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Haruki MurakamiA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Japan is depicted in this novel as a country with a complicated, war-torn history. Traces of this history are seen throughout the narrator’s quest for the sheep, and are manifested in the lives of the novel’s characters, many of whom seem to be suffering from a sort of spiritual restlessness. There is the Sheep Professor, who is haunted by the magical sheep that “invaded” him while he was in Manchuria; the Rat, who is constantly on the run from his own life; and the narrator himself, who no longer feels an attachment to his hometown, apart from his bond with an elderly Chinese bar owner, and is adrift in his Tokyo life.
What these characters all have in common is their sense of being exiles in their own country and the bewildered attachments that they have formed to places, or to entities, that are not quite theirs. The Rat spends his last days in his family’s former farmhouse, which was appropriated by the US Army during World War II and then given back to the town, which can no longer afford to maintain the house and the land around it.
By Haruki Murakami
1Q84
1Q84
Haruki Murakami
After Dark
After Dark
Haruki Murakami
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Haruki Murakami
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Haruki Murakami
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Haruki Murakami
Kafka on the Shore
Kafka on the Shore
Haruki Murakami
Killing Commendatore
Killing Commendatore
Haruki Murakami
Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood
Haruki Murakami
South of the Border, West of the Sun
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Haruki Murakami
Sputnik Sweetheart
Sputnik Sweetheart
Haruki Murakami
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes: Stories
Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami, Transl. Jay Rubin
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Haruki Murakami