thisamtheplace 's review for:

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

2.0

dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

I used to love Murakami, but in recent years with a few more of his books under my belt I have started to tire of his bullshit a bit, and treat him with the derision reserved for the problematic old guest at family meals. For this reason, my expectations were particularly low for this one, especially as I don’t think I’ve heard anyone talk about it. Unfortunately, Murakami saw my expectations were on the floor and surpassed them with South of the Border, West of the Sun. 

I’m failing to see what the point of it was. You could argue that it is a musing on the different kinds of connections and loves we have in our lives, which are the right ones, and which are the ones worth fighting for. Yet there was no depth. The protagonist’s actual wife felt real but maybe that’s because my imagination filled in the blanks of how it feels to be married to an arsehole who thinks it’s cute to only cheat on you when you’re pregnant. As for the rest of the female characters, I knew what kind of underwear they wore, and that they were recovering from the consequences of men being shits, but what else? 

Also, not our protagonist having the gall, the gumption, the audacity to describe him sleeping with his girlfriend’s cousin multiple times as the ‘crisis’ that broke up their relationship. 

Finally, the sex scenes had me reeling (& reading them out to others so I didn’t suffer alone). I’m unsure where Murakami gets his motion of female sexuality from but it was so far out I started to question how bi I actually am. 

As for the one thing I never can criticise when it comes to Murakami, his writing style is as cool and atmospheric as always, which just about made the experience of reading about this truly awful man a bearable experience. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend picking this up unless you are a Murakami completionist; it’s a short novel but it’s truly not going to be adding anything to your life unless you need an excuse to get mad. 

Finally, a passage I enjoyed - 

"I always feel as if I'm struggling to become someone else. As if I'm trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life, a new personality. I suppose it's part of growing up, yet it's also an attempt to re-invent myself. By becoming a different me, I could free myself of everything. I seriously believed I could escape myself - as long as I made the effort. But I always hit a dead end. No matter where I go, I still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but I'm still the same old incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that I can never satisfy.”