South of the Border ...

I just finished reading South of the Border, West of the Sun by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. A couple of years ago I tried reading another of his books called A Wild Sheep Chase - I have to say, I didn't really get it. I mean it started okay, but kept getting more and more surreal, until it was so utterly bonkers I couldn't see the wood for the trees, so to speak. But I was looking for a new book in my second home, Heathrow airport, I spotted this one and decided to give it a go. A big theme of the book is reality, and the way we perceive reality - that reality is distorted by the person observing it. Okay, I'm saying this like I'm oh so clever, but I admit it helps that Murakami actually points this out in the book, 'To what extent facts we recognise as such really are as they seem, and to what extent these are facts merely because we label them as such, is an impossible distinction to draw.' It seems strange now, but somehow it never occurred to me before that a book doesn't have to stick to one true version of reality. Maybe I should reread A Wild Sheep Chase in my more enlightened frame of mind!