Similarities and Differences in Chandler and Murakami

    After finishing both The Long Goodbye and A Wild Sheep Chase, I feel like I can point out many similarities, as well as many differences. For me, one major difference between these novels is that The Long Goodbye did not leave me with many questions at the end, whereas A Wild Sheep Chase answered many of my original questions, but left me wondering what exactly happened. I believe that this has a lot to do with the supernatural elements of Murakami's story. Since Chandler's story is rooted completely in reality (or at least set in the real world), the crime, reason behind the murders, etc. all made logical sense to me when the truth about them is revealed at the end. With Murakami's story, you cannot use logic to understand the truth to the mystery that he sets up. Even after many questions that Boku had were answered by the Rat, the Boss's secretary, etc., there are still so many aspects of the story that remain unresolved. For example, I am still quite confused about the sheep with the star on its back and I feel like very little about it was actually revealed. There was enough information given about it to understand the brain cysts, eternally searching "sheepless" people, and other aspects of it that were relevant to the plot, but what was its grand plan after all? Also did it have something to do with Boku's girlfriend losing her powers or whatever was special about her? And who is the Sheep Man and why is everyone so normal about that fact that he walks around in a full-body sheep costume all day?

    In addition, on another note, the similarities between Terry Lennox and the Rat became quite clear to me at the end of The Long Goodbye and A Wild Sheep Chase. They are both friends with the protagonist and needed a job done that only the protagonist could do. Also, they reunited with the protagonist at the end of the novel in a plot twist (Lennox is alive when he was expected to be dead, the Rat is dead when he was expected to be alive) and came to them in a different form (Lennox had surgery and came to Marlowe as another person; the Rat came to Boku both as a ghost and a possessed Sheep Man). Additionally, at the beginning of the story, they both go off to far away, secluded places (Otatoclan and Junitaki), and they are also generally considered "weak" men (based on their own words).

- Melody Sweeney