfect, but appreciating what you have is the only defiance you can show. You can’t control life, but you can try to control what you feel. Try to achieve contentment and perseverance in this untamable darkness of sea called life. Learn to flow with the tides, and dance with the currents.

“Eventually everyone would fall into those endlessly lonely depths, the source of all darkness, a silence bereft of any resonance. I felt a choking, stifling fear as I stared into this bottomless dark pit.”

“Inside that darkness, I saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don’t know it is raining. Until someone came and lightly rested a hand on my shoulder, my thoughts were of the sea.”

There is always darkness in the absence of light. But is light really absent or are we blind to the light around us? The sun does not shine at night, we call it dark, but the moon is there unnoticed. The light you desire may not appear for you, but a different light is always there to take away darkness. Open your eyes.

In this life, nothing is permanent but change. The sun will always set, the moon too, but a new sun and a new moon will always take its place. Do not resist, accept.

“I might very well be changing. And I had to change.”

“In South of the Border, West of the Sun, the simple arc of a man's life - with its attendant rhythms of success and disappointment - becomes the exquisite literary tableau of Haruki Murakami's most haunting work.”

[Sidrah Anum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life, with everyone, is always suspended between two possibilities ( What you want to do? And what you should do?), whenever you need to make a decision. The rest of the life moves according to the choice you make, which decides if you are going to have an *apparently-happy-looking* life or the one where your heart is satisfied with what you have and doesn't let you roam in the direction of what-ifs? The path of *what you want to do* is hard as a rock but the one I would always prefer. You can't just settle for whatever life gives you, live an ordinarily happy-looking life and expect satisfaction in the end. You have to stand up for how you want your life to be like. Another lesson this book taught me is that once you make a wrong decision (you know it was wrong by the hollow-ness of your heart and soul), regret about it and later in life try to grab the opportunity (if provided) to pick up the option you gave up on before, it will still be a total mess and will result in utter death of your soul. So, not only picking up the right option is must but doing so at the right time is also necessary.
I love Murakami's books and this one sure has a lot to tell.

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is the living example of 'All is well if it ends well'.

I was getting really bored reading the eleven chapters in between the first two and the last two chapters because most of these chapters didn't make much of a difference to the story and they were so damn repetitive and monotonous that I ended up watching three adaptations of a good manga series in between. I was really struggling to go through these chapters and it gave me a bad taste in my mouth reading about all the cheating and the infidelity things that were going on. I know we can neglect it when it's Murakami because we love reading about his writing about all the complex human emotions as if we are swept by some unknown force that we actually end up liking whatever is written about the characters no matter how flawed they are. But this Murakami touch was there only in the first and last two chapters respectively. The other chapters were so bland in comparison and the characters got so annoying and irritating to the point of cursing myself why I was reading something I wasn't enjoying at all. But...
The last two chapters literally rescued the book. I really appreciate the fact that the book is short with less than 200 pages (actually it seemed like never-ending of boredom and unlikeable mundane characters).

This is a story of a guy in particular who got so emotionally attached to a girl when they were in diapers (just kidding!) No, when they were kids. Because of the fact that they are the only child of their parents and they could understand each other really well (but I don't see the point of getting obsessed over someone in kindergarten or school years later to the point of breaking up your own family regardless of hurting the person you're with at present).

Those who read Murakami will know something in common about his storyline in most of his books, that is, there's some girl in the boy's life who he is unable to forget and get so attached that everything that's going to happen in his life is going to do something with this unforgettable special girl.

Yes, that's the plot here as well. Usually, it doesn't matter much to me because the characters in each of his books stand out and are memorable. But the characters in this book are just bland and they seem like characters borrowed from some other book. I am so disappointed. Not because of the plot or anything but the characters disappointed me. The writing shines in the first and the last two chapters. I seriously believe that this book has been so unnecessarily long and tedious for nothing. The ending was satisfactory and it's for the best for the readers as well as for the characters in the story. Otherwise this book would have been the one book which hangs on a wobbly thread between 1 star and 2 stars and ending up throwing away the book the moment I end up reading the last line. But damn, the writing did picked up towards the end and I ended up being a reasonable person who may seem like a normal person without unnecessary strong feelings about a book by one of her autobuy authors ☕

I would have liked the book better if:

👉 The writing didn't go so bland for most parts of the book

👉 If the plot and the sequence of the story were planned a little better

👉 If the women in the story were more actively vocal or involved other than just merely being mysteriously dark and lonely (we all know we enjoy such characters from time to time and it's so Murakamily but it would have been much better if the lives of these two important women, no, actually three important women in the life of the main character were a bit more elaborately described rather than putting them in particular sections of
1. The one he's so obsessed with forever, the perfect one, the ultimate woman in his life
2. The wife who's ever understanding to the point of no return even if it triggers her to be mentally affected again (significant history of self harm)
3. That other girl who was used as a substitute in between and who ended up unfeeling of any emotion in her later life and ended up being feared by children and ended up living alone like an unwanted being

I seriously hated all the eleven chapters (out of the 15 chapters in total) in between.

