This week MizB asks bloggers to muse upon the question:

What is the weirdest/strangest/craziest book you’ve ever read?

This is might be a tad unoriginal, but my “weird book” pick is a Murakami novel. Don’t get me wrong, I really like his books. Mostly. Norwegian Wood is one of my favorites, Kafka on the Shore is intriguing, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is meandering and slightly baffling. But the book that screams “weirdest” at me is A Wild Sheep Chase. Let me share the back cover copy:

“A marvelous hybrid of mythology and mystery, A Wild Sheep Chase is the extraordinary literary thriller that launched Haruki Murakami’s international reputation. It begins simply enough: A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company’s advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the pastoral 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 in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself. Quirky and utterly captivating, A Wild Sheep Chase is Murakami at his astounding best.”

This is only a tiny glimpse of the weirdness that lies between the covers. It was very strange and a little confusing; I remember being confused about what I had just absorbed even after finishing the book. I can accept talking cats and prostitutes who only service their clients in the mental realm, but this sheep thing was a little bit too far out there for me.

What’s the weirdest/strangest book you have ever read?

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading