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Mar 19, 2008

Kelly rated it:

Whatever Murakami book I am reading, I find myself stepping back into the same world as before, with all of the same characters and themes of wells and transience and strangely poignant details like gold lighters and classical music records and the myriad spaghetti dinners--the mundane details of everyday life spun into a dreamy tapestry. The fact that every Murakami book I read seems to feel the same is a good thing in this author's case. His tone is something quite distinct. Every time I re More...

0 comments like (25 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2009

Martine rated it:

I never fail to be impressed by the way Murakami captures mood and feelings. Even in his less fantastic novels, of which this is one, he draws you into a world that is all his, and so full of possibilities and connections that you feel you could grasp them if you reached out. Except you don't, because in Murakami's universe it's easier to stay put and wait than to get actively involved. It's about memories and reminiscences, about wishes and alternate realities, and if you were to reach out and More...

9 comments like (21 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2009

Eddie rated it:

This book is the literary equivalent of cloud paintings. I’m not talking John Constable’s clouds, which are dense with specificity from a keen and earthy eye; but rather New Agey cloud paintings, which are designed to be innocuous and calming, to not stimulate the eye, to induce a meditative state and readjust the spirit and turn one away from the tangible.

So South of the Border, West of the Sun is not all bad – it does satisfy all the above criteria for New Agey cloud paintings – a More...

24 comments like (15 people liked it)

Jul 02, 2009

Lamia rated it:

كتب ابراهيم حاج عبدي..
"عنوان الرواية «جنوب الحدود، غرب الشمس» هو عبارة عن توليفة ابتدعها خيال الروائي، ليختزل، بهذه الاستعارة الذكية، مزاج بطل روايته، ومخاوفه ورغباته وآماله. «جنوب الحدود» هو عنوان أغنية لنات كينج كول، بينما «غرب الشمس» هو اسم لمرض هستيري يعاني منه الفلاحون في سيبيريا. «فلاح وحيد في تندرا سيبيريا. يحرث الأرض كل يوم ولا يرى شيئاً على مد البصر سوى الشمس والأفق الممتد بلا نهاية محيطاً به من الجهات الأربع. يلقي بمحراثه ذات يوم، ويبدأ بالسير نحو ارض تمتد غرب الشمس، من دون More...

3 comments like (9 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2007

Moushumi rated it:

I have always liked jazz music but I don’t think I qualify as a fan. But this book seems like a jazz symphony to me (I’m kind of clueless about jazz. Is there something like a “jazz symphony?”) It’s smooth, mysterious and leaves you thirsting for more.

firmly believe that you don’t choose your books; the books choose you. Yeah, I’m one of them people who think that there is no such thing as a coincidence. So, this SOTBWFTS (short form, bidu) was a gift from a friend on my birthday.
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1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Nov 27, 2011

Airiz rated it:

I am a discriminating reader. Even if I love an author unreservedly, I don’t go around loving everything that he writes. After all, in a writer’s collection of works, not everything will be explosively brilliant; some of them will turn out as duds.

To many Murakami-experienced readers, South of the Border, West of the Sun definitely reads like the spiritual successor to his acclaimed novel Norwegian Wood. Both don’t have a much of magical realism (or surrealism?) in them that is commo More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2011

Ian rated it:

A Companion Intervenes

I re-read “South of the Border” immediately after re-reading “Norwegian Wood”, as part of my training regime for Murakami’s “1Q84”.

Although they were written five years apart and were separated by “Dance Dance Dance”, they are good companion pieces.

They stand out from Murakami’s other novels because they explore love and its consequences almost exclusively.

Although some things and events go unexplained, there is little of the More...

20 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2008

Lisa rated it:

I really didn't enjoy this book, but it did make me think about why, so at least it had that going for it.

I found Hajime an infinitely unlikeable character, but I couldn't put my finger on the details of why. He had no problem doing things that would hurt the women he claimed to "love", even as he said that there must be something wrong with him for doing so. I think of "that's just the way I am, nothing to be done" as the worst, laziest possible excuse for bad More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2008

Yulia rated it:

Unlike his more dreamlike, fantastical novels, this one by Murakami is a rather domestic (but not mundane) tale about a Japanese man who's married to a woman he's never truly connected with, reminiscing about his first love: a girl with a limp whom he shared a love of music with and whom he lost touch with decades ago and still hopes to find one day again. No, it's not a melodrama, but a book on persistent memories, revised fantasies, and questions that sometimes must remain unanswered.

More...

