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Title: South of the Border, West of the Sun : A Novel by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0-679-76739-8 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 March, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.06 (95 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A deeply compelling and disturbing novel
Comment: "South of the Border, West of the Sun" stands among the most powerful experiences I have had this year: it is a truly unique and moving love story, an examination of sorrow and loss in all of their complexity, and it offers no easy answers. Possibly it offers no answers at all. In this work Haruki Murakami expands the inexpressable sadness and beauty of his short fiction into the scope of a novel, and in the process makes them deeper and more acute-- painfully so, in fact. "South of the Border" is an unusual book in that, despite the turbulence of the plot and the immediacy of the characters, it is neither plot- nor character-driven. That is, it is not "driven" at all; unanswered questions, unspoken secrets, and inexpressable desires are so abundant that the usual novelistic devices of tension and release, conflict and resolution, no longer apply. We are in entirely new emotional territory, and thus in this work you will find no "stürm und drang," no catharsis, nor anything so simple and heavyhanded as conventional irony. Nor, as I have said, will you find an answer. What you will find is a meditation on love and longing-- beautiful, disturbing, and profoundly meaningful. It is a sorrowful masterpiece which, in a strange echo of the narrator's own predicament, I have found impossible to forget.
Rating: 5
Summary: Mesmerizing
Comment: I was hooked by this book right away ... I think the first chapter is quite possibly one of the most beautiful passages I've ever read. Continuing along, other works popped into mind ... Kawabata's Snow Country for one, along with Murakami's own Norwegian Wood and Dance, Dance, Dance. Perhaps more so than the books I just mentioned, South of the Border captures the subtle delicacy that is human existance. The pure beauty of slightly parted lips, the danger of one tug on the steering wheel at 80 mph, the unexplanable mystery represented by the envelope with money ... Murakami captured emotions and put them on paper with stunning results.
With the exception of Norwegian Wood, this is probably the most "normal" of Murakami's books. Both books deal with relatively similar topics, but to me at least, the growth of Murakami as a writer shows immensely in the differences between the two books. I read South of the Border right after reading Kawabata's Nobel-prize winning Snow Country (a similarly deceptively simple story) and I couldn't help but wonder if a Nobel prize isn't in Murakami's future as well. South of the Border, West of the Sun may not be Murakami's masterpiece ... some would say The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is, I personally like Dance, Dance, Dance the best ... but I feel that this book is nevertheless truly vintage Murakami. Murakami challenges the reader to rethink everything that he or she holds on to as "true" in this world. Shimamoto states that "some kinds of things, once they go forward, can never go back to where they began." These things include not only physical acts, but the unfathomable workings of the mind and memory as well.
Rating: 4
Summary: Safe, sane, and predictable
Comment: To be blunt, Haruki Murakami's best work will not be found in South of the Border, West of the Sun. I don't like having to write that about the most exciting contemporary author I've come across for a long time, but while it was a pleasant enough read, there is really nothing here that stands out. The Murakami-ness, aside from the ubiquitous mysterious vanishing woman, just isn't here.
The skeletal story is about Hajime, an only child whose only good friend in childhood is Shimamoto, herself also an only child. When their families move apart, he doesn't see her again until years later when he is a successful businessman. And is she also happy with her life? That remains a bit of an unknown, since Murakami has for this book chosen to be less forthcoming than usual. The balance between mystery and enlightenment that he so carefully keeps in most books has fallen badly to one side here. I also failed to see why he is so fascinated with her, and why his own family meant so little to him. In short, I found it hard to fathom the main players in the story (not unusual for Murakami, I admit), and I didn't really connect with them either. The only compelling storyline was his relationship with his high school girlfriend and its bad ending, but that took up only a rather small portion of the book, though Hajime does periodically muse about it.
Though enjoyable enough as a light read, I did not feel particularly challenged, nor did I sit up and say, "wow!" Read it if you like the author, but don't expect anything ground shaking. There's just not that much special here.
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Title: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0375704027 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0375726055 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle : A Novel by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0679775439 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: A Wild Sheep Chase : A Novel by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 037571894X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International) by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0679743464 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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