Maybe I Have Been Overthinking Murakami

After finishing A Wild Sheep Chase, I found myself trying to find a deeper meaning behind the book, making theories for the Rat and what he resembles, what the sheep man resembles, what Boku's girlfriends' ears resemble...

I analyzed the symbolism behind each of these "mystical" features, trying to decode what they all meant. The story felt like a puzzle designed to be solved, a surreal allegory about identity, power and isolation. However, when I later read Norwegian Wood, my perspective changed quite significantly. Here was a Murakami novel much less doused in surrealism and more grounded in reality, fragility, death, love and loneliness, in the most straightforward way possible. It made me wonder if I had been overcomplicating everything all along.

Norwegian Wood got me thinking that Murakami's writing, even when strange, might not be meant to be dissected so intensely. Perhaps beneath the surreal surface of A Wild Sheep Chase lies something remarkably simple--the same longing for connection and the same quiet emptiness that drives Norwegian Wood. The difference may be solely through how it is presented: one through talking sheep and dreamlike landscapes and the other through the everyday experiences of a youthful individual. Both chase something unreachable, but perhaps Murakami's point is that there is nothing to "solve" at all, rather there is only something to feel.

I realized that I can appreciate Murakami much more if I spend less time trying to decode hidden meanings, and more time sitting with the mood he creates. The quiet, longing, strange comfort of "not knowing" introduced to me by Norwegian Wood proved to me that Murakami's stories, no matter how abstract or grounded, might be less about interpretation and more about resonance with the reader. Maybe his words are less so puzzles...maybe they are mirrors, reflecting how we overthink, search and yearn to find meaning where there might simply just be life, as it was intended to be lived. 

But maybe me thinking this way is overthinking in itself.

-Josh K.