All Forms of Art

  South of the Border, West of the Sun  was not at all one of my favorites.  After reading so many glowing reviews, I must confess I was genuinely disappointed.  That said, I didn’t stop reading. Not even once. And that, in itself, says a lot about Haruki Murakami as a writer. I didn’t enjoy the book until very close to the end, but Murakami’s prose kept pulling me forward. He has that rare ability to make you continue reading even when you feel, deep down, that the story might be going nowhere. Beautiful Writing, Distant Characters Murakami writes beautifully—there’s no denying that. His sentences flow effortlessly, scenes are carefully composed, and everything feels precise and intentional. But I felt no empathy for Hajime, the main character. I couldn’t identify with him, nor did I particularly care about what happened to him. And it’s hard to love a story when you don’t care about the people living inside it. This emotional distance reminded me, at times, of ...