A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (Vintage International) - Softcover

Murakami, Haruki

Softcover

ISBN 10: 037571894X ISBN 13: 9780375718946

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group, 2002

Synopsis

Quirky and utterly captivating, A Wild Sheep Chase is Murakami at his astounding best.

An advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an advertisement. What he doesn't realize is that included in the 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 who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes readers from Tokyo to the remote mountains of northern Japan, where the unnamed protagonist has a surprising confrontation with his demons.

About this title

Review:

As with many of Haruki Murakami's novels, the plot curdles with complex diversity only to be resolved by a collision between wild fantasy and outright slapstick. A Wild Sheep Chase refers aptly to the tradition of cool but kitsch detective sagas. Except here, the metaphoric goose is now a literal sheep with a distinctive marking; an urban myth with the promise of immortality.

The anonymous narrator is a mild-mannered thirtysomething with a more than understanding attitude--things happen because they are supposed to and there's no sense standing in the way of progress or nature. It takes the disappearance of a friend and some gentle intimidation from a right wing conglomerate to break the pattern of apathy and send him off on his adventure.

Murakami's detail of the most mundane situations makes his lead character endearing. Those who've read Murakami before will recognise that certain empathy for the strange thoughts and rituals that are now hallmarks of his wry humour. Although an unlikely hero, the quest for a missing friend and the support of a lover with mysterious ears takes him off in search of the elusive sheep in a bizarre adventure--danger and absurdity hindering every movement. --David Trueman

Review:

"Murakami is a mythmaker for the millennium, a wiseacre wiseman." -New York Times Book Review

"A delight . . . equal parts screwball comedy, detective story, and heroic quest." -USA Today

"A witty adventure . . . a piece of verbal anarchy . . . a labyrinthine mystery from start to finish." -San Francisco Chronicle

"Marvelously engaging, at turns witty, dry, wicked, even loopy. Reading A Wild Sheep Chase is like spending a splendidly foul weekend with the Four Raymonds-Chandler, Carver, Massey, and Queneau."-Frederick Barthelme

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 037571894X
• ISBN 13: 9780375718946
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368