South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992) by Haruki Murakami

Perhaps this book is the result of Murakami looking at the protagonists he's written before and realizing, finally, that they just aren't all that interesting.

Our protagonist, Hajime, is typical of the men Murakami writes—Unfulfilled, uninteresting, and with no strong desires or momentous events earlier in their lives to give shape to what identifies most protagonists to us: What they want. They rarely show any agency, taking part in the story merely by being the vessel we as the reader use to experience the various weirdlings and surreal occurrences that Murakami dreams up and throws into his books. Murakami's protagonists are almost universally boring, unfulfilled, weak, middle-aged men to whom various interesting things happen to happen to. He's never been a great character writer—or even a good one—And perhaps this was the first time when he actually considered that fact.

South of the Border, West of the Sun is a book about finding purpose and fulfillment in a post-modern world dominated by capitalism, but for nine of its tenths it's focused mostly on masquerading as a book about relationships, sex, and how we sometimes make choices that hurt the people around us. For the vast majority of my read, I wasn't sure that Murakami was even aware of how unlikable his protagonist was. I waffled back and forth considering whether Murakami was blithely unaware of the supreme asshole his protagonist was, or whether Murakami was purposefully crafting a narrative subversion with consideration of his typical protagonists.

Towards the end of the novel it becomes obvious, as the protagonist himself undergoes an epiphany in which he considers his own self-centered, vapid, worthless character and finally begins to consider the people he has hurt throughout the story. The problem with this narrative is that it requires a better character writer than Murakami to pull off. The main character is an empty, uninteresting asshole, and the side characters all lack depth. Additionally, this book lacks Murakami's ethereal, quiet, melancholy atmospheric ability—One of my favorite things about his writing.

This is just an okay Murakami novel. Towards the end it became clear what he was trying to do, but most of the book is an unenjoyable read, and the conclusion left me questioning whether or not he said what he was trying to say in the best possible way.

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