Haruki Murakami Resources - south of the border west of the sun

south of the border west of the sun (国境の南、太陽の西, Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi)

First published in Japan by Kodansha (1992)

Translated by Philip Gabriel

US edition published 2000:
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Vintage;
ISBN-10: 0679767398

UK edition published 2000:
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN-10: 0099448572

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When I went back into the bar, a glass and ashtray remained where she had been. A couple of lightly crushed cigarette butts were lined up in the ashtray, a faint trace of lipstick on each. I sat down and closed my eyes. Echoes of music faded away, leaving me alone. In that gentle darkness, the rain continued to fall without a sound.

excerpt available from the Random House site

synopsis

In South of the Border,West of the Sun, the arc of an average man's life from childhood to middle age, with its attendant rhythms of success and disappointment, becomes the kind of exquisite literary conundrum that is Haruki Murakami's trademark. The plot is simple: Hajime meets and falls in love with a girl in elementary school, but he loses touch with her when his family moves to another town. He drifts through high school, college, and his 20s, before marrying and settling into a career as a successful bar owner. Then his childhood sweetheart returns, weighed down with secrets.

Murakami eschews the fantastic elements that appear in many of his other novels and stories, and readers hoping for a glimpse of the Sheep Man will be disappointed. Yet South of the Border, West of the Sun is as rich and mysterious as anything he has written. It is above all a complex, moving, and honest meditation on the nature of love, distilled into a work with the crystal clarity of a short story. A Nat "King" Cole song, a figure on a crowded street, a face pressed against a car window, a handful of ashes drifting down a river to the sea are woven together into a story that refuses to arrive at a simple conclusion. The classic love triangle may seem like a hackneyed theme for a writer as talented as Murakami, but in his quietly dazzling way, he bends us to his own unique geometry. --Simon Leake (from Amazon.co.uk)

reviews

Brilliant page with reviews and links from The Complete Review

An Enchanting Futile Quest (from TimeAsia) By Hilary Roxe

New York Metro review by Alexandra Lange

Haruki Murakami turns pensive with an emotionally observant novel By Steven E. Alford

Salon.com review BY RAY SAWHILL

The wikipedia page on the novel

Old sweet songs by Phil Baker from The Times (UK)

librarything.com page for the novel

Review Summary of South of the Border, West of the Sun

A book review by Danny Yee

First chaper of the novel from the NY Times