"A Wild Sheep Chase"
Murakami, Haruki
“A Wild Sheep Chase” is very different from many horror stories I have read before. I personally haven’t really read a lot of Asian Horror novels and this one was quite an unique one. As an Asian myself, it is true that there are more supernatural and spiritual belief in the Asian culture that I understand their use in their novels and movies. Although I may be Asian, I did read and watch more of Western horror movies and novels that this novel is definitely told in a very different way.
The whole story is pretty calmly told since there isn’t much of an intense action going on in the story, rather it is about the protagonist, who is addressed as ‘I’, searching for a sheep with a star shaped birthmark. Many of the characters are introduced through the protagonist’s encounters with them and are also addressed without a name. All the characters within the novel are addressed according to how they look or what they are wearing, which I find quite interesting.
I have also read part of this book in Japanese and I realize there are quite some difference between the two especially when it comes to characters’ interactions. Some of the atmospheres were different reading it in Japanese since in Japan or Korea there are informal and formal way of speaking. Reading it in two different languages did allow me to see the cultural differences in writing.
Not only the language differences showed the cultural differences, but also how the story was told. How the Asian horror novels or movies deal with the supernatural spirits are very unique compared to how Westerners deal with it. Since there are many Asians do believe that ghosts exist in this world, they tend to think that there are reasons why they are still in this world and tries to fix things, but that is mainly in stories rather than in real life.
Also when I think of horror, it is always something bad happening with the protagonist or that he or she is dealing with some risky events, however in ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’, the protagonist doesn’t really encounters a dangerous situation, rather everything is told step by step of how he ends up with each characters. There are tons of horror novels that have a very obvious outcome, but many of the events were unpredictable in this novel. This surely was a very different kind of horror compared to the ones I read or watched before that explains the cultural differences as well as allow me to learn more about the genre of horror of my own culture.
