South of the Border, West of the Sun

I feel compelled to explain my lapse in posts over the past few months. I was in a show, then I started a new job, and I was catching up on New Yorkers. All of this resulted in a) less active reading of books, and b) much less active posting.

Then, reading in my most recent New Yorker an article on Kindle vs iPad and the current state of the publishing business (really, I can't get enough of this topic - it fascinates me), I read a quote from Steve Jobs that made me gasp and yell out loud and consequently get made fun of by my boyfriend: "Forty per cent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year." WHAT?! Okay, well this explains pretty much everything.

Anyway, it brought the fire back into my reading life.

And so I'm playing catch up with posts, and still reading Harry Potter as I adjust to waiting tables (Harry Potter is great for, among other things, getting through stressful/preoccupying times).

So, hopefully you'll forgive me. And stop pretending you don't want to read about the latter half of the Harry Potter series.

Now for the Murakami. I tend to like Murakami's short fiction better than his novels. That rule held up with South of the Border, West of the Sun. This novel held my heart more than The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle did - I cared more about the fate of the protagonist. It also had some of the classic Murakami weirdness and sadness and beautiful prose. As always, I wishes I could read his work in the original Japanese...if I'd known about Murakami in high school, I totally would have continued my Japanese study into college. As it is, though, the only knowledge I brought from my old studies was appreciating a reference to the use of katakana vs Kanji.

This is a story about bends in the road, second thoughts, haunting regrets, quiet appreciation. Like many of Murakami's stories, this one includes lots of small, private moments where earth shattering realizations and turmoils take place within as the action comes in fits and starts. You know it's always possible that something crazy will happen (enter giant frog man), but the whole thing is grounded in very recognizable human experience.

Not my favorite Murakami, but I enjoyed it. Great title, too.