Haruki Murakami

A marvelous hybrid of mythology and mystery, A Wild Sheep Chase is the extraordinary literary thriller that launched Haruki Murakami’s international reputation. It begins simply enough: A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend, and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company’s advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself. Quirky and utterly captivating, A Wild Sheep Chase is Murakami at his astounding best.

A Novel

A Wild Sheep Chase

What a poignant way to describe the silence after the click of the turntable… Beautiful 

The record ended, the needle lifted, and all was silence. The sort of silence that follows in the wake of the death of all living things.

One of these days they'll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.

Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.

Alina

I skipped the thirty-one years between 1938 and 1969 and jumped to the section entitled “Junitaki Today.” Of course, the book’s “today” being 1970, it was hardly today’s “today.” Still, writing the history of one town obviously imposed the necessity of bringing it up to a “today.” And even if such a today soon ceases to be today, no one can deny that it is in fact a today. For if a today ceased to be today, history could not exist as history.

Now all I know about her is my memories of her. And these memories fade further and further into the distance like displaced cells.

morgan

Speaking frankly and speaking the truth are two different things entirely. Honesty is to truth as prow is to stern. Honesty appears first and truth appears last. The interval between varies in direct proportion to the size of the ship. With anything of size, truth takes a long time in coming. Sometimes it only manifests itself posthumously. 

A beautifully crafted novel which, although enjoyable, felt rather long winded but rushed to conclusion! The ending made me want more, and concluded way too quickly. Supporting characters lives were wrapped up in mere sentences leaving a little more to be desired. 

Haruki Murakami crafts wonderfully detailed environments with his words, and describes things very poetically. He’s come under criticism recently for the way he writes women, however I think it’s just the signs of the times we live in these days and perhaps hasn’t translated too well. I would recommend you read his works.

A beautifully crafted novel which, although enjoyable, felt rather long winded but rushed to conclusion! The ending made me want more, and concluded way too quickly. Supporting characters lives were wrapped up in mere sentences leaving a little more to be desired. 

Haruki Murakami crafts wonderfully detailed environments with his words, and describes things very poetically. He’s come under criticism recently for the way he writes women, however I think it’s just the signs of the times we live in these days and perhaps hasn’t translated too well. I would recommend you read his works.

His life was like his recurring nightmare- a train to nowhere. But an ordinary life has a way of taking an extraordinary turn. Add a girl whose ears are so exquisite that, when uncovered, they improve sex a thousand-fold, a runaway friend, a right-wing politico, an ovine-obsessed professor and a manic-depressive in a sheep outfit, implicate them in a hunt for a sheep, that may or may not be running the world, and eth upshot is another singular masterpiece from Japan's finest novelist.

weakest entry in the series so far, but still beautiful and enjoyable 

Derek

This completes my reading of Murakami's first trilogy. Having already established his signature descriptive style in the first two novels, this third part adds the motif of 'the desolate cabin', and crucially, ventures into the magical realism later classics became known for. 

Frederik De Bosschere

The man was leading an aimless life, time passing, one big blank. His girlfriend has perfectly formed ears, ears with the power to bewitch, marvels of creation. The man receives a letter from a friend, enclosing a seemingly innocent photograph of sheep, and a request: place the photograph somewhere it will be seen. Then, one September afternoon, the phone rings, and the adventure begins. Welcome to the wild sheep chase.

Rosamund Mather

'Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context. This, of course, is only my opinion. Maybe it's impossible to lead a life out of context.'

It's quotations like this that make me eager to get stuck into each new Murakami story I begin. Even though you can be pretty sure that they will all contain some element of absurdity, some element of sensuality, and probably some element of The Beatles, it's how all of these will relate directly to your own psyche that counts.

Somewhere along the way you may get lost, but I think that somehow not understanding every single thing is okay. After finishing it, I still don't know what the deal with the protagonist's girlfriend's magic ears is. Maybe at some point I'll give it a re-read and it will all become clear. Which is often the case. Or perhaps it is just a motif that the conscious particularly dwells upon. Which is often the case.

Nothing of Murakami's that I've read so far has satisfied me quite as much as 'Norwegian Wood' or 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle', though. Time to tackle '1Q84' next.

windy wooly silly & unique. took me a bit to get through it initially but i sped through the last half

mira lee

Makes u wanna start smoking and dreaming again.

