"Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murakami

On the heels of the 'Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' which, although starting slow, by the last few chapters it became my new top-favorite book, the "Wild Sheep Chase' is more organized, more 'ordinary' if that can be said about any Murakami's work, and definitely more accessible, although not as rewarding at the end.  It is the third tome in the "The Rat Trilogy" and although "Dance, Dance, Dance" continues with the same characters, the plot is completely different.

Again, the book starts somewhere in the middle of the story, and then each chapter jumps around the past and future to slowly start forming the background story.  The book start with the unnamed narrator being left by his wife of 4 years who had had an affair with his friend for the last year.  Almost all the characters in the book are unnamed or referred by labels and nick names.  The narrator is a partner in a small advertising agency in Tokyo, however all hell breaks loose when he publishes a picture of sheep that his friend "The Rat" sends him from Hokaido.  He is contacted by a powerful right-wing political figure and set on a wild sheep chase, from which his life will be forever changed.

The narrator meets his new girlfriend few months after his divorce.  She is a call-girls, a translator, an ear-model and also somewhat psychic, at least when relating to narrator's sheep chase.  Like most female characters in Murakami's books, she is quirky, says strange things, lives life by strange principles and dissapears from the narrator's life unceremoniously before the end of the book, explained in only a couple of sentences.  The narration is split between Tokyo and remote parts of Hokaido.  At the end it ends in anti-climax, nothing really happens or gets resolved.  The narrator goes back to his old life, the politician dies, the Rat dies (in a very weird, post-modern way), and everything goes on as if the sheep-chase never happened.