The novel is filled with wonderful examples of Murakami’s often complex style. His prose is sometimes lyrical and, at others, very straightforward. This makes for a unique combination loved by readers all over the world.
Philosophical Observations About Life
Most of the quotes from “A Wild Sheep Chase” are the characters making observations of life from an interesting perspective, not only rarely considered but put in terse and oddly revealing language.
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.
The narrator, Chapter 10
The narrator says this while considering whether it is a coincidence or not that he placed the Rat’s photo in the ad, the incident that starts off the wild sheep chase. He waves it off as a moot point because the question does not change what follows. This statement is a classic example of Murakami blending the mundane with the philosophical. On one level, it’s a simple observation about a doughnut and its hole. But on another level, it’s a profound meditation on the nature of existence. Whether one believes in fate or not, events still impact life nonetheless.
To sleep with a woman: it can seem of the utmost importance in your mind, or then again it can seem like nothing much at all. Which only goes to say that there’s sex as therapy (self-therapy, that is) and there’s sex as pastime. There’s sex for self-improvement start to finish and there’s sex for killing time straight through; sex that is therapeutic at first only to end up as nothing-better-to-do, and vice versa. Our human sex life- how shall I put it?- differs fundamentally from the sex life of a whale. We are not whales- and this constitutes one great theme underscoring our sex lives.
The narrator, Chapter 4
The narrator makes an observation about human sexuality and the shades of meaning that attends sex. With animals in general, and whales as a point of reference, sex and mating are intertwined and they follow their natural impulse to reproduce. In the case of humans, sex could be merely recreational, or sublime and meaningful romance–and neither is what whales do. This makes sex a complicated subject.
“The world is mediocre. About that there is no mistake. Well then, has the world been mediocre since time immemorial? No. In the beginning, the world was chaos, and chaos is not mediocre. The mediocratization began when people separated the means of production from daily life.“
The Boss’ Assistant to the protagonist, Chapter 18
In his conversation with the protagonist, the Boss Assitant calls him mediocre. He quickly qualifies his statement. He does not mean mediocre in a pejorative way. Mediocre is the default state of the modern man, of the civilized man. In some sense, this mediocratization is another word for standardization, a process people must undergo to function in the roles set for them by society.
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.
The Rat; Chapter 13
This quote is found in the Rat’s first letter to the protagonist. He suggests that those who are skilled at writing letters, presumably because they are articulate and expressive, don’t need to write letters. This is because they are fully engaged in their own lives and contexts. Or, more simply, those who can express themselves well in letters may have attained this ability precisely because they are so engaged with living fully, and have little need or time to write letters. They are fulfilled in their direct interactions and relationships. By bemoaning his inability to write letters well, the Rat hints that he is not fully living.
“What’s more, you’re loads better than you think you are.”
“So why is it I get to thinking that way?” I puzzled.
“That’s because you’re only half-living,” she said briskly. “The other half is still untapped somewhere.”
The protagonist’s girlfriend to the protagonist, Chapter 4
The protagonist’s girlfriend, a young woman with an eerily keen sense of perception, makes this note about the protagonist during their first date. The reader gets the sense of the story’s main character as a man who is half alive and merely going through the motions of life. This is until the boss’ assistant gives him the task of finding the sheep with the star birthmark.
“A friend to kill time is a friend sublime.”
The Rat to the protagonist, Chapter 40
When the Rat finally meets the protagonist at the sheep farm, he makes this remark to him, almost in jest. The great thing about true friendship is that it gives another person the space to let down their guard enough to open themselves, to be themselves. Sometimes, this requires them to spend a long time in their friend’s company.
“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 Boss’ Assistant to the protagonist, Chapter 17
The Boss’ Assistant approaches the protagonist to enlist his help in finding the sheep with the star-shaped birthmark. He avoids giving him direct answers and speaks in riddles, as to why this mission is important. This quote above is an example of his kind of speech. While he seems to be speaking a profound truth, his words can mean anything and nothing at all.
Human Relationships and Emotions
One of the strong points of “A Wild Sheep Chase” is how closely the novel explores the interior lives of its characters; their personalities, characters, philosophies and psychology. Through it, we also learn a bit about human behavior, motivations, and interactions.
I guess I felt attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of a breeze, the sound of cicadas – if I like these things, why should I apologize?