11 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 26, 2008

Connor rated it:

On page 15:

"Her hand, which up till then had laid on the back of the sofa, she now placed on her knee. I stared vacantly at her fingers tracing the plaid pattern of her skirt. There was something mysterious about it, as if invisible thread emanating from her fingertips spun together an entirely new concept of time. I closed my eyes, and in the darkness, whirlpools flashed before me. Countless whirlpools were born and disappeared without a sound. Off in the distance, Nat King Col More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2010

Zee rated it:

The passage of time is hard to understand. It runs to its own improvised beat, slowing down and speeding up according to the moment - just like a jazz tune. There are times when the world seems to grind to a painful halt, your breath catches in your throat and your heart beats wildly at the sight of a ghost from the past. Then there times when it seems the years have slipped by like a thief in the night, taking with it your youth, your dreams, your very 'self'.

Yes, the hours of our More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2010

Evan rated it:

Eh, this was Orange Crush trying to masquerade as champagne.

The book's lynchpin is a lifelong unrequited or dashed youthful romance that obsesses the protagonists, Hajime (he) and Shimamoto (she), each -- unknowingly to the other -- holding a candle over a vast span of time. Unfortunately, Murakami is no Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and this glass of soda pop novel is no Love in the Time of Cholera.

I'm not a guy who requires plot, per se, but what plot there is here is p More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 19, 2009

Aneen rated it:

لم تكن هذه الروايه أول روايه شرق اسيوية
قرأتها فقد سبق وأن قرأت مجموعه قصصيه صينيه منذ فتره
تمتد للسنتين .. عندما بدأت هذه التي الروايه كنت اشعر أن هناك شيء ما
تحمله بين طياتها رغم أن الاحداث تمر ببطء وبطريقه عاديه جداً
لكن اعجبني بها الترجمه ترجمتها رائعه جداً لم أشعر بغرابة تركيب الجمل
او تشويه للمعنى في اي جزء منها وهذا ما جعلني النتهي منها في 3 ايام فقط
وربما كنت سأنتهي منها في وقت اقصر لولا انشغالي

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لعل بطل الروايه الذي بدأ حياته وح More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2010

Gertrude & Victoria rated it:

South of the Border, West of the Sun is a story of one man's struggle with his past - a past of unrealized first love. We find the main character, Hajime, some twenty years later, at the beginning of a crisis, when his first love from elementary school, Shimamoto, suddenly appears at his jazz bar one rainy night. The depiction of Hajime is an interesting character study, where his ideas of marriage, fidelity, and family are revealed.

Murakami's descriptions are vividly real, yet, sh More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2008

Maria rated it:

En Al sur de la frontera, al oeste del Sol contemplamos a un nuevo personaje prototípico de Murakami, Hajime. Un hombre que, a pesar de disfrutar de una sólida posición económica, una vida matrimonial estable, dos hijas a las que quiere, su propio negocio y un BMW, vive obsesionado por el torturante recuerdo de su amable y serena amiga de la infancia, Shimamoto, hija única como Hajime, que compartía también con él la afición por la música y con quien escuchaba, dos veces por semana, las obertura More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 10, 2007

Kelly rated it:

Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun chronicles the very extent of human desire. How even with time and absence, a human spirit can be drawn to another with such great force that the novel's protagonist, Hajime, is willing to risk everything to "have" a woman. It's a beautifully written and memorable piece of work, with Murakami having the ability to put abstract concepts into such elegant and tangible prose.

It begins with Hajime's narrative of his childhood, whe More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2011

Nash rated it:

This was read right after Norwegian Wood. It's been sitting on my shelf for a while now but the impulse to read never presented itself until after I got first whiff of Murakami and decided that I couldn't let the previous story end. Though I'm not a big fan and I secretly mourn the lack of translators willing to do work on other notable Japanese writers like Kenzaburo Oe, I have to say that Murakami is difficult to put down. His characters, especially the ones that narrate his stories, are so we More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Nina rated it:

Like Norweigan Wood, the main character was unintersting, selfish and cowardly, yet he had women that obsessed over him and were wildly sexually attracted to him and over whom he had an unhealthy level of emotional control. The fact that this is true of the only two books I have read by Murakami is making me a little suspicious of his interpretation of the world and it has turned me off to reading any more of his books. Also like Norweigan Wood, this book frustrated me because his occasional i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 25, 2010

Nojood rated it:

عجيبة هي النفس الإنسانية! لا ترضى أبدا ولا تقنع بحال. ظل البطل يلوك حب قديم هجره وحب أقل قدما خانه مدة غير قصيرة من الزمن. وحين فتحت له الدنيا أبوابها من كل حدب عاد يصيح الفراغ الداخلي الذي لم تستطع زوجته وابنتيه وأمواله سده. هل كان كل ما مر به هلاوس عقل مجنون لم يستطع الرضا بما قسم؟ أعتقد هذا. أظن بأن النهاية تدلنا على حالة معتادة من الجنون سببها محاولة عيش ما لم يكن.
أحببت بساطة الأسلوب وتعقيد الطرح More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2008