Klára Kováčiková 

Aakankaha Dwivedi

I wish there were more than five stars to rate it.
The ending was something, I don't have any word to describe.
Have a patience read, this book has a lot for you. :)

A marvelous hybrid of mythology and mystery, A Wild Sheep Chase""is the extraordinary literary thriller that launched Haruki Murakami's international reputation. It begins simply enough: A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend, and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company's advertisement. What he doesn't realize is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself. Quirky and utterly captivating, A Wild Sheep Chase is Murakami at his astounding best.

Steph Zymowski

Fantastic! What can I say, classic Murakami. This is my sixth Murakami novel and I absolutely ate it up! In this novel I especially loved how he described moments of transience and in transit also how he incorporated elements of water then snow almost as other characters. What a wild, surreal ride and literal wild sheep chase this book was!

It was very nice, a Murakami classic, i really liked the second third of the book, where it started to get all twisted and the appearance of the character of rat started to make sense

Kristof Revilak

Anna Brunner

Going to use this review as a general opportunity to speak my truth. After reading five of his books (this being the fifth) I can affirm Murakami as one of my favorite authors simply because I love his power of prose & storytelling & this sort of whimsy that can be found in all his stories I’ve read (except the dreaded Norwegian Wood) are so unique to his style & can’t find anywhere else! But I must say, I have noticed a pattern in his male protagonists & the thought struck me while reading A Wild Sheep Chase- why do they all read in nearly the same way? All of his male protagonists are self proclaimed average men with no discernible personality traits beyond having a lot of sex with his weird female characters & cooking spaghetti or something. What’s up with that. I’m starting the campaign for more interesting Murakami protagonists. Also I just realized there is no way I am reaching my goodreads goal so don’t make fun when I have to inevitably lower it. K BYE.

Sanat Gersappa

Not sure if I understood the ending, but I loved the style.

Cams Campbell

Not the best of Haruki Murakami's that I've read, but enjoyable nevertheless. Ably narrated by Rupert Degas on Audible, the novel is quirky and deep, but not quite as soul soothing as say Kafka on the Shore or 1Q84.

Katarína Fialová

I got this book a year ago. I have read few pages and I got bored of it, so I put it back on the shelf. 
Few days ago I started again and I believe, you have to be in a certain mood for this book. It just got so interesting, that I finished it in few hours. 
I didn´t know much about Murakami´s writing before, this was my firts book from him. I was expecting a reasonable and interesting explanation, like in detective stories. This expectation forced me to read without stopping. But like a bolt out of the blue it just got amazingly SURREAL. Gloomy atmosphere and the life of an average person suddenly changed to a dreamy and kinda weird scenes.
Loved it.

Sarah Escorsa

Barry Hess

Frankly, I think something was lost in translation with this book. In small chunks it's fairly beautiful, but the whole did confuse me a bit.

Jason Porterfield

The only star that counts is on the back of a sheep, somewhere in Japan.

Manohar

Weird shit and good writing.

Struggled a bit in the first half of the book. I felt the pacing was a bit weak in the beginning. 
But it picked up well in the second half. Read the whole second half in 2-3 sittings over 3 hours.

Overall, an enjoyable read though I place this below Kafka and Norwegian wood.

Omar Fernandez

Like all Murakami, I love it and I don't know why.

Šárka Vomelová

I just love how creative Murakami's mind is and just how it works because woow... I'll never not be surprised by what he can come up with. The middle part read like a quest in a game which is so captivating and it made the story move so smoothly. However, the first 70 were excruciatingly slow. I was on the verge of DNFing but luckily I continued on with the book.

Momo

To put it simply this book is completely blew my mind. I didn't know what to expect when I first looked at the title of this book however I had already read 3 Murakami books before so I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. I couldn't stop turning the pages in this book. It's just so different and every time I turned a page I was just in shock as to how someone could come up with such scenarios for a book. Ever since reading this book but never anybody asked me for a book recommendation I always recommend A Wild Sheep Chase. Murakami perfectly fuses the metaphysical world and reality.

A Wild Sheep Chase A Novel

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