Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase

J finished peeling the potatoes, then dumped them into a large colander to rinse. “What will you do from here on?”

“Don’t know. I’ve got some severance money coming, plus my half of the sale of the business. Not much really. And then there’s this.”

I pulled the check out of my pocket and passed it over to J, amount unseen. J looked at it and shook his head.

“This is unbelievable money, unbelievable.”

“You said it.”

“But it’s a long story, right?”

I laughed. “Let me leave it with you. Put it in the shop safe.”

“Where would I have a safe here?”

“How about the cash register?”

“I’ll put it in my safe-deposit box at the bank,” said J worriedly. “But what do you plan to do with it?”

“Say, J, it took a lot of money to move to this new location, didn’t it?”

“That it did.”

“Loans?”

“Real big ones.”

“Will that check pay off those loans?”

“With change to spare. But …”

“How about it? What say you take on the Rat and me as copartners? No worry about dividends or interest. A partnership in name is fine.”

“But I couldn’t do that.”

“Sure you could. All you got to do in return is take in the Rat and me whenever one of us gets into a fix.”

“That’s no different than what I’ve done all along.”

Beer glass in hand, I looked J in the face. “I know. But that’s how I want it.”

J laughed and shoved the check into his pocket. “I still remember the very first time you got drunk. How many years ago was that now?”

“Thirteen.”

“Already?”

J talked about old times the next half hour, something he rarely did. Customers began to filter in, and I got up to leave.

“But you only just got here,” said J.

“The well-mannered child doesn’t overstay,” said I.

“Did you see the Rat?”

I took a deep breath, both hands on the counter. “I saw him all right.”

“That a long story too?”

“A longer story than you’ve ever heard in your whole life.”

“Can’t you give me the highlights?”

“Highlights wouldn’t mean anything.”

“Was he well?”

“Fine. He wished he could see you.”

“Do you suppose I’ll get to see him sometime?”

“You’ll get to see him. He’s a co-partner, after all. That’s money the Rat and I earned.”

“Well then, I’m glad.”

I stepped down from the barstool and took a whiff of the old place.

“Oh, and as I’m a co-partner, how about a pinball machine and jukebox?”

“I’ll have them here by your next visit,” said J.

I walked along the river to its mouth. I sat down on the last fifty yards of beach, and I cried. I never cried so much in my life.

I brushed the sand from my trousers and got up, as if I had somewhere to go.

The day had all but ended. I could hear the sound of waves as I started to walk.

Fiction

After Dark

After the Quake

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Dance Dance Dance

The Elephant Vanishes

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Kafka on the Shore

Norwegian Wood

South of the Border, West of the Sun

Sputnik Sweetheart

A Wild Sheep Chase

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Nonfiction

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Murakami’s trademark humor and psychological insight are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery. Combining the pyrotechnical genius that made Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle international bestsellers, with a moving infusion of heart, Murakami has produced one of his most enchanting fictions yet.

Fiction/978-0307-27873-9

AFTER THE QUAKE

Set at the time of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Murakami’s characters emanate from a place where the human meets in the inhuman. An electronics salesman who has been abruptly deserted by his wife agrees to deliver an enigmatic package—and is rewarded with a glimpse of his true nature. A man who has been raised to view himself as the son of God pursues a stranger who may or not be his human father. A collection agent receives a visit from a giant talking frog who enlists his help in saving Tokyo from destruction.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-375-71327-9

BLIND WILLOW, SLEEPING WOMAN

This superb collection of stories generously express Murakami’s mastery of the form. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an ice man, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami’s characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be closest of all.

Fiction/Short Stories/978-1-4000-9608-4

DANCE DANCE DANCE

As he searches for a mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Murakami’s protagonist plunges into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread in which he collides with call girls, plays chaperone to a lovely teenage psychic, and receives cryptic instructions from a shabby but oracular Sheep Man.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-75379-7

THE ELEPHANT VANISHES

With his genius for dislocation, Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald’s in the middle of the night; a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-75053-6

HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD

Japan’s most popular fiction writer hurtles into the consciousness of the West. Murakami draws readers into a narrative particle accelerator in which a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his undemure granddaughter, Bob Dylan, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-74346-0

KAFKA ON THE SHORE

This book is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home—either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister—and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder.

Fiction/Literature/978-1-4000-7927-8

NORWEGIAN WOOD

Toru, a college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman. But their relationship is colored by the tragic death of their mutual best friend years before. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-375-70402-4

SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WEST OF THE SUN

Born into an affluent family, Hajime has arrived at middle age wanting for almost nothing. The postwar years have brought him a fine marriage, two daughters, and an enviable career. Yet a sense of inau-thenticity about his success threatens his happiness. And a boyhood memory of a wise, lonely girl named Shimamoto clouds his heart.