Danika rated it:

I'm not sure what to say about this book. On one hand, I couldn't put it down and read it almost nonstop until it was done. I was completely caught up by the story of Hajime and Shimamoto and couldn't wait to find out what would happen next. The down side, is that there's basically no resolution. I didn't like the ending- the book kind of just stops. We never learn Shimamoto's story at all. Add to that some of the other complaints about unlikeable characters, esp. Hajime who treats women with More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2008

Lori rated it:

A meditative and evocative book, it casts a deep spell that I've been under for several hours now since finishing. As with all of Murakami's work, there is a certain loneliness one suffers and how we deal with that loneliness and aloneness is one of the distinctive characteristics of his books. This one is more along the lines of Norwegian Wood in that it follows a simple framework with none of the fantastical elements of works like Wind-up Bird Chronicle. The only problem I had with this was th More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2011

Shireen added it

Here's what I've noticed after reading 4 Murakami books-- (all of which I've loved, except for this last one) The characters are all the same. Does anyone else notice the repetition? The main character is always a man who is described as drab, plain, sometimes even boring, and who is unsatisfied with his life in one way or the other. Job, wife, Destiny, whatever. And the woman/love interest/mother (sometimes one and the same) is always slightly lost and suicidal, or recovering from suicidal ten More...

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Nov 14, 2010

Margherita Dolcevita rated it:

Un peccato che questo libro sia fuori catalogo e quindi di difficile reperibilità. Perchè è meraviglioso.
In realtà la trama proposta è un po’ riduttiva, il romanzo è molto di più. E’ la storia di un uomo e dei suoi tre tempi: passato, presente e futuro. E’ il racconto di un’infanzia e di un’adolescenza, degli amori che le hanno contraddistinte, amori unici, che restano nella mente, che si portano via un pezzo di cuore, amori per i quali la porta è e sarà sempre aperta (onestamente, sfido chiunqu More...

0 comments like

Mar 25, 2009

Tommy rated it:

Murakami's typical surrealist narrative is nowhere to be seen here. Instead we are presented with a fairly simplistic, albeit realistic, story of a man (Hajime) who has everything and yet finds himself "missing something." This "something" takes the form of another woman from his youth who reappears in his life and captivates his primal instincts. Hajime is prepared to give up everything - his loving wife and children - in order to be with this woman... and ultimately he (alm More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 30, 2008

Abel rated it:

Duke Ellington once said about ¨the star crossed-lovers¨ -a theme he wrote in an album for a festival in order to honor Shakespeare- that it was the song for Romeo and Juliet because the two melodic lines of it, they dance around to each other but they really never touch...
And of course a little more than 3 minutes the sound touch you deeply inside.
it runs inside and inside,
and if you run inside enough, what can you find about touch...?
an answer spreads in some of the More...

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Dec 23, 2008

Tim rated it:

This is my second Murakami novel. I enjoyed Dance, Dance, Dance slightly more, but this is also a really good novel.

There's an elegance to Murakami's prose that is really satisfying to read. Someone likened it to jazz, and there's something in that. Smooth, cool, Kind Of Blue jazz.

In South of the Border, the narrator finds himself heading toward middle age with a comfortable life, a happy family, and a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. He is haunted by memories of two w More...

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Nov 29, 2011

Palmyrah rated it:

This was my first Murakami. I was curious as to what I would find, since the man's name is highly touted. I was expecting something a little weirder, more postmodern trickery with plot and incident and character. My girlfriend tells me I picked the wrong book for that; apparently his other novels are the ones with the real freaky stuff in them.

There's a bit of it, though, in this: all adhering to the central female character, Shimamoto, with whom the first-person male narrator is in lo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 28, 2011

Ankur rated it:

I have heard abt haruki murakami for abt as long as i can remember - i picked up kafka on the shore a couple of years back, but cudnt go beyond the 1st 50 odd pages and left it there...

So, yesterday when i found this book at an aunt's place where i am staying, and then saw that its only 185 pages, well, i had to finish it...

The story is v siple - its of a boy (Hajime) who falls in love with a girl (Shimamoto), but they move in different directions with life before they reali More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 10, 2011

Vivid Scribe rated it:

A lot of critics criticise Murakami’s works for all being very much the same. His books do share a lot of similar themes, similar characters, and similar situations. Some of his novels, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle (1995) for example contain direct samples from short stories. There is definitely a Murakami type, and South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992)* is no exception to this. There is however, something unique in each and ever piece of Murakami writing. There are nuances, small and lar More...

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Oct 13, 2011

Thebleedingpen rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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