South of the Border, West of the Sun

"The photograph brought a pain to my chest.  It made me realize what an awful amount of time I had lost.  Precious years that could never be recovered, no matter how much I struggled to bring them back.  Time that existed only then, only in that place.  I gazed at the photo for a very long time."

“The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.” 

A sweet little book that brought tears to my eyes in a few places.  The air of wistfulness, regret and opportunities missed kind of reminded me or reading Persuasion.  However Murakami's version of "everything working out in the end" is quite different to Austen's.

Spoiler alert.......

So does most of it take place in his imagination????

The envelope "disappears".  She "takes" the record that she had just given him.  There is no material evidence that he ever encountered Shimamoto in his adult life.  Was it all just the out working of his mid-life crisis?  A psychological projection to help him recognize, respond to and finally put to rest the feeling that something was missing in his life?

I had a feeling of foreboding through the latter part of the book so I was surprised when it all worked out so smoothly in the end and he was able to continue his life as a loving father and husband.