Hannah Blair
Week 3
The conventions in A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
resonate with me on a very personal level. The novel had me paying more
attention to the duality of what is good and evil as well as the playing the
concept of authority more than any horror aspects. Most of my life I’ve always
had issues with authority figures because of situations as a child that moved
me to almost having to live two lives. Because of this I’ve often felt life in
an almost dual fashion, sometimes in my head seen as the negative and positive.
The writing style instantly proved
to be something I was going to enjoy just because it is so extreme in itself. I
often have a hard time with names and the way Haruki illustrates the characters
it makes it a less confusing experience and really allowed myself to immerse
myself in each characters minds. I could easily empathize with the struggle of
each of the characters even Sheep man, who illustrates someone who had
something of TRUE value which was a memory and now cannot move on with his life
because of how hard he tries to hold onto those good moments from our past.
Another concept the book plays with
that I find interesting is the Romanization of images. Our “hero” finds a new
girlfriend by his over Romanization of a photo of her ear. And the business
mans (the rat) obsession with the picture of the sheep and his need to find it
resonates notes of that delusion as well. I think as a society we do this with
so many things creating value in material items or even the thought of an item
or person that we can drive ourselves (and our inferiors that we boss around)
to put so much importance in things that only have meaning because we give them
meaning. When we allow those delusions to take control of us, we can force
ourselves or those around us (much like our hero’s unfortunate situation) to
waste the little precious life that is given to us in our blip of an existence
on empty goals.
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