Rating: 
Summary: It absorbs you to the end, but is ultimately disappointing.
Review: This is the only full-length book I've read by Murakami, having enjoyed his short fiction in the New Yorker. His strange style seems to be much better suited to those punchy fable-length works than to the novel form. Ultimately, I found this book to be strangely disappointing. I was entertained enough to read through the end, but then found the whole enterprise to be largely forgettable. Often the odd details seemed to be inserted merely for the sake of oddness, rather than to create larger meaning. This is not magical realism of any great moment. Perhaps future books will see Murakami's obvious talent for story telling and terse observation focused more efficiently on delivering a story of real impact.
Rating: 
Summary: A Wild Murakami Chase
Review: Being a Murakami maniac, I couldn't criticize a bit of his works at all. If one said his works had numerous flaws and awkwardness in addition to weirdness (although I would think it his creativity), I would still agree that all those commit to the perfection Murakami elements. His works are perfected from being flawed; and yes, that is an irony. In general, his literatures spring up from the very thought no one could ever imagine of -- the ideas are not only ideas but also symbols of everything that might happen around us. Murakami does it so well in working out what he is trying to describe that his novels approach me so quickly and manipulate my mind until I fully am aware of his very thoughts. "A Wild Sheep Chase" is the best works, I daresay, out of what he has done so far. I'm still an amateur in grasping what the authors try to message me, so I haven't figured out quite yet of what exactly he is telling me. However, as I read through the book again and again, I start to comprehend. Not that he did poorly on his descriptions, but it's his thoughts that are too deep for me to understand. If you are a competitive person, you might want to CHALLENGE Murakami by understanding the variety of multiple meanings of symbols.P.S.:
By the way, (no offense if I sound like a racist) I recommend this book especially to Asians in their own languages. Asian countries share the same culture as to the use of the native language. I mean to say that your language may add much more taste to Murakami than English since some expressions in Asian languages are not often used unless describing extremes, etc.
Rating:
Summary: absorbing, thrilling, entirely engaging...
Review: Imagine a Crime Noir novel set in the '70's Japan, and then throw in a little David Lynchian eccentricity and you'd have the skeleton for this page turner of a book. In effect a detective story, the main character is really an advertising agent. He is apathetically walking away from a lackluster marriage, when he begins dating an average looking, part time prostitute. He considers her mediocre in nearly all senses except for her extraordinary ears, which provide her another income as an ear model. he is insisted into an undeniable job by a politician who remains nameless the whole story, referred to only as "the boss". Like all good crime noir, we follow this charismatic protagonist through interlude after interlude. this book is as absorbing as it is eccentric and off the wall. Murakami has written a book that entirely engaged me, and that i still think about afterwards.
Rating: 
Summary: weaving new fairytales with the mundane
Review: murakami almost wrote a flawless novel in A WILD SHEEP CHASE. the typical murakami elements were there: a centralized character confused, but yet accepting of their own mediocrity. throw in some telepathic supporting cast, a mythical/mystical creature that supercedes space and time, and the sound of one hand clapping. it's the latter zen-like quality that takes murakami's craft above other modern day cult writers like amis and welsh. but in this book, i found that the quiet, reflective qualities helped create its biggest weakness: scale. maybe i am too used to western literature's climax. but i felt that the peak was a little too close to the end of the book. still, 4 out of 5 is damn good. i will read it again.
Rating:
Summary: the world with unblocked ears
Review: You'll never look at ears the same way again after reading 'A Wild Sheep Chase.' On my recent experience in Japan, I made it a point to look at every girl's ears, to see if I could find a hint of what Murakami finds so fascinating. 'A Wild Sheep Chase' was, as far as I know, his first recorded profession of obsession over the feminine ear. Recently, in his story 'Blind Willow, Sleeping Girl,' he mentions ears again. It's more than a little strange. Now that I think about it, the human ear is a weird-looking thing. How many thousands of years of evolution, Murakami asks again and again in his writing throughout the ears, have gone into making the human ear assume THAT shape? Murakami is good at separating people from things in his stories. It's one of his themes. An ear is a thing, even though it belongs to a person. Early in the novel, the narrator describes a whale's penis that hung on the wall in his local aquarium when he was a kid. Later in the novel, the narrator names his nameless cat, gives it away, and then dreams that the guy he gave it to says, 'That's not his name anymore. People change. Everything changes. Even names change.' When I read 'A Wild Sheep Chase' last year, it awakened something in my way of thinking. I look back at it now, at its wacky chapter titles, and I flip through its pages. A lot of things have happened in my life since reading 'A Wild Sheep Chase,' and yet the book remains as weird and wonderful as it was the first time I read it. I'm looking, now, at the chapter 'unblocked ears.' The girl with the beautiful ears is telling about how her ears have two phases -- blocked, and unblocked. I won't bother to describe what she means. Just read the book, and see what you think. All in all, I would recommend Murakami's 'The Elephant Vanishes' if you want a quick Murakami fix. Read the first story, and if it's your kind of thing, move on to this. Well, buy both, and read both. =D This is the perfect book for someone whose ears are blocked to the world of Murakami. It has all of his trademark themes and motifs all lined-up. Everything that comes after A WILD SHEEP CHASE is hitting a reader with unblocked ears. And maybe that's what makes them better? See for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: reflections on nothingness
Review: When I first started reading this book, having been recommended it, I didn't think much of it through the first couple of chapters/parts. I thought it was predictable and bland. But, after you become familiar with the main character, the world grows large and full of mystery. It's very interesting and has you guessing at what the book is trying to convey. He doesn't fill in all the blanks for the reader. I would recommend this myself to anyone interested in postmoderism or any adventurous literature. This is one of those books that I wanted to discuss with others right when I finished it. Be ready for a surprise near the end, it's an enigma for all to ponder.
Rating: 
Summary: too strange
Review: Both in English and Japanese, I find Murakami's writing too strange to enjoy. I not only cannot relate to the stories, but they are just too whacky. I don't know how people can rave about him as one of the rising stars of Japanese writing. Frankly, I think it is a disgrace. There are so many more talented and wonderful Japanese writers out there - Endo, Matsumoto, Natsume, Miyabe, Takagi....
Rating:
Summary: Real Characters in a Fantastic World
Review: Murakami Haruki turns the mundane into the strange and fantastic. A Wild Sheep Chase is the story of a nameless man who is thrown around in a world full of fictional characters such as a girl with fabulous ears, a sheep-man, a sheep with a star-mark on its back, and an undead pal named Rat. Although it seems like a fantasy story, I believe that this book and author call out to those of my generation (I am 23), coming of age in a world that is apathetic and too full of choice. Although I have not read the English edition, from my experience Birnbaum is an excellent translator able to capture the feeling of the original text.
Rating:
Summary: Fresh, unexpected
Review: A fine, quick-paced novel set in modern Japan. Unexpected freshness and originality. A great Book!
Rating:
Summary: Sheep are frightening
Review: This was the second time I've read this book. This was the first Murakami novel i read and since then I have reaed several more. After running out of new books on my shelf to read I decided to read this gem again, and what a story it is! It tells the story of the nameless narator and his ear model girl friend in their search for the sheep with a star on its back. I know this sounds very strange, but it is a very entertaining book. check it out.
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