I had read Murakami’s “A Wild Sheep Chase” in high school
and much like all readings required at that time, the assignments were mostly “what
does the main character think about this” or “why do you think the main
character reacted like that”, very surface level questions like that. During
LJ460, we were asked to read both Murakami and Raymond Chandler’s “The Long
Goodbye” with the understanding that Murakami was heeeaaaaavily influenced by
Chandler’s writing and style. When I was reading “A Wild Sheep Chase” in tandem “The Long Goodbye”, while obviously not the mirror image of the
same story, but there were a vast amount of similarities between the two: the
very specific descriptions of both settings and characters, the type of
dialogue that the main characters, Philip Marlowe and “Boku”, engage in during
narration or passing conversations, and even the fact that both stories are
detective mysteries with a twist ending. I probably should have expected a
twist having read Murakami’s novel before hand, but Chandler’s twist was very
much a surprise I had to reread the chapter to make sure I was reading correctly!
These similarities aren’t just between Chandler and Murakami – throughout the
other short stories we’ve read in class by other authors, we can see how Murakami’s
sources have a profound influence on his writings, such that when you read the
works side by side, you would swear they were written by the same person under
two different names.
This class so far has allowed me to have a greater
appreciation for Murakami’s novels and his source’s works as well. I am looking
forward to continue reading and discovering even more similarities between the texts and reignite an old passion for reading.
Alexander Wen
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