sheep.

Hokay.

At the center of A Wild Sheep Chase is an unnamed narrator who is passive and somewhat unhappy with life. His wife just left him. A girl that he used to have sex with, but whose name he can't recall, just died in an accident. His cat is overweight and has weak teeth. His thoughts are occasionally consumed by a certain whale penis.

And then something happens (as things usually do). A man dressed in an immaculate black suit finds our narrator, and tells him that he has one month to find a mysterious sheep with a star on its back. One month. All of Japan. His life depends on it. So the unnamed narrator sets off on a journey, accompanied by his new girlfriend with curious ears, to find this sheep.

This was a very cool book. It was my first Haruki Murakami novel, so I didn't quite know what to expect. But now I do. There are so many cool details and phrases and storytelling devices crammed into this novel. Sheep and frozen seagulls, red wires and green wires, a mirror that might be actual reality.

This is one of Murakami's earlier novels (I think possibly the first one to be translated into English), and at times you can tell. It maybe feels a bit long, maybe a little too wordy. But only at times. And it really doesn't matter anyway, because at the essence of everything, this is a story about finding the most evil sheep in the world. And what about that doesn't sound incredible?

Mmm. Lamb chops.