Who You Gonna Call?

This is where the interview for A Wild Sheep Chase will be going. I think it's about a ghost.

-Update-

Half way through.
So...much...filler...
Japanese Hemmingway.
Brain meltingly...dull.
But at least something's finally going on.

-Finished-

This is probably one of the most painful books I have ever read.

I'm pretty sure there's some existential theme going on or something, I'm not sure, I couldn't quite concentrate on the story. This story would have been several times more interesting if massive chunks of this book never made it to print. The writer Murakami must have had some sort of word limit he had to reach in order to publish his story, because there is so much in the way of unnecessary filler that focusing on the actual plot is frustrating.

I guess I will try to point out some of the things I noticed, but it only makes my argument all the more valid. This is a boring book. No one has any names; the cat gets a name, but that's just another bit of unnecessary filler we have to contend with. No one matters then, none of the characters have proper names, the main character is incredibly dull and mediocre, and the interesting bits in the book are immediately followed by detailed descriptions of the man doing this or that {both of which are never interesting undertakings}. If one were to remove all the pointless filler in the story, it would actually be a fun bit to read. It might not have gotten all the recognition for metaphors, symbols, and meanings in the story, but it wouldn't have been so unspeakably boring enough to make you forget what all those metaphors and such were in the first place.

They touch on way too much. It's like Murakami is contemplating the meaning of life, religion, humanity, sheep, and everything else he feels like bringing up when all you want is to move along and find out what's so important about the sheep and what everything else has to do with it. Maybe the book is intentionally written to be dull. There was this one review I read of the story when I got halfway through it {thinking that there MUST have been some negative criticism for this story} that said the way it's written is like waking out of a dream. I agree. Because I fell asleep a few times while reading the story.

While the mystery itself is intriguing, as well as the Rat, the Sheep Man, and the Man in Black Suit fellows {that make up the only dialogue I like in the story}, the narrator has to describe every little detail of his every action and he has to put up with so many unnecessary conversations along the way. And what was the point of that woman with the seductive ears? What was she on about? Was it ever explained? No. Not really. She just enters the story, acts strangely, says strange little things, and disappears. Maybe she's an extension of the Rat/Ghost/Sheep thing? I don't care. It's not explained and her character bothered me anyways.

In the end, the main character lost everything and doesn't care because he didn't think he had anything to lose in the first place. He was used, abused, and even lead on a wild goose chase that makes you as a reader wonder why you spent numerous hours reading. I hate to be a hater, which makes me a hater, but I give this book a 2/10. While the mystery was intriguing, it was written in such an insipid style and manner that I could hardly read through it and process it.

-Peace Out