Friday, December 20, 2002
Title: South Of The Border, West Of The Sun
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Press
The more I read of Haruki Murakami's work the greater sense I have that his work falls into two categories. The first is the dramatic romance, concerned with unrequited love that goes through numerous twists through its course with little guarantee that it will all work out in the end - like Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart. Then there is the more quirky work, filled with strange events, strange characters and bemusing dialogue - like Dance, Dance, Dance and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. The second category is the one I am tending to enjoy more, though South Of The Border, West Of The Sun falls into the first category. Which still makes it enjoyable work, but I just don't find this kind of material quite as satisfying.
Hajime and Shimamoto meet in school, both only children in a post-war culture where the idea of only having one child seems aberrant. As such they become firm friends, spending all their time together. However when they are 12, Hajime's family moves away and while they are close enough that he can still visit the new distance and the onset of adult hood make things awkward. So they go their separate ways, but throughout Hajime's life he is haunted by the memory of Shimamoto. Throughout his 20's he knows no real happiness, always left looking for something. Then by chance he meets Yukiko and they fall in love, get married, have children, and with the support of her father he opens a successful jazz bar. At last he has found happiness, at least until Shimamoto comes back into his life, turning up at his bar one night. Which opens up the feelings they both had for each other all through their lives and complicating matters entirely.
The form of West Of The Sun is episodic, each chapter, at least initially, being quite compact - to the point where they could almost work as short stories, with the theme of thoughts of Shimamoto linking the sections together. As it goes on the novel is less compartmentalized, getting into the body of the story, the two characters reunited and the stages of how their relationship evolves. When Murakami works like this there seems to be a certain distance between the reader and the action, which makes this style less compelling than his other work. Still readable enough, but without the sense of who the characters are or any of the other things which really pull the reader into the narrative.
RVWR: PTR
December 2002
