In Haruki Murakami’s South Of The Border, West Of The Sun, the narrator, Hajime, tells the story of his mostly failed relationships with women starting from the time he was in middle school. By the time he’s reached middle age, he has all the good things in life: a loving wife, two daughters, a second home in the mountains, and a couple bars that he owns and operates. But just as everything is going ever so smoothly, the girl he became the best of friends with in middle school and even loved (although he didn’t realize it at the time) suddenly comes back into his life. This event turns Hajime’s world upside down and he’s faced with the prospect of leaving his comfortable life for the woman he always loved.
Murakami writes in a startlingly realistic style. Although it didn’t hit me right at the outset of the novel, I remember that at about halfway through I realized just how intensely life-like the text is. This may seem strange and I admit that the sensation is hard to explain. The best way I can describe it is that, at times, I felt like I was actually living in the novel itself. I think there’s a certain precision in the words and sentences Murakami uses that creates this experience. Another way to put it is that it’s kind of like the feeling I used to get after listening to Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I remember whenever I would finish listening to it I always felt like every single note, every sound on the album, was just right and could not have been any other way. With South Of The Border, it’s the same thing. And when it comes to failed relationships, this book nails it. For me, Marukami’s novel captures everything about what it’s like when things between couples go sour, which may or may not sound good to you but I enjoyed it for some reason.
And so I conclude: two thumbs, up.
By the way, for any of you Salingerphiles out there, you may want to check out this article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2219768/pagenum/all
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