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“He is drowning in boredom, his wife has just left him, his partner is on the verge of alcoholism, and he has nothing much to show for himself.
Then he runs into a remarkable ear model, whose ears transform her into the sexiest woman alive, and a mysterious right-wing figure hires him to search for a sheep. And not just ANY sheep.
Just like every Haruki Murakami novel, this one is hyper-weird to the core. The main character doesn’t have a name, nor do most of the other characters. The cat was the luckiest thing there, name-wise. He got one halfway through.
I’ve pretty much given up on assigning logical causes and effects in Murakami’s novels and just accept each event as they happen - pretty useful in his books, which are so metaphorical on all possible levels. Also, like most of his other novels, this one touches on some of the dangers/downsides of capitalism, progress, and mediocrity. And of having sheep running the world. But mostly it’s about the fear of going out without any bang to speak of, to live and die forgettably, mediocre forever. At least, that’s what I get from reading it. The strange man in the black suit certainly seems to be violently against it, the protagonist positively wallows in it, and their conversations are always about it.
The book is kind of depressing, though, and the ending is hanging. But that is all right since “Dance Dance Dance” wraps the story up.”
daimira wrote this review Tuesday, March 18 2008.
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