My journey with Haruki Murakami began, like many others, with his later, more celebrated novels: Norwegian Wood, 1Q84, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Each of these books left me somehow feeling cosy despite having such distant characters and strange scenarios. Topped off with the most unusual snap decisions (Eg. Sitting in a well for days at a time or climbing down a highway escape ladder into an alternate world), his novels felt like floating through someone else’s dream; detached yet vivid.

Given that experience, I became curious about Murakami’s roots, questioning what came before his iconic style was fully formed. I wanted to read his first published books, just to see the development of his writing which led up to what I’d already read. This is what led me to The Rat series, a tetralogy which I read in just a short four weeks.

It follows an unnamed narrator and his friend, "The Rat" through early adulthood and their gradual disconnection from the world around them. Though loosely connected, the books share the same characters and a similar theme. 

1. Hear the Wind Sing

Set over 18 days in August 1970, we follow a 21 year old unnamed narrator during a homecoming from university. He drinks beer, chats with his friend “The Rat” at J’s Bar, and forms a tentative bond with a nine fingered woman. Not much happens, and that’s the point.

In this book, I see Murakami setting up the foundations for disconnection and the characters being unable to engage fully with life, primarily trying to establish the normalcy of the characters before beginning the ride of the next three novels.

Murakami wrote this in his late 20s while running a jazz bar in Tokyo. There’s a lack of polish and detail, however, for a first novel written during a busy period of his life, this is to be expected.

2. Pinball, 1973

Set three years later, this novel alternates between the narrator’s isolated life (now living with two mysterious twin women) and The Rat’s internal crisis. The central plot revolves around the narrator’s obsessive search for an old pinball machine. The pinball machine in question seems to act as a symbol of nostalgia and lost meaning. It seems to reflect the struggle of reclaiming a feeling or purpose once felt, but now lost in adulthood, leaning on the previous novel’s “normal” story of the narrator and The Rat at J’s Bar. The Rat, however, seems to become increasingly dissatisfied with how he is living and eventually decides to leave the town where J's bar operates, looking to start a new life elsewhere.

It’s still an early work, yet more ambitious than Hear the Wind Sing, as it has a set goal for the narrator to find an incredibly rare pinball machine. Murakami’s slow pace is more refined too, drifting in and out of scenes with more ease than previously.

3. A Wild Sheep Chase

Here, the narrator is hired to find a mysterious sheep with a star shaped birthmark. Murakami’s style sees a massive boost in this book. Instead of simple chapters and a small narrative, we follow the narrator to many different places where he meets many different characters. The quest takes him across Hokkaido and into surreal territory involving a reclusive war criminal and a girl with “ear powers”. We are also introduced to the Dolphin Hotel, a key component of the next book, Dance Dance Dance.

The Sheep Man is an interesting character in this book. I can’t tell if he’s intended to be symbolic of something or purely exists as a method for the narrator to meet with his friend “The Rat” after such a long period. If he is symbolic, the closest I can get to an explanation is that he represents a loss of identity. His ability to "enter" people and control their lives hints at the idea of individuals losing themselves to the influence of external forces (embodied by the mysterious sheep in this book). 

For instance, the reclusive war criminal “The Boss”, with the sheep, builds an empire that controls politics and business. However, when the sheep leaves him, his health and ability to maintain this empire decline rapidly. This leaves the narrator being put in a search to find this sheep due to him having a photo of it sent to him by The Rat. It's complicated.

In short, the sheep seems to symbolise the influence of identity and the invisible systems that control lives in our current day society, and The Sheep Man is an embodiment for the sheep to contact someone without “entering” them in this book.

Written after he closed his jazz bar and committed to writing full time, this is where Murakami fully leans into the surreal. The plot becomes fully absurd and dreamlike, as my description may imply.

4. Dance Dance Dance

Set several years later, the narrator is now in his mid 30s and is a freelance writer haunted by the disappearance of his past lover, Kiki (the girl with “ear powers”). His journey to find closure draws him back to the Dolphin Hotel and into encounters with an intelligent teenage girl called Yuki, as well as a hotel staff member called Yumiyoshi. 

This is where things get a little more complex.

There also seems to be a second storyline involving the narrator which barely connects to the Dolphin Hotel. An actor/former classmate of the narrator, Gotanda, spends a night with the narrator and utilises a call girl service which Kiki was linked to. One of the two girls they were with was found dead the next day, which led to the narrator being held in police custody for three days. This will be important later. 

