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A Wild Sheep Chase

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A Wild Sheep Chase

By: Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum
Narrated by: Dexter Galang
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A marvelous hybrid of mythology and mystery, A Wild Sheep Chase is the extraordinary literary thriller that launched Haruki Murakami's international reputation.

It begins simply enough: a 20-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company's advertisement. What he doesn't realise is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself. Quirky and utterly captivating, A Wild Sheep Chase is Murakami at his astounding best.

©1982 Haruki Murakami (P)2020 Penguin Audio Action & Adventure Fiction Genre Fiction International Mystery & Crime Literary Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Mystery Mystery, Thriller & Suspense World Literature Magic Fantasy

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Critic reviews

"A Wild Sheep Chase has the conventional hull of a thriller - a quest, a mystery, an extraordinary woman, and plenty of elegant duress - but its fantastic superstructure transforms it into something quite different...a science fiction fantasy, a romance, a metaphysical tease, or a dramatisation of philosophical ideas." (Independent)
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Beautifully written and strange combination of Raymond Chandler and Neil Gaiman. Nicely read in a style that suits.

My favourite Murakami novel

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If you’re just getting to know Murukami’s work, avoid this narrator. It’s a brilliant book, but this particular narrator makes you not want to listen, this will probably put you off listening and as a result you are likely to miss out on a giant in magical realism. Dexter Galang has the dullest voice; it’s annoying, monotone, and sounds like a pretentious pubescent nerd. Whoever bought his recordings or encouraged him to read must have been tripping balls.

Worst narrator I’ve come across

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Mildly entertaining. Narration is great, but the story itself is a little bland and nonsensical.

Not as good as his other works

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Trying to get into this since I loved his other work but the narration is making it difficut to enjoy.
Would like to hear this but with another narrator.

interesting but bad narration

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I didn’t find this book as good as some of Murakami’s other books but I had read Dance Dance Dance and this was its prequel so I listened to it. DDD was much better in my opinion but I’m still glad to have listened to this for continuity’s sake and it was not boring. The narration though I didn’t like. It was very monotonous. Could have been done much better.

Not Murakami’s best

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