The Rat to the protagonist, Chapter 40
The Rat says this when the protagonist when he is asked why he turned down the Sheep’s offer of power. This passage emphasizes a theme found throughout much of Murakami’s work: the embracing of imperfection, suffering, and the simple pleasures of life. The speaker’s attachment to weakness and pain may seem paradoxical but reflects an acceptance of the full spectrum of human experience. It may suggest that embracing one’s flaws and pains is essential for living fully as human.
“My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. It’s like I was raising chickens inside of me. The chickens lay their eggs and the eggs hatch into other chickens, which then lay eggs.”
The Rat, in his first letter, Chapter 13
The Rat mentions this to explain why he curiously will not reveal his address to the protagonist, even when he would like the protagonist to find him. The Rat is sensitive about his faults and remarks to the narrator how these faults, instead of diminishing over the years, gets increasingly pronounced. Perhaps this is only because the Rat is keen on noticing his faults that they seem to be too large in his eyes.
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.
The narrator’s ex-wife to him, Chapter 2
The protagonist’s ex-wife says this when the protagonist mentions he went to the funeral of someone he used to know. The protagonist mentions that the girl whose funeral it was would sleep with anyone, and his ex-wife wondered if he was an exception. She changed her mind, with this comment as explanation. It implies that the protagonist was the sort of person who acted as was expected, and to keep the expected flow of events.
I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was a consolation. Loneliness wasn’t such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off.
The narrator, after his girlfriend leaves the sheep farm in the mountain, Chapter 34
After his girlfriend’s sudden and mysterious disappearance from the Rat’s holiday home in the mountains, the protagonist admits to feeling lonely. He, however, describes a nuanced view of loneliness. While it’s a feeling often associated with sadness or lack, it’s seen as a sign of emotional capacity here. He is pleased that he is not too numbed to life that her absence does not affect him. He counts it as a source of comfort. Comparing loneliness to the stillness of a pin oak tree after the birds have flown off is a delicate image characteristic of the Murakami’s style.
“Whenever I meet people for the first time, I get them to talk for ten minutes. Then I size them up from the exact opposite perspective of all they’ve told me. Do you think that’s crazy?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “I’d guess your method works quite well.”
The protagonist’s girlfriend to him, Chapter 4
In their first date, while they were getting to know each other, the girlfriend mentions this way of evaluating and getting to know new acquaintances. This quote suggests that people often misrepresent themselves. She says essentially that you’re better off discarding what someone tells you about yourself and interpreting the opposite. We may learn something deeper about the speaker’s understanding of human nature. By looking at the opposite of what is said, they might attempt to uncover subconscious or concealed aspects of the person they are meeting.
The Nature of Change
The only thing constant in life is change, say a popular idiom, and the test of the a good story is the how dynamic, moving, and significant the change that occurs in the plot and the characters is. “A Wild Sheep Chase” is no exception .
I was twenty-one at the time, about to turn twenty-two. No prospect of graduating soon, and yet no reason to quit school. Caught in the most curiously depressing circumstances. For months I’d been stuck, unable to take one step in any new direction. […] The sunlight, the smell of the grass, the faintest patter of rain, everything got on my nerves.
The protagonist; Chapter 1
Here the protagonist paints a picture of himself at twenty-one, which largely defines who he becomes at the novel’s start and who he has to change from. This image conveys a profound sense of stagnation, frustration, and existential uncertainty. The lack of direction and uncertainty about education adds to the sense of aimlessness. It’s as though life is happening elsewhere, and the narrator is an observer rather than a participant. The wild sheep chase and his search for his friend, the Rat, that he takes on in the story jolts him out of stagnation and apathy.
“Body cells replace themselves every month. Even at this very moment,” she said, thrusting a skinny back of her hand before my eyes, “most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.”
The protagonist’s ex-wife to the protagonist, Chapter 25
The protagonist’s wife asks him to burn a book in which she had kept records of the times they had sex if she dies, and he replies that it does not matter because the records were about him, too. She insists that he burn them. In her opinion, as bodies change when their cells are replaced, people change with their experiences. What we think we know of them is only history and memories, and not the actual person. As such, her record book did not represent her.
“Weakness is something that rots in the body. Like gangrene. I’ve felt that ever since I was a teenager. That’s why I was always on edge. There’s this something inside you that’s rotting away and you feel it all along.”
The Rat to the protagonist, Chapter 40
The Rat explains to the protagonist how he got trapped by the sheep. He attributes it to his weakness, which made him extra susceptible to the specter of the sheep. He likens this weakness to a rot that slowly eats away at a thing until it entirely consumes it. Ultimately, because the Rat had always been sensitive to this weakness, he could thwart the sheep by committing suicide instead of allowing it to use him as a carrier.
