Book Review: A book about growing up, making choices, being the right person, facing consequences. South of the Border, West of the Sun is Haruki Murakami's study of a man's relationship with and treatment of the three women he has loved. As with so many of Murakami's books, the ending left me satisfied, but with a wee bit of mystery. Although obsessed with the enigmatic girl from his childhood (known only by her surname), as the protagonist (Hajime) re-engages with her, he gradually realizes the hurt and damage he's inflicted on those he's loved. He learns about consequences and faces death, even while sometimes still trying to justify his actions, and even if she still wants to make the wrong choices. South of the Border, West of the Sun, his seventh novel, falls into Murakami's minimally magical, first-person narrator books such as Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart, rather than the fantastical Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore. Here, Hajime learns that women are human beings and don't simply exist to meet his needs. How the lesson is taught is the story of this book, which I didn't fully realize (at first, I'd focused too much on the plot and the mystery woman) until a second reading. It would be easy to dismiss South of the Border, West of Sun as obvious or simplistic, if the conflict in the book wasn't one that so many women and men (even in Japan, apparently) suffer through, until men become adults (if they do), and infidelity is no longer an exciting thrill, but a hurtful betrayal of the loved one (overcoming the "conquest" culture). As with so much of Haruki Murakami's writing there is a strong undertone of modern fairy tale, perhaps to explain the purpose of the mystery woman's reappearance in his life. In the end, Hajime realizes that "a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair." Ably translated by Philip Gabriel, this is excellent, honest, challenging, classic Murakami. [4 Stars]
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