South of the Border, West of the Sun (国境の南、太陽の西, Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi) is a short, melancholic novel written by the popular Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami, in 1992 while he was a visiting scholar at the Princeton University in the United States. The English translation by Philip Gabriel was released in 1999. Part of the title, 'South of the Border,' refers to the song as sung by Nat King Cole. However, there is no evidence that Na...
More
South of the Border, West of the Sun (国境の南、太陽の西, Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi) is a short, melancholic novel written by the popular Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami, in 1992 while he was a visiting scholar at the Princeton University in the United States. The English translation by Philip Gabriel was released in 1999. Part of the title, 'South of the Border,' refers to the song as sung by Nat King Cole. However, there is no evidence that Nat King Cole actually ever recorded this song. The other half refers to an Inuit syndrome called Piblokto or Arctic (or Siberian) hysteria.
In the novel, Murakami defines Arctic hysteria as follows:
"Imagine this. You're a farmer, living all alone on the Siberian tundra. Day after day you plow your fields. As far as the eye can see, nothing. To the north, the horizon, to the east, the horizon, to the south, to the west, more of the same. Every morning, when the sun rises in the east, you go out to work in your fields. When it's directly...
Less