Soon after, he is given the responsibility to take Yuki to see her parents, and they end up spending several weeks in Hawaii. He sees Kiki and is led up to the 8th floor of a building into a room with six skeletons, each representing characters in the book.

Beforehand, at the Dolphin Hotel, Yumiyoshi discovered that floor 16 has the uncanny ability to become an entirely different level. She stepped out into a pitch black and dank corridor, which shouldn’t be possible considering how state of the art the hotel is, and she immediately leaves out of fear. She tells the narrator this and soon after he has the same experience, however, he goes further into the darkness and discovers something unexpected.

After the seeming death of The Sheep Man in the last book, the narrator finds him in the darkness of the Dolphin Hotel and he is given a profound message by the enigmatic character:

"You got to dance. As long as the music plays. You got to dance. Don’t even think why. To think is to lose the point.", which is a more unique way of saying “The more you do, the more you learn and grow”. This applies to the entire novel when it comes to the narrator's actions. 

The only time the narrator actually can’t “dance” is when he is in police custody as a suspect for the murder of the call girl. The two officers he is with keep playing with him by making him tell details of the night over and over until they decide to release him. The constant conversation and various disclosure requirements form into a loop for around three days where nothing happens, and this frustrates the narrator. Once released, and he can “dance”, the narrator can pick up from where he left off and the book becomes eventful again. 

I see this subtly hinting at a reflection of living, where if you don’t or can’t push yourself to do different things, life begins to become a bore. Yet with the skeletons, the story implies there is a terrible risk if you push yourself to do things, as the characters slowly die off while the narrator perseveres through the story. So technically, there’s a corresponding amount of potential danger to a positive outcome, making the boring vs adventurous life seem equal.

Two books were written between A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, including Norwegian Wood, so this is more of a return to the series rather than directly continuing it. This novel is more confident in its story and is packed with more detail and theoretical questions, and contains much more detail than the last three.

Overall Impression and Recommendation

Similar to the other Murakami books I’ve read, the main character seems to navigate his life as an observer rather than an active participant. However, there is a constant search for meaning that keeps him moving through the story. Whether the narrator is seeking a specific object like a pinball machine or a mythical sheep, there's an underlying quest for a deeper understanding of self or the purpose of existence. Regardless of the people he meets along the way, the novels almost always focus solely on the main character and his experiences, which seems to push a sense of isolation. Even though in this series there are roughly 20 other characters, it seems the narrator is alone during the journey of the four books. 

Having read Norwegian Wood, 1Q84, and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the shift is fascinating. This series definitely feels like sketches before the final product, but reading it was like watching Murakami become Murakami. These books aren’t his most refined, but they’re crucial. Not just for understanding his work, but for feeling the growth of current day loneliness he’s always trying to capture. There’s a consistent contrast in Murakami’s books of the main characters having a perfectly ordinary and solo life, while having the strangest things happen to them and meeting different people during the narrative, and this series begins that trend in a fascinating way with the involvement of The Sheep Man.

I believe this series to be crucial if you have recently enjoyed a Murakami book, such as Norwegian Wood, but it won’t be so fun if you aren’t already familiar with his writing style and methods of storytelling. A good chunk of the fun that came with reading this series was seeing Murakami learn how to write the four books. From the first two slowly gaining traction in detail to the third and fourth being packed to the brim, it was interesting to read the gears of his mind working out what is essential in a novel. 

For some people new to Murakami books, you may have seen A Wild Sheep Chase as a recommendation to read standalone. This is possible as it is the central and most captivating point in the series, while also being understandable without the information gained from the other three novels. However the ending may leave you wanting to read the next book, and there may be some points that are left inferred. 

I think the best, yet most timely way to enjoy the series is by reading all four books chronologically. This will let you enjoy not just the story that spans across the four novels, but also see the way that Murakami creates the immersive nature of his imaginative landscapes. I’d recommend reading a well known Murakami novel first and seeing if you enjoy it, otherwise this series may not be as fun as I make it seem. Norwegian Wood is a good first read as it is relatively easy to comprehend and just less than 400 pages long. And if you enjoy it (apart from that one scene, you’ll know when you read it), then I absolutely recommend The Rat Series to understand the origin of Haruki Murakami’s style.