Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Wild Sheep Chase; REDO!!!

My first impression of A Wild Sheep Chase was that I had found a novel that for the time, perfectly encapsulated my mood and general outlook on the world. At the time of my reading A Wild Sheep Chase, I was just trying to make it day by day, taking things as they came by. It seemed as though extraordinary events would pass me by, I would have altercations with these instances, and then we would part ways. It was a very pleasant surprise then, when I delved into Murukami’s introspective, poetic noir.

Much of Western media celebrates fantastic people and ideas. Television tells me that my life is only meaningful if I risk death on a daily basis, and I have a supermodel for a wife. Murukami appears to jump in the opposite direction. From the Wild Sheep Chase, we may know only nullity. Even when confronted with explosions and intrigue and death threats, the characters that inhabit Murukami’s world are unfazed; they appear to acknowledge that mundane and fantastical are congruent. In the end of the day, one could say the only truth is existence. We go on, day by day, accepting events as they present themselves to us.

As I read A Wild Sheep Chase, I found myself simply wanting to sit down, have a cigarette, and enjoy Murukami’s prose. I enjoyed his syntax just as much as I enjoyed his subject matter; by highlighting an eclectic array of uneventful occurrences, Murukami essential wrote about nothing. That he would choose such meaningless subject to focus his beautiful and introspective writing style upon, is a fact that I find very interesting.

The method by which Murukami executed his novel aside, I found the central motifs of the story fascinating. It would appear that above all else, Murkami chose to discuss mundanity. This book fell under the topic of J horror. I believe that what is intended by this is that the real horror of life is not monsters or serial killers, but mundanity. The notion of being slaughtered by a deranged psychopath may send shivers down your spine, but is ultimately exciting, and therefore meaningful. The idea of living an average life, however, and dying within leaving the slightest impact on the world…. Now isn’t that a terrifying concept?

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