Summary
Haruki Murakami: South of the Border, West of the Sun
Hajime, the main character of the novel, spends his childhood in a suburb of post-war Japan. Withdrawn and lonely, he hangs out with Shimamoto, a girl with a lame leg, so the two of them often listen to records from her father's collection. However, before starting high school, his family moves to another suburb and the friendship between Hajimi and Shimamoto is interrupted. We find Hajimi in his thirties, living in a harmonious marriage with his wife Jukiko and two daughters. And he runs two very successful jazz bars. In the meantime, he finished his studies, had several love affairs, took part in student riots, and for years worked as a boring proofreader in a pedagogical publishing house... Thanks to an advertisement in a magazine, old school friends come to his bar, with whom he has uninteresting conversations, but she also comes, Shimamoto, a mature beauty shrouded in a veil of mystery, and seized by desire, Hajime puts all his life.
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