WEEK 3 - A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami (6pts)

 WEEK 3 - A WILD SHEEP CHASE (6pts) 





The protagonist of this book is clearly in a limbo of self-doubt and overall not knowing how to deal with this emptiness that surrounds him. Events transpire that leave him all by himself. Overall he's only experienced severe loss and this book is mostly just a tale on how he dealt with the events at hand. It's an interesting take on the idea of major loss. He lost someone in his early life to a freak accident, got divorced from his wife and his new lover has disappeared. The card's are not on this man's side. Throughout his life apart from these events everything about him is normal and a very mundane and average life which lead him to then chase for the abnormal. The loss of the women in his life has left him in a pool of emptiness and loneliness that lead him to chase something new. He decides to venture off into finding a specific sheep that he can only recognize by ear. I thought it was interesting that throughout the book this man put so much time and effort into finding this  mystical sheep to fill some kind of void but didn't put this same kind of effort into finding his estranged girlfriend. 

This sheep was told to possess something inexplicable and throughout the book you realize that many people have this common interest and common goal to find this creature and what it inhibits. In a way this story's entire metaphor for the sheep is speaking on herd mentality. Sheep are known to be easily persuadable and have a common goal; just like everyone in this story. He's passively following everyone's interest for finding this animal. In the long run the only special thing about the sheep itself is the idea that this sheep is different. Different in the sense of the sheep having its very own autonomy and freedom, making itself different from the pack. True alpha qualities that maybe other sheep are keen to follow. But also this sheep is a ghost demon, so that it makes it special too. The whole story kind of went in cycles in the way that he's chasing for something he's only had to find within himself the whole time. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WEEK 10 - Dune (5points)

 Dune is my dad's favorite book so I was looking forward to read this as he gave me the physical copy. It's quite a large novel and honestly it's quite overwhelming with information. It's not the kind of novel I'd usually read; but the novel wasn't bad at all. I thought it was interesting how for such a futuristic novel based 20,000 years in the future, many norms are still in place such as feudal systems, religion and colonization. These things are never going to die. So many things are the same yet the idea of Earth is an archaic thought. It's almost like the world powers but focused solely on colonizing and becoming stewards for different planets. Like all societies, there's drug use which I found ironic considering there is a drug called Spice in real life as well. The way the enviroment is in the Dune planet, you definately need spice to get through it.  Overall, it's not what I'd usually read but I really ended up enjoying it much more then
Read more

WEEK 14- Hitchhikers Guide (6pts)

 I listened to the audiobook, I like the radio format. It's cool to think about stuff like a radio play.  I usually don't really engage too much with listening mediums as I feel like I lose engagement but this was honestly not too bad. There was quite a lot in this story and I'm glad it was in the grey line of serious but fun. The plot follows Arthur Dent as he's trying to save the earth from Aliens. There are these super intelligent mice that are commissioned to build a 2nd earth since they don't think Earth 1 can make it.  I just like how the story never really takes itself seriously and it just is one big adventure you can listen to. 
Read more

WEEK 13 - Beloved (5pts)

 I read Toni Morrison's Beloved. I think it's quite a strange story about former slaves being haunted by their past actions in a way. Sethe was forced to kill her child while she was a slave due to the fact that they can't own any possessions. A woman comes to 124 Bluestone and stays because Sethe thinks it's her daughter that's come back to life and grown so essentially the house ends up haunted by her daughter. It's quite the story packed with mystery and a strange sense of haunting. This book is like a longer version of what the Yellow Wallpaper makes me feel by the end of reading it, just a lot of inadequate post read feelings. 
Read more