Quite a surprise for me. When it comes to Murakami I tend to like his surreal, absurdist stories in which odd things happen for no apparent reason, no explanations necessary. Oddly enough, South of the Border, West of the Sun is probably the most down-to-earth, realist novel in his bibliography next to Norwegian Wood. And I absolutely adored it.

Given that I’m in my early 20s and always freaking out about growing older, South of the Border really spoke to me about the pains and confusions of growing up; cultural differences aside, I could really relate to a lot of the things the protagonist Hajime was talking about during the early, drawn-out personal history that makes up the first third of the novel or so. Unlike what the last reviewer wrote, I think it’s all necessary, all relative to the story, just as a person’s past shapes who they are in the present.

There’s a lot that seems to be left out of the big picture when I think about it, certain details about characters that may be lacking or neglected, but in a way it shows you where Hajime’s focus really lies. And I have no problem with that. Unlike After Dark, there aren’t any lingering questions, any nagging thoughts I have now that the story’s come to an end. Everything feels like it fits in a neat little package.

And at a rather short 211 pages (in trade paperback), with huge margins, neat little package is an appropriate term. I’m not one to plow through books – which you can tell if you look at my consumption rate of books – but I managed to finish South of the Border in a single afternoon. It’s incredibly light reading with a heavily emotional story.

One of my new favorite books, and definitely, in my opinion, one of Haruki Murakami’s best.

I think this would have been better as a short story. Over half the novel is a slow reflective narrative about the main character’s childhood and involvement with several women. I was never engaged as Hajime shares this back story with a flat sense of self-recrimination and self-pity. Once the story catches up to the present and the choices he must make as an adult do i find myself caring about the struggles.

When the women come back into his life decades later, the story begins. The character Hajime revisits the backstory - his childhood, his regrets - as he reconnects with a classmate and with the woman who was his childhood best friend. In his adult context, i can care about the self recrimination and regrets.

I will likely reread Kazo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World for contrast as another reflection on regret and choices.

Of all of Murakami’s novels, this is the most Human and the most realistic.. I can actually relate to the story! Silly nostalgia!

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The jacket of the book says it’s “deceptively simple”. It’s also a charming and graceful evocation of how as adults our childhood exerts such a hold on us. I was amazed at Murakami’s ability to express how torn Hajime feels and how grey the area of love and lust and nostalgia can be.