My first book by Haruki Murakami

A couple of days ago I finished reading one of the books written by Haruki Murakami. Since this Japanese novelist is recently very popular across the world, and even received Franz Kafka Prize for one of his books, I was very curious what kind of writer he is and whether I could find in his novels something for myself. So one of my Christmas presents this year (or rather last year) was one of the novels written by Murakami, "South of the Border, West of the Sun".


I must say that my attitude to Murakami's literature was changing during getting through his story. At the beginning I was glad to discover his easily accesible way of writing, yet still interesting and - as I hoped - not shallow. Somewhere in the middle of the story, however, I started to dislike the main character. He seemed to be pretentious and egoistic, being at the same time probably the "good" character in his world. At the very end I discovered, that this simple story brings undoubtedly much more than a picture of complicated emotional life of middle-aged wealthy Japanese businessman, who still desires his first love - a childhood friend.
Of course I won't say what happens, if you want to know - read it :) But I guess I was really surprised how Murakami finished the story. On one hand there is a feeling of righteousness and some kind of a moral relief (does it make any sense? anyway, this is how I felt it). On the other, there's a delicate sound of sadness and melancholy, a sound of regret for the time passing by, which doesn't allow us to change things from the past and gives us questions about our destiny and human possibilities in one earthly life...