A review by minzzi
Sul da fronteira, oeste do sol by Haruki Murakami

emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

   Hajime is a selfpitting, sex obsessed asshole who is incapable of seeing the women he says he loves as full human beings and because of that he ends up treating all of then like shit ( just look at what he did to Izumi and Yukiko. And Shimamoto was so obviously depressed and all he could think about was how much he wanted to have sex with her. What an idiot). However, I fell like that was the point of his character, you are not supposed to like him. 
    Shimamoto, on the other hand, was so interesting to me (again, finding her interesting is probably the point of the book). All though most of her character is just "beautiful mysterious lady", I think you can extract much more from her. She is a ghost (metaphorically or literally, depends on your opinion), a omen of the past, here to hunt Hajime and remind him what his life could have been while at the same time trying to give her life some sense of normalcy.
    Sadly, a don't know anything about Japan's internal politics and economy, so a lot of the political criticism and references to historical events went over my head.
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