| Title | A Wild Sheep Chase |
| Author | Haruki Murakami |
| Type | Novel |
| Year of Publication | October 13, 1982 |
| Language | English |
| Number of Pages | 299 |
| Rating | Click to rate this post! [Total: 1 Average: 5] |
A Wild Sheep Chase (羊 を め ぐ る 冒 険, Hitsuji or Meguru bōken) (literally An Adventure Surrounding Sheep) is the third novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. First published in Japan in 1982, it was translated into English in 1989. It is an independent sequel to Pinball, 1973, and the third book in the so-called “Rat Trilogy”. He won the 1982 Noma Literary Newcomer Award.
In A Wild Sheep Chase, Murakami combines elements of American and English literature with Japanese contexts, exploring post-WWII Japanese cultural identity. The book is part mystery and part magical realism with a postmodern twist.
A Wild Sheep Chase has been defined as a parody or renewal of Yukio Mishima’s Natsuko no Bōken (夏 子 の 冒 険, Natsuko’s Adventure).
Table of Contents
A Wild Sheep Chase Summary
This quasi-detective tale follows an anonymous narrator, a chain smoker, and his adventures in Tokyo and Hokkaido in 1978. The story begins when the recently divorced protagonist, an advertising executive, posts a photo of a pastoral scene that was sent to him in a confessional letter. for his long-lost friend, ‘Rat’. He is contacted by a mysterious man who represents ‘The Boss’, a central force behind Japan’s political and economic elite, which is now slowly dying. The boss’s secretary tells him that a strange sheep with a star-shaped birthmark, depicted in the ad, was somehow the secret source of the boss’s power and that he has two months to find that sheep or his career and his life be ruined The narrator and his girlfriend, who has magically seductive and supernaturally perceptive ears, travel to northern Japan to find the sheep and their homeless friend. When he discovers that he is chasing an unknown power that has wielded his influence for decades, he encounters figures from his own past, unusual characters, and individuals who have encountered sheep before.
A Wild Sheep Chase Review
A wonderful hybrid of mythology and mystery, A Wild Sheep Chase “is the extraordinary literary thriller that launched Haruki Murakami’s international reputation.
It starts out quite simply: A 20-year-old advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company ad. What he does not realize is that a mutant sheep with a star on his back is included in the pastoral scene, and by inadvertently using this photo, he has caught the attention of a man in black offering a threatening ultimatum: find the sheep or face serious consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from Tokyo’s urban haunts to the remote, snow-capped mountains of northern Japan, where he faces not only mythological sheep but also the limits of tradition and demons inside. Flamboyant and completely captivating, A Wild Sheep Chase is Murakami at his best.
About The Author of The Book Haruki Murakami
Born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1949, Haruki Murakami grew up in Kobe and now lives near Tokyo. The most recent of his many honors is the Yomiuri Literary Prize, whose previous recipients include Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe, and Kobo Abe. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages.
A Wild Sheep Chase PDF
A Wild Sheep Chase Quotes
Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.
Body cells replace themselves every month. Even at this very moment. Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.
I don’t know, there’s something about you. Say there’s an hourglass: the sand’s about to run out. Someone like you can always be counted on to turn the thing over.
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.
