9/25/08 Murakami "A Wild Sheep Chase"

Having read through “A wild Sheep Chase” with the ­­notion that nothing really ever has to make sense (and in Murakami’s case, it almost never does), I decided to re-read the last section trying to come up with some sort of reasonable explanation for Boku’s actions, starting with “The Sheep Man Cometh”. The main section I wanted to look through was Boku’s interaction with The Rat, and the strange dream Boku had after their conversation. It is quite clear that Boku had gone insane by this point, as he had a meaningful conversation with his dead friend. However, what struck me most during their conversation was the amount of alcohol consumed. After all, if The Rat wasn’t really there, and was still drinking more than Boku, wouldn’t Boku actually be the one drinking? In other words, during his revealing conversation with The Rat, Boku drinks enough for two and in his drunken stupor, blows up the house.
In a novel so abstract, so mentally straining, could the end be so simple? Could Boku’s steady diet of whiskey, beer, and even more whiskey finally come back to haunt him? In a novel that poses many questions and offers absolutely no answers, could the outcome really be so simple? I wouldn’t put it past Murakami to lead us in circles only to show us an apathetic drunk pissing his life away.

9/18 Murakami, "A Wild Sheep Chase" 2

I’m sitting here at home, reading “A Wild Sheep Chase” and listening to Thelonious Monk, and all of the sudden everything is starting to come into perspective. I was excited to find Murakami was a John Coltrane fan early on and that jazz inspired his writing style. I was a bit hesitant at first as to how this could be, but after listening to Monk while reading Boku’s conversation with the Sheepman, the influences were obvious. Like Monk’s piano work, Murakami tends to jump from topic to topic, seemingly writing “Sheep” as he goes. At the same time, his writing shows a certain smoothness and quirky sarcastic swagger found in jazz. Both Murakami and Monk write complex and ostensibly random passages, questioning whether or not a piece necessarily needs to make sense in order to move forward. I haven’t read the ending of “Sheep” yet, but if it bears any resemblance to “Genius of Modern Music” or “Straight, No Chaser”, some beautifully bizarre moments are bound to appear.

9/11/08 Haruki Murakami, "A Wild Sheep Chase"

One of the main reasons I enjoy reading Murakami’s “A Wild Sheep Chase” is that reminds me of one of my favorite authors, Paul Auster. While it is not quite an example of intertextuality, Murakami’s choice to turn his main character/narrator Boku into a hardboiled detective is similar to Auster’s “New York Trilogy,” while The Rat’s letter to Boku is reminiscent to the letter Fanshawe writes at the beginning of Auster’s “The Locked Room.” I also find Murakami’s use of tangents very entertaining. His obsessions with seemingly random objects—ears, slips, whale penises—and his over explanations are comparable to Auster, although Auster usually focuses on bowel movements or baseball. I find that these strange lengthy passages show that the “fearless detectives” are in fact nowhere near qualified to be detectives in the first place. Instead, the characters are made more regular—pardon the bowel pun—or realistic in that they go through thought processes similar to everyday people. Perhaps not so much as Boku’s ear and whale penis infatuation, but certainly his love for music. After all, when is the last time Dick Tracy talked about his latest bowel movement or Bogart expressed whale penis envy?

09/04/08 Salman Rushdie, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories"

I have never been quite as confused as I was after reading Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. One of the things that made the book interesting, however, was Rushdie’s use of intertextuality, namely the references to Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz and Star Wars. While the basic story of “Haroun” is similar to all three stories (a child finds himself in a strange land and interacts with surreal characters, much like “Wonderland” and “Oz”; the concept of “light” vs. “dark” found within “Star Wars”’ Force and Dark Side), it is the individual characters that I found to be the most interesting. My personal favorite, The Walrus, seems like Rushdie’s response to both Yoda and The Wizard of Oz. Haroun’s humorous response upon finding out the identity of the Walrus—“He’s the Walrus?!”—is similar to both Luke and Dorothy as the supposedly wise and mysterious master of each story turns out to be small, plain and free of impressive facial hair.