South of the Border, West of the Sun: A Novel (Vintage International)

by Haruki Murakami

my parents named me Hajime— “Beginning,”

Their generation suffered most during the long war.

I was convinced everyone in the whole world lived in a single-family home with a garden and a pet and commuted to work decked out in a suit. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine a different lifestyle.

I was an only child. I had an inferiority complex about it, as if there was something different about me, that what other people all had and took for granted I lacked.

like I wasn’t quite a complete human being. The phrase only child stood there, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “Something’s not quite all there, pal,” it told me.

I really was spoiled, weak, and self-centered.

This baggage, though, only made her a tougher, more self-possessed only child

But I detected something else—something warm and fragile just below the surface. Something very much like a child playing hide-and-seek, hidden deep within her, yet hoping to be found.

We had so much we’d held inside about being only children.

The more we talked, the more we realized we had in common: our love of books and music; not to mention cats. We both had a hard time explaining our feelings to others.

But there was one major difference between us—more than I did, Shimamoto consciously wrapped herself inside a protective shell.

It wasn’t a record she was handling. It was a fragile soul inside a glass bottle.

This was music from another world, which had its appeal, but more than that I loved it because she was a part of that world.

Rossini overtures, Beethoven’s Pastorale, and the Peer Gynt Suite.

the Liszt piano concertos: one concerto on each side.

The very idea excited me. I’d found a world that no one around me knew—a secret garden only I was allowed to enter. I felt elevated, lifted to another plane of existence.

Little by little, though, with repeated listenings, a vague image formed in my mind—an image that had meaning.

Those whirlpools, I realize now, had a conceptual, abstract quality to them.

But they were beyond ordinary language. An entirely different set of words was needed, but I had no idea what these were.

Nat King Cole was singing “Pretend.”

The lyrics seemed to express a certain way of looking at life, though at times I found it hard to see life in that way.

“Do you think it’s true what they say—that parents of only children don’t get along very well?” she asked. I mulled over the idea. But I couldn’t figure out the cause and effect of it. “Where did you hear that?” I asked. “Somebody said that to me. A long time ago. Parents who don’t get along very well end up having only one child. It made me so sad when I heard that.”

The me that’s here now has been brought up without any brothers or sisters. If I did have brothers or sisters I wouldn’t be the me I am. So it’s unnatural for the me that’s here before you to think about what it’d be like to have brothers or sisters…. In other words, I thought my mother’s question was pointless.

It was as if–this is something I thought of only later, of course–she were gently peeling back one layer after another that covered a person’s heart, a very sensual feeling. Her lips changed ever so slightly with each change in her expression, and I could catch a glimpse deep within her eyes of a faint light, like a tiny candle flickering in the dark, narrow room.

“I think I understand what you mean,”

“There are some things in this world that can be done over, and some that can’t. And time passing is one thing that can’t be redone. Come this far, and you can’t go back. Don’t you think so?”

What you want to say is that the cement that makes you up has hardened, so the you you are now can’t be anyone else.”

There was something mysterious about it, as if invisible thread emanating from her fingertips spun together an entirely new concept of time.

Countless whirlpools were born and disappeared without a sound. Off in the distance, Nat King Cole was singing “South of the Border.”

I was convinced something utterly wonderful lay south of the border.

Somewhere deep inside my body I felt an exquisitely sweet ache.

“It’s strange,” she said, “but when I think about children, I can only imagine having one. I can somehow picture myself having children. I’m a mother, and I have a child. I have no problem with that. But I can’t picture tha...

a feeling I reciprocated. But I had no idea how to deal with those feelings.

Our hands were clasped together ten seconds at most, but to me it felt more like thirty minutes.

but I knew she’d been dying to do so. The feel of her hand has never left me.

like a display case crammed full of everything I wanted to know—and everything I had to know. By taking my hand, she showed me what these things were. That within the real world, a place like this existed.

At the same time it confused me, made me perplexed, even sad in a way. How could I possibly come to terms with that warmth?

Her mother began to look at me in a strange way. Why does this boy keep coming over? she seemed to be saying. He no longer lives in the neighborhood, and he goes to a different school. Maybe I was just being too sensitive.

(probably is the only word I can think of to use here; I don’t consider it my job to investigate the expanse of memory called the past and judge what is correct and what isn’t)

Bs

Memories of her encouraged me, soothed me, as I passed through the confusion and pain of adolescence. For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a Reserved sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant.

I imagined the existence of a certain place. This place I imagined was still incomplete. It was misty, indistinct, its outlines vague. Yet I was sure that something absolutely vital lay waiting for me there. And I knew this: that Shimamoto was gazing at the very same scene.

We were, the two of us, still fragmentary beings, just beginning to sense the presence of an unexpected, to-be-acquired reality that would fill us and make us whole.

Mmp

a step in my personal evolution—abandoning the idea of being different, and settling for normal.

Gradually I drew nearer the world, and the world drew nearer to me.

It was less the maturing process I enjoyed than seeing the transformation in myself. I could be a new me.

But I had almost no desire to talk with anyone about the experience I gained through books and music. I felt happy just being me and no one else.

I might just be blabbing away about some drivel, but from the expression on her face you’d have imagined I was revealing a magnificent discovery that would change the course of history. It was the first time since Shimamoto that a girl was so engrossed in anything I had to say. And for my part, I wanted to know everything there was to know about her. What she ate every day, what kind of room she lived in. What she could see from her window.

Izumi. Love your name, I told her the first time we talked. “Mountain spring,”

Her father was a member of the Japanese Communist Party.

It was a strange feeling. I was no longer alone, yet at the same time I felt a deep loneliness I’d never known before. As with wearing glasses for the first time, my sense of perspective was suddenly transformed. Things far away I could touch, and objects that shouldn’t have been hazy were now crystal clear.