I just finished reading Haruki Murakami’s “South of the Border, West of the Sun”. My curiosity with the author started when I saw a co-worker’s collection of Murakami books in his cubicle. I asked him what he thinks is his best work. He pointed me to this title.
I’m not sure if this is a review. I’m positive this isn’t a recommendation. Probably it is. I don’t know. Do I want to recommend something that would prompt someone to look ahead to a future filled with disappointments, unfulfilled promises, dreariness and endless soul-crushing days defined by pain and loneliness, until it slowly devolves into dark numbness? Not so sure.
Don’t get me wrong. “South of the Border, West of the Sun” is beautiful. There’s no debate about that. But I’m not sure I’m better off having read it.
Murakami is said to be heavily influenced by Western culture and literature. This is apparent in “South of the Border”, with his references to Nat King Cole and early 50s American jazz. One can be led to think that his doomed romanticism is borrowed from western literature, especially with a brief mention of the Shakespearean notion of “star-crossed lovers”. But his introspection is very much Japanese, very oriental. On the other hand, the backdrop of Japan's growing modernity, westernism, and its gradual detachment from itself served as a metaphor for loneliness and disillusionment.
As a reader heavily influenced by Western culture myself, “South of the Border, West of the Sun,” is a fascinating meta experience to say the least, what with the whole love-for-everything-western, sadness-through-everything-western dichotomy that I sometimes feel myself.
Here in the Philippines, the confusion is pushed to hyper-realism. At least the Japanese had centuries to establish a culture and an identity to be nostalgic about in the first place. Our country, with its protracted colonial past, never had such a luxury.
Those of my generation (those born in the late 70s) can’t separate their experience with Western culture from our being Filipino. As far as we are concerned, being Filipino means having a Western consciousness. We woke up to a world that had Sesame Street, Punk Rock, Michael Jackson, and McDonald’s. These pretty much sum up our experience growing up in this country.
When I find myself in rare moments of clear-headedness, I sometimes come to the realization that much of my angst and melancholy are heavily influenced by Western culture. It is one thing for your work or your art to be influenced by something distant, but your ENTIRE LIFE? There is something very alienating about that. That’s why I think my romantic expectations are so fucked-up. I think, at least on a subconscious level, I’ve been secretly looking for a Pinoy version of Julie Delpy from “Before Sunrise”, or Thora Birch from “Ghost World”, or some super indie-chick I’ve created in my mind after years of listening to The Sundays, The Field Mice, Stereolab, Lush, and every other music-snob wet-dream that ever existed. That girl may very well exist here, but she may turn out to be inherently fake, like the way 50s diners, faux-European Cafés, and call-center accents are all fake.
But what is FAKE here anyway? We were born in a fake world, so fakeness may very well be our reality.
“South of the Border, West of the Sun,” has brought me to a new realization. Maybe my sadness isn’t as fabricated as I’ve always thought it to be. The fact that I am surrounded by everything Western, blurring the authenticity of the Pinoy landscape along its way, is precisely what makes me feel so empty. As I was reading Murakami describe a forlorn Hajime staring at Tokyo with all its tall skyscrapers, thinking about a girl he met in a rural village when he was 12, it all became so obvious.
We’re at the 8th year mark of the 21st century, and everything on this side of the world feels so detached. Sometimes memories start to feel like illusions. And at the end of the day you just feel numb.
The book ends with Hajime’s thoughts wandering into some distant place that may not even exist. Shimamoto, the love of his life, may very well have been just an illusion. Everything about her seemed to be. And she was everything he ever wanted.
I shouldn’t have read this damn book.
0 comments :
Post a Comment