[Moushumi Ghosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always liked jazz music but I don’t think I qualify as a fan. But this book seems like a jazz symphony to me (I’m kind of clueless about jazz. Is there something like a “jazz symphony?”) It’s smooth, mysterious and leaves you thirsting for more.

I firmly believe that you don’t choose your books; the books choose you. Yeah, I’m one of them people who think that there is no such thing as a coincidence. So, this SOTBWFTS (short form) was a gift from a friend on my birthday.

Anyways, I jumped on the novel like a piece of cake: long denied, much remembered. Since it’s a slim volume, I’m done with it in 9 hours with equally slim breaks in between.

At first, you wonder where is the story going? But I’m as usual getting ahead of myself. The story is of an average man, Hajime, who cannot forget the superbly mysterious and beautiful Shimamoto (ironically, he can’t remember her first name: this is her last name.) Hajime meets Shimamoto in kindergarten and they both bond over the fact that they are “only” children of their parents. It’s a beautiful friendship with music playing (quite literally, since they listen to music most of the time) a major part in their friendship. Polio-infected Shimamoto is the one girl who makes a very deep impression on his young mind. When Shimamoto moves out of his life, Hajime goes on with his life in a very on-the-surface manner. He does the regular things: school, high school sweetheart, college, a dead-end job, find the girl who would be his wife, dabble in business, and become successful. But you get the feeling that something is missing. When one day a stunning woman walks into his club on a rainy evening, everything changes. The woman is Shimamoto. Now, looking more stunning than ever. Hajime is torn between an average life and his prospects with Shimamoto. She appears on rainy evenings to tantalise him. One day, just when he makes a choice, she disappears forever.

Hajime is the everyman in this novel. It’s his life we identify with. Shimamoto is the symbol of all that we want and cannot have. She appears from time to time in our lives teasing us with the prospect. But she is like the rain: she can appear but she cannot stay. If she does, she will destroy everything. And the novel is a testiment to the fact that her short stay was quite destructive for the protagonist.

This novel is considered to be one of his most mature works. I couldn’t help but compare it with Norwegian Wood. The youthful flavour of Norwegian Wood is not to be seen here. But what you can see is a mature writer and a mature man. It’s like a sequel to Norwegian Wood. Naoko grows up and become Shimamoto. Toru and Hajime are the same – the passive protagonist –appearing again and again in all Murakami novels. Even in a very adventurous novel like The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, the protagonist remains the calm guy who makes spaghetti. All Murakami protagonists wait for life to happen to them, somehow calm, somehow untouched like the eye of the storm.

All the references to music especially Jazz are there usual. It makes the story all the more poignant. This is not one of them rambunctious novels that use mind-bending narrative pyrotechnics to tell the story and grab the attention of the reader. It’s one of those quiet books that makes a deep impression on your mind. It sure did on mine.

[Ahmed Oraby · Rating 3 out of 5]

هاروكي موراكامي، هو تلك المنطقة الرمادية بين الواقع والخيال

[Heba]

وأخيراً...كتبت المراجعة...🤗
لو....لكن....ربما...!!!
في تلك الكلمات الثلاث يُكمن شقاءنا وتعاستنا...لا تستهين بهم أبداااا.....
نتعلق بإنحناءة "لو" كما لو كانت ستنقذنا...وبها كان سيتبدل مصائرنا...!
نرتجف ببرودة "لكن" فنتجمد دون حراك ..وما يتأتى بعدها يُقصي ما قبلها بقساوة وخشونة مهما حاولنا تجميل الكلمات والتخفيف من وقعِها...!
نلوذ بمهرب "ربما" ونتملص من المواجهة..وتبقى ظلالنا تتراقص على ضوء الحقيقة لتكشف عن أماكننا...!
ولم يجرؤ أيٌ منا على قول أي من الكلمات الثلاث إلا جُبناً وخذلاناً....فتباً للثلاثة...ولقد اجتمعوا هنا بجدارة....
هنا..لابد وإنه تلتقي بمن يشبهك وإن لم يماثلك....
كم مرة حدقت في وجهك بالمرآة وتتساءل من أنا ؟...
ثمة جزء مفقود من ذاتك...تنقضي السنوات هباءً وأنت تقطع الطرقات وفي كل مرة تفضي بك إليك...دونما أن تقبض عليه...
تعجز عن تقديم إجابة..لا تملك خياراً...تقف عاجزاً أمام الغياب...ولم يعد لديك فكرة عما تريده من الحياة...
حبيساً لدائرة مغلقة تطارد الجزء المفقود وهو يلاحقك...إلى ما لانهاية.. ألم يحن الوقت بعد أن تكسر الدائرة..؟...
كلنا نعيش ينقصنا شيء ما ونضع نُصب أعيننا إنه لن يتحقق وجودنا إلا به...
ماذا لو عزمنا أن نهدم عالماً شيدناه ليس لشيء إلا لأننا نتحدى الزمن ونقف بمواجهة عقارب الساعة ونأمرها أن تعود للوراء....؟!
ماذا سيكون بإنتظارنا عندئذٍ سوى الهزيمة..الانكسار...الضياع
هنا... صمت الوحدة...مرارة الخيبات..وعذاب الفرص المفوتة...
هنا عندما تملك امرأة ما مكانة خاصة بقلب الرجل وقد دلفت بابه بلا استئذان ولأنه لم يتداركها فلم يعد بمقدوره نسيانها...
" مثل اشارة "محجوز" فوق طاولة في ركن هادىء في مطعم.."....
وإذا ما كان قد شيد عالماً بعد غيابها ، فإذا ما حاول أن يبعث مشاعره ازاءها من جديد...لن يكن بانتظاره سوى الألم....
وسيفقدها مجدداً لامحال...لذا لنتدارك من نحب قبل اختفاءه حيث لن نستطع بعدها استعادته أبداً.....
بنهاية المطاف.. من منا لا يأمل بيد تربت على قلبه لكي لا يخيب أمله....

[Велислав Върбанов · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐

Много силен и емоционален роман... „На юг от границата, на запад от слънцето�� не е обикновена любовна драма, а трогателна история за самотата във всичките ѝ форми! Хаджиме като дете се влюбва в своята съученичка Шимамото, но скоро житейските им пътища се разделят. Впоследствие ставаме свидетели на порастването на главния герой, виждаме го като сложна личност със своите силни и слаби страни... След много години съдбата отново го среща с Шимамото по доста загадъчен начин... Мураками чудесно преплита реалност и въображение в тази кратка, но запомняща се книга!





„Започнах да посещавам библиотеката и да поглъщам всяка попаднала ми книга. Книгите ми действаха като наркотик. Отгърнех ли някоя, не можех да се откъсна от нея.“


„Както някои хора тайничко се радват на дъждовните бури, земетресенията или слънчевите затъмнения, така и аз си падах по това загадъчно, необяснимо нещо, с което ме привличаше противоположният пол. Можем да го наречем магнетизъм, тайнствена сила, която примамва и омайва хората против волята им.“


„Всичко върви към своя край, помислих си. Някои неща изчезват изведнъж, безследно, като изтрити, други се разтварят бавно в мъглата. Остава само пустиня...“

[Fatma Al Zahraa Yehia · Rating 3 out of 5]

رواية أفضل ما فيها النهاية.
النهاية التي لن أقتنع بها عادة. فما يذهب ويضيع منا لا يعود.

احتاج هاجيمي عمرا كاملا لكي يُدرك فداحة ما اقترفه في الماضي.
وفي فرصة قد لا تأتي إلا لقلة منا، أعطاه الزمن البصيرة التي منعته من تكرار نفس الخطأ.

[leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

i thought that me loving norwegian wood was a one-off red flag but i may be becoming a fully-fledged murakami fan

[Chris_P · Rating 4 out of 5]

After having read the bulk of his work, I've come to the conclusion that one has to have a general picture of Murakami's novels in order to understand each of his stories seperately. There are some recurring themes in all of them that at first I couldn't quite get. Now, it's become easier to interpret those symbolisms.

As much as I love his surrealistic tricks, I can't help but be equally dazzled by his more sensitive, romantic themes. This one belongs to the latter category, while it has been suggested that it falls on the same group as Norwegian Wood. Personally I liked this one more. It sure lacks the paranormal, dreamy, often nightmarish elements that define Murakami, but there are a few familiar things nonetheless. A troubled, incomplete protagonist, women whom there's something wrong with one way or the other, weird sexual tricks as a device for making a point, and of course records and jazz.

It sure takes a lot of analysis, which is something I won't do right now. Suffice it to say it is about a man having an early reference point which defines the rest of his life. It is about the dreams we have as kids and give up before not too long and how the past and everything we've given up on come to haunt us so we won't forget.

Basically it is a sad novel. The pages full of a dark nostalgia that sticks to your fingers before getting absorbed by your system and fills you to the brim. Murakami paints some pictures based on his hero's psychology. Sad city streets, dark rainy nights in jazz bars, picturesque country landscapes and all those under an ever present melancholic feeling of loss. Like I've said before, I don't know how he does it, but Murakami managed to trap me in his world once more. I'm starting to wonder if I've actually ever left it ever since my first trip there.