Magnets for chaos

 One common trait that both Marlowe, the protagonist of The Long Goodbye, and the protagonist of A Wild Sheep Chase share is their attraction to chaos. Both characters seem to have a cool and unaffected attitude towards life, however, Marlowe spends his time solving complicated murder plots and Murakami's protagonist contemplates whale penises and travels across Japan in search of a magical sheep. For such ordinary men, Marlowe and Boku live quite extraordinary lives. 

While stylistically, there are many similarities between The Long Goodbye and A Wild Sheep Chase, I believe that this idea of a methodical, unemotional character who strives to disentangle the web of chaos that surrounds him, is the most important influence that Chandler's novel had on Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. Marlowe uses logic and other investigative skills to create order out of chaos while Boku uses counting, as exemplified in chapter 25 when he is discussing why he should have kept count of all the times he and his ex-wife had sex: "I should have kept a diary. Or at least made some mark in a notebook. That way I'd have an accurate figure. Accurate figures give things a sense of reality" (Murakami 197). 

Perhaps because opposites attract, it is the methodical nature and calmness under pressure that these two characters possess which causes chaos to seek them out (or causes them to seek out chaos). I am not sure about this, so please comment if you have a different interpretation! 

-Penny