Book: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Author: Haruki Murakami
Translated By: Philip Gabriel
Pages: 298
Read On: Hardback beauty pictures above.
How Long It Took Me To Read: 2 days
Plot Summary: Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance all of their names contained a colour. The two boys were called Akamatsu, meaning ‘red pine', and Oumi, ‘blue sea', while the girls' names were Shirane, ‘white root', and Kurono, ‘black field'. Tazaki was the only last name with no colour in it.
One day Tsukuru Tazaki’s friends announced that they didn’t want to see him, or talk to him, ever again.
Since that day Tsukuru has been floating through life, unable to form intimate connections with anyone. But then he meets Sara, who tells him that the time has come to find out what happened all those years ago.
General Thoughts: I didn't pre-order this book, I thought I'd be sensible and wait for the paperback. I still haven't read IQ84 and have had it for 2 years. So it made no sense to get this book. But...but have you looked at this book-cover? This is a beautifully made book. The dust jacket is gorgeous and minimal and the actual hardback cover is a riot of colours, it's stunning. The spine is beautiful. And I got a set of free stickers!!!! I wasn't expecting the free stickers and I may have squealed and hugged the book when it arrived. I think I more than freaked out my father.
Things I Liked:
1. The writing is wonderful, as usual. Murakami's writing is golden, dipped in diamonds and with a hint of genius.
2. The premise of this book was great, a close group of friends who were inseparable as young adults end their close relationship out of nowhere and how it effects Tsukuru for the rest of his life. The traumatic end of this friendship changes Tsukuru in a very profound way. It changes him and marks him for life. His change and his life is written about beautifully. You really see his isolation and his sadness like it is a living breathing thing.
3. I loved the slight mystery of this book, why had his friends abandoned him? What had he done? I was looking forward to find out the answer to this question.
4. I really loved the meetings between Tsukuru and his long-lost friends. To see where his friends were in life and how the last 16 years had treated them, also it was nice to get the answers I was curious to find out.
5. Tsukuru himself was a interesting character to read about and see the world from his perspective. I liked him, his quiet and simple life and his interest in railway lines and stations.
6. I loved how this book showed beautifully how we see ourselves is so often dramatically different from how others see us. Sometimes we are blind and oblivious to our own qualities and don't appreciate in the good us. I liked that in this book, Tsukuru felt that he wasn't anything special and was insecure and felt he wasn't deserving of his 'colourful' friends each of whom are a special quality.
Things I Didn't Like:
This book didn't blow me away. In all other cases, in all the other Murakami books I've read, I've put down the books and just stared into space marveling at the brilliance of his work. This book didn't quite leave me spellbound. I liked this book, seriously, I enjoyed this book. But it didn't dazzle me. Maybe the problem is that I had very high expectations from it, like I do with every Murakami book. This book was good and enjoyable and wonderful but it didn't blow me away.
The big problem was me, honestly it was me and not this book.
I am not one to have such intense friendships and the end of friendships just don't effect me this severely. I have had close, very close friendships in high-school and college and even later, and there are three instances when very close friendships ended and I was the one in two of these cases that called off these friendships. It upset me ending these relationships I cared about, but it didn't mark me for the rest of my life. I just don't get that involved in a group of friends. So reading about Tsukuru and how he fell apart at the end of his friendship, was after a point a little jarring. It irked me, how this young man was torn apart and had given up on life, just because his friends didn't want him in their lives anymore?
I know there are super-intense friendships. I also know of people who mourn the end of romantic relationship for decades and never really recover from their broken heart. So none of this was out of the ordinary, but it just didn't resonate with me.
Rating: 4/5
I'd recommend this book, in fact I'd even suggest this as a good starting point for Murakami, I normally recommend Norwegian Wood as a great way to jump into Murakami, but this book works just as well.
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