Hey y’all!
I was never really into “detective” novels in the past. However, I think reading both “The Long Goodbye” and “The Wild Sheep Chase” may have changed that for me. I loved the characterizations of both Boku and Marlow, as they are by no means perfect people, but have their own principles when it matters. “The Wild Sheep Chase” was also the first first-person novel that I have enjoyed in years. I normally avoid anything besides third-person fiction like the plague. I think it has something to do with Boku’s personality; he treats most things with indifference, which should be sad but is better than the alternative of a narrator obnoxious at every turn. I had a lot of fun searching for connections between Chandler and Murakami as well as motifs that pop up in a lot of Murakami’s work. It felt like I was playing my own game of detective.
I am more familiar with Murakami’s short stories than any of his long form content. I enjoy the humor and absurdity that seems to manifest in most of them. I think my favorite out of the ones we have read in class is definitely “Sydney Green Street”. The familiar characters in a new setting was definitely a welcomed surprise. Quick shout out to Prof’s past students for their translations by the way. I have translated a short story by Murakami for the Japanese Fiction class and it is definitely not an easy feat.
- Brittany Olson
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