2 of 2 copies available
An advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
August 6, 2013 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780804166546
- File size: 277448 KB
- Duration: 09:38:00
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Languages
- English
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Levels
- Lexile® Measure: 740
- Text Difficulty: 3-4
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Reviews
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October 1, 1989
Immensely popular in Japan, the author's first novel to be published here is a comic combination of disparate styles: a mock-hardboiled mystery, a metaphysical speculation and an ironic first-person account of an impossible quest. The narrator is a modern Japanese yuppie: divorced, in a mildly exciting relationship and a much less exciting job as an ad copywriter, he lives unexceptionally until a photograph throws his life into chaos. The snapshot, which he uses to illustrate a newsletter, shows a field of sheep with one unique crossbreed, and the picture is special enough to have attracted the attention of both the nomadic friend who sent it to him and a right-wing Mr. Big who, moribund, wants the source found before he dies. The Boss's henchman, a sleek, scary majordomo, gives the narrator one month to track it down, and the story that ensues is a postmodern detective novel in which dreams, hallucinations and a wild imagination are more important than actual clues. With the help of a fluid, slangy translation, Murakami emerges as a wholly original talent. $30,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates. -
In this quirky novel from Japan, the unnamed 30-something narrator goes searching for his hidden friend, The Rat, and a magic sheep seemingly bent on world domination. Part satire, part mystery, the book dwells mostly on the protagonist's ruminations on personalities, events, and milieu. The British audio publisher has cast an American reader. Rupert Degas sounds like a likable East Coast grad student while impersonating the hero, giving the musings and descriptions dramatic and expressive force. In dialogue passages, however, he relies upon his skill with character voices, making them cartoonish. The Rat, for instance, sounds like Woody Allen. This approach seems to clash with the authorial voice, not to mention the Asian setting. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine -
October 31, 1990
A Japanese yuppie plunges into chaos after he discovers a snapshot depicting a unique crossbreed of sheep. In ``a comic combination of disparate styles: a mock-hardboiled mystery, a metaphysical speculation and an ironic first-person account of an impossible quest . . . Murakami emerges as a wholly original talent,'' PW wrote.
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