A Wild Sheep Chase

I felt like reading A Wild Sheep Chase was a continuous surprise, because just by the title I had absolutely NO clue what it would be about. I tend to try to not read the summary of the book, or the back of a novel so it doesn't spoil the element of surprise, but sometimes its also nice to have a little background. In this case, I feel like the story itself was absolutely ridiculous in a sense. Like the situations would never happen, but like when they're on their journey to find the special sheep with the star on its back, I felt it was more described realistically, than fabricated, which is common in a novel. Instead, Haruki Murakami described the event as a drawn out, non-eventful search for this sheep, which really doesn't sound like a major event in the first place. I also thought it was important to sound more realistic when describing the journey, because it isn't a completely light hearted situation or ultimatum he has been stuck in. Although it may not be the most exciting part of the book, I still appreciated the realistic descriptions, because it keeps the novel grounded through all of the fictional situations and elements. Even just the beginning of the story, where you have this passive, mediocre main character who chain smokes and then out of nowhere, he finds himself on this journey to find a sheep that appeared on a pamphlet he created.
I did enjoy the, I guess, more romantic side of this novel. My view was kind of the main character, who started off as a self-absorbed advertising exec, ends up searching for this sheep, while subconsciously finding out who he is, and meets a companion. Who happens to be a chick with magical ears, which really weirded me out. But seeing the transition of the character turning into this more sensitive type/ caring towards others was an uplifting aspect that I kind of tend to be drawn to.