romance

After the translated works of Birnbaum and Rubin, it is a revelation to see how someone else translate and interpret Murakami's work (this does not mean that the writer of this review doesn't acknowledge the fantastic translations of both translators) . No doubt, Philip Gabriel has done a fantastic job with his translation of this book.

This story is about a middle-age man who in his teenage years finds and then loses the girl, only to meet her again years later. During these years he has hurted a lot of people, including himself. Now, happily married, settled and being a succesfull businessman, it's time to set things straight. Or not? When the woman he once loved (and still loves) enters his bar, things are beginning to change. Will he sacrifice everything for this woman, including his beloved wife and daugthers?

Unlike Dance, Dance, Dance or The Wind Up, this story is more down to earth. Nobody is perfect. Even if you live a happy married life. Unconditionally love doesn't exist, even when you know who you're true love is. Questions always remain and people have to accept this fact. Again Murakami succeeds in letting the readers to think and reconsider again what "life", "love" or "marriage" mean. The answers on these questions remain vague. But isn't that what is all about?

At first read, this would appear to be among the weaker of Murakami's recent works - perhaps a self-indulgent tour of sentimental moods from the past as an antidote to the gravitas of books such as "Wind-Up Bird." The translation, as well, seems hastily done, with the protagonist speaking in a loose, casual tone we're not quite used to. And character-wise, we really have only Hajime and Shimamoto to guide us, rather than the usual cast of unusual everybodies.

That being said, "South of the Border..." indeed packs a punch as substantial as Murakami-san's other work, when read with the same intimacy and closeness with which it was written. Sure, there are the usual basic motifs: sex-mad women, drinking alone, vintage American jazz, and heartbreak. Something is a little off-key, but buried beneath candy-like prose. So what? What distinguishes this book is what churns beneath the surface. It happens when Murakami, with his readers mesmerized, brings in his prosodic "heavy artillery" to lift the tale skyward. Physical and metaphysical transformation, deep body/soul trauma, and on-the-dot symbolism round the story out as a deep-structural tragedy that unravels itself with a devastatingly effective certitude. Frighteningly well done.

It's as much about destruction and selfishness as it is about togetherness and harmony. Two only children are in love - then come apart - then unite with shaken souls and memories of things completely irretreivable, much later in life. Hajime and Shimamoto, in another space-time, stayed in touch, married, and conceived an only child as a mirror of themselves. In this world, perhaps, they were happy - perhaps Hajime's idealism was intact and Shimamoto's intelligence given more room to breathe. Instead, at the sound of the crow, we infer this child's birth and death and realize that its presence in this world is limited to that of ashes in a remote stream. Murakami's device of bodily transformation, which also shows up in "Sputnik Sweetheart" for example, is most poignantly realized in "South of the Border" when Shimamoto becomes the beautiful woman and mother in a lopsided universe. Ultimately, with the death of the child who never really lived, readers unwary enough to have liked Hajime and Shimamoto (and held hope for their future) are mercilessly slammed to the ground. It's often said that tragedy is distinguished by the fact that it leaves more questions open than are resolved in the narrative; this tragic tale, though, answers every question with a profound finality. Even the final breath is anticipated and confronted, until there is really nothing more that can be said.

So read it carefully and watch for the crow. Ashes floating downstream were never so sweetly devastating.

I am totally hooked on Murakami. Although culture he is writing about is so distant for me, being from Croatia, I find it amazing how people have similar worries all over the world.
Murakami is definitely one of the greatest living authors. I adore his style, and I can only dream how good it sounds in his native language.
This book is such a sad story about being married, about taking responsibilities and about loosing love due to that.
What makes Murakami big is the message he leaves with you after every book and the ease with which he presents in front of you one of the biggest doubts in almost everyone's life.