[.ca] A Wild Sheep Chase (ISBN 9626344148)

Rich and delicious imagery drizzled over braised mutton:
I never would have thought that so much could be built from such a simple premise, but Haruki Murakami manages to wrap a small woolen mammal into something much larger: a conspiracy that draws together powerful forces and interesting personalities as our protagonist is sent (somewhat against his will) on a wild sheep chase. The title is perfect: this is a book about a quest to find a sheep: both literally, figuratively and spiritually. The plot can be confusing (and even somewhat boring in the first part of the book), but it pulls together nicely at the end. The real enjoyment, however, comes from the descriptive qualities of Haruki Murakami's writing. He is able to capture an immense quantity of personality and flavor in even the most off-hand observations. This technique was so successful in capturing my attention as a reader, that any other minor shortcomings are easily overlooked. In fact, I finished the book happily thinking "wow, what a great book!" and could only really criticize pieces upon reflection. Combined with the plot (yes, somewhat confusing) and the characters (which seem flat on the surface, but are very "real" and likable), this descriptive quality made A Wild Sheep Chase a real joy to read.

Poor Story:
I previously read 'The Wind Up Bird Chronicles' which I thought was great. So I knew what to expect with the 'Sheep Chase' but I was terriblly disappointed. The writing seemed amateurish throughout most of the novel. The 'Sheep Chase' has characters that seemed to just drop out of the book suddenly for no plausible reason (The Girl with the Ears). And the strange power of her ears is never fully explained or even demonstrated in the book. The first chapter of the novel doesn't really seem to have anything to do with the rest of the story. Several of the characters seem to do things that are 'out of character'. For example, the mysterious 'Boss' Assistant' who is so powerful and rich (with a host of servants) and demanding agrees to take care of the protagonist's cat. This just seemed somewhat peculiar. Also, the 'Sheep Man' is one of the most unconvincing characters I've ever run into in a book - even one of this type. Overall this is definitely not one of Murakami's best.

Disappointing.:
This was a curious book... Murakami paints a mildly depressing and self-depreciatingly witty portrait of a man, detached and unconcerned, living a wholly mediocre life. That life is turned upside down by a bizarre series of events that don't seem to phase this lack-luster protagonist, who claims he hasn't cried since he was a child. Enter the makings of a potentially interesting adventure, shot down by the ennui-ridden monologue of a mostly uninteresting man. Alright; I get the themes, I get the quasi-morality-tale for the unenthused twenty-somethings of a collectivist Japan, I get the clash between tradition and the desire for advancement... but I still felt that the story fell flat, dragged down by the entirely bland and quality-less lead character. I couldn't bring myself to care for a character who doesn't care for himself enough to care about anything. Fortunately, there are a handful of interesting secondary characters who redeem this novel a little bit, and whose eventual abandonment of the boring protagonist brought sense to back to the dynamics. Sadly, they couldn't bring much sense back to the intended tale of morality. Overall: bland despite its quirk, uneven despite its determined focus on a meaning, and often hard to follow despite its straightforward adventure plot. It was intellectually intriguing in the paradoxical sense, but I was not too impressed.

A life affirming story:
What is power? What is life? What is living? Murakami explores all those questions in a hauntingly beautiful and absurdist tale of an everyman on a hunt, then a quest, to find a curiously marked sheep with mysterious powers. Reveling in his mundane life, the protagonist and un-named author reflects the sterilie modern life: our daily routines are but anesthesias against the encroaching dangers of a truly lived life. In his own words, the narrator searches for boredom instead of trying to escape it. Then the sheep spector appears, and begins to wreck his carefully constructed persona -- beginning to pump life into what before had only been shadows of emotions (e.g. J's bar, a dried beach) This is a great leap down the rabbit hole and back -- and upon coming back, a sense of melancholic affirmation will linger with you beyond the finished words.

A Contemplative Apocalypse of the Curious:
I like to think of there being two very different kinds of novels: ones about characters, and ones about events. Some try to tell a story of something that happened, some try to tell a story about the people that fill up this world. Of these two, the work of Haruki Murakami is definately character driven. The entier point of his books, actualy, tends to be the people in them, looking for eachother, separating and reconnecting, beeing twisted together in the braids of fate. Some people, (esspecialy those who prefer the events-driven novels) may be frustrated with this book, because for much of it, very little in the way of events happen, and when events do happen, they are so strange and outlandish that one is half tempted to ignore them as tall tales fabricated by the characters to pull at our collective legs. Thus, if a reader is of the right mindset, one can discount the plot and events entierely as some bizzaro-world never-never-land hallucinations, and cut straight to the jewels of the book: Murakami's ecstatoc observations about people, places, and things that are normaly so mundane in our life that we just over look them. By brining these banal things under such intense scrutiny he presents a world more fantastic then reality, more concrete than fantasy, and reminescent only of the way you must have looked at things as a child, where a bug in a jar was as fascinating as a plasma screen TV. I will tentatively outright recomend Murakami to anyone, however, I will attach to that recomendation a warning, that you shouldn't be surprised (or take it personaly) if you don't like it. To really appreciate his work on a personal level you have to be cut of the same cloth as a mad scientist, a Buddha, or Humphrey Bogart, although which one - I'm not yet sure. Ultimately, though, I think it is safe to say that a persons opinons on literature are more a reflection of themselves than it is any objective judgement of quality. When I praise a book, that just means it's my kind of book, or I'm it's kind of reader. When I dislike a book, that means the book and I are at odds, not that either of us are bad, but that, like some people, we just don't get along. Murakami is so forcefull and eccentric that it would not surprise me if there are a good number of people who don't get along with his books, but there should be equaly many people of the same ilk as the madness in his books that can admire his unabated and perpetualy unsatiated expressions of an unapologeticaly surreal outlook on life.