Haruki Murakami Review Part Three: South of the Border/West of the Sun

This piece is the most realist, and shortest work of this authors that I have read so far, and if you've read the two previous posts then you will expect me to praise this book. This expectation will not be disappointed. The short story focuses on Hajime a successful bar owner. It shows him at school with his first love and in the present with a successful business, backed by his father in law, and with a dutiful wife and children at home. Into this world walks his school friend that he loved, and he is conflicted internally by his wife and family and the recapturing of an old love seen through rose tinted spectacles. As in the case of After Dark the realism of this short piece is welcome and excellently done. This realism must be considered in relation to his other works, with the style being more comparable to an Ingmar Bergman film, willing to push the boundaries to show the complex relations between men and women, rather than surrealism pulling the rug of credibilty from under you. Equally this story follows incredibly normal themes; a wife stuck at home feeling her husband no longer loves her, an ex love who wants to be able to pick up a relationship at her whim and leave again and a middle aged man struggling between family and a potential great new love. This normality is written in a haunting and beautiful way,largely untainted by the jarring of surrealim and thus allowing a real investment in his decisions. In the end we a treated to a finale in the style of an episode of The Twilight Zone, which always has to be considered a positive. Ultimately, this would be my favourite Murakami work so far.