Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage [Hardcover]

As a longtime Murakami reader, I fell in love with his novels and short stories from the '80s and '90s, but became increasingly disillusioned as Murakami began experimenting with his style in Kafka on the Shore (which I still found mostly enjoyable), then on to After Dark (which I found completely underwhelming), and 1Q84 (which I honestly struggled to finish). To me, in these newer works, Murakami seemed tentative, off key, and honestly a bit "lost" ... failing to capture the intangible mojo that makes an outstanding Murakami novel better than the sum of its parts. As a result, I approached Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage with a bit of trepidation ... and honestly a bit of resignation--I was willing to give Murakami another shot, but if this book fell short, that might've been the last Murakami book I was willing to read.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki has a compelling mix of the "old" and the "new" Murakami. For the first time since Murakami started to alter his style, the story is told entirely from the perspective of the familiar "Boku" character ... mid-30s, lonely, detached, insecure (in this case, about whether he is "colorless"--this will make sense when you read the book), on an unusual quest to reconcile a past trauma and lost relationships. The book is strikingly free of the "mystic realism" present in some of his iconic works such as Wind-Up Bird and Hard-Boiled Wonderland, and tells a much more "realistic" tale more similar in concept to Norwegian Wood, South of the Border, or even his debut novel, Hear the Wind Sing ... but with considerably more maturity and psychological depth, I'd argue. Unlike the "old" Murakami protagonist, however, Tsukuru is not passive ... cool, but not dispassionate. It takes some time and some prodding, but eventually he sets out to discover truths and right wrongs. His name is telling: "tsukuru" means "to make", and what Tsukuru makes is train stations ... places characterized by both order and chaos, where the ebb and flow of humanity is unceasing, full of people going to where they belong and returning to where they were meant to be. Similar to Murakami's more recent works, this tale is told entirely in the 3rd person; unlike his recent works, however, this tale is not told from multiple perspectives. Personally, I found this singular focus on Tsukuru (rather than a split narrative) enhanced the tale and allowed the reader to feel what Tsukuru is feeling and empathize with his quest for understanding and belonging. Although not mystic, the tale is still mysterious; I am often vexed by Murakami's tendency for unresolved plot lines, yet in this tale I was satisfied with the ending (although I imagine not everyone will be) ... Tsukuru hangs on a knife's edge, yet is at peace in his own way. While I would've loved to have seen the resolution of the remaining key plot line, as Tsukuru himself notes it is out of his hands ... he has completed his own internal journey, regardless of what happens next.

To me, personally, this felt like the most effortless and natural tale Murakami has told since he started experimenting with his style in Kafka on the Shore. As such, it seems appropriate that in many ways Murakami achieves the most successful version of his new style by returning to his roots. This is the first novel of his in quite some time that I found to be a gripping page turner that I genuinely enjoyed and left me hungry for my next visit to Murakami World rather than nostalgic for past visits. The reaction in Japan to this novel has been decidedly mixed, however, so I will be curious to see what the reaction is in the west. For me at least, for the first time in more than a decade, I had the pleasure of closing a Murakami novel with a smile on my face, moved, thoughtful, and looking forward to seeing where Murakami goes from here. I am reminded of an excellent quote by Ursula Le Guin: "Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed." I think this statement applies well to Murakami's works ... it is often difficult to articulate why one likes (or dislikes) Murakami's writing as a whole, or specific works in particular ... it is the reason why reading Murakami is a very personal, and very subjective experience--one "feels" Murakami as much as one "thinks" Murakami; what moves one person will turn off another. Personally, I found Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki to be a success: like all Murakami novels that moved me, I feel a bit different from what I was before I read it.

Since this is Murakami, the book is about a person. This time, the character is Tsukuru Tazaki. We live with him and his thoughts and his actions and his dreams for a significant period of his life.

If a reader is of a self-analytical bent, there will be much to potentially identify with in this book. If not, then this book may start something analytical before the last page is read.

The story line is so basic and the events so focused on it that there is little that can be told without spoiling it all. Discovery while reading is key to the enjoyment of this book. The things Tsukuru does, the people he knows, the work he does, the conversations he has all are entwined within the basic story element.

If you are already a fan of this author, you will find it to be less convoluted than some of his stories, yet deeper than it seems on the surface. If you haven't discovered the pleasure of reading Murakami's books, then this will be an OK place to start. As always, though, with Murakami you never know what will happen next, while you're still busy digesting what has happened already.

Sara’s ultimatum sets Tsukuru on his pilgrimage. The plot is a quest, that time-honoured structure familiar from Homer’s Odyssey. He must travel far and wide and overcome many obstacles in his search for the truth. It’s a form that Murakami used masterfully in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in which the protagonist’s emotional trajectory—from sweetly inadequate to semi-mythic—resembles Frodo’s transformation in Tolkien’s epic Lord of The Rings.
Tsukuru visits each of his former friends and talks to them face-to-face. He finds the boys still in Nagoya, and goes as far as Finland for one of the girls. When he finally learns the truth, it is disturbing. The fate of one of the five is as eerie, violent and sad as anything Murakami has ever written, although at a remove. We hear about it rather than witness it, a technique that keeps the attention squarely on Tsukuru.
Colorless continues the author’s fascination with the permeable barrier between reality and imