September 7, 2018

2018 has been a continuation of the Haruki Murakami craze that started last year with 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage' and 'Kafka on the Shore'. They were my first exposure to both his contemporary, realistic fiction works and his insane, magical realism adventures. This year, I started with 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running', then moved onto 'Norwegian Wood', and now most recently, 'South of the Border, West of the Sun'.

It is broadly known that Murakami's books tend to feature similar themes, with similar characters and similar imageries. Without fail, 'South of the Border, West of the Sun' also features a confused, introspective central Japanese male character, who is plagued by a childhood love of the past. He is a small-town boy, who eventually moves to Tokyo, enjoys swimming, listening to records, and frequenting jazz clubs, and his lover is a mysterious woman, who has a quiet and enticing beauty, never manages to connect with anyone else, and eventually develops suicidal thoughts.

Unlike his other books though, Murakami deeply explores in this one the ideas of infidelity, selfishness, and choices and consequences. One of the first traits he introduces about our main characters, Hajime and Shimamoto, is that they are both the only child in their families, something uncommon during their upbringing in post-war Japan. Only children are viewed as outcasts, spoiled and standoffish, while children with siblings are open and less self-centered. While this bonds our two leads, it also isolates them from their surroundings and additionally attempts to justify the way Hajime treats the other females he encounters, which his wife Yukiko later calls him out for. Despite how he betrays his first girlfriend to sleep with her cousin or how he betrays his loving wife and daughters to chase Shimamoto, Hajime continuously plays the victim, because to him, he is a tormented soul struggling to find his own identity and to re-invent himself. As good as his intentions may be, he can't escape the ghosts of his past or the uncontrollable forces that come with it. While he is remorseful of his actions, Yukiko needs to call him out explicitly for his oversight and dismissal of other people in his life to remind him that he is not the only one dealing with demons.

• 'The last few weeks, I really did think I would die... That's how lonely and sad I was... You didn't know that, did you? You have never seriously given it any thought, have you? What I was feeling, what I was thinking, what I might do... You don't understand a thing.'
• 'Most likely I don't.' I said.
• 'And you don't ask anything,' she said.
• I opened my mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come out. She was right: I never did ask her anything. 'Why didn't I? I had no idea.'

Though Yukiko reassures us that it's not about right or wrong, I still enjoyed the way Murakami juxtaposes what society deems is the moral code against the irresistible magnetism of natural desires, while simultaneously battling all this against the passage of time, the accumulation of missed opportunities, and the inevitability of death and change. Murakami's writing is always a treat and I look forward to reading 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' before taking a hiatus from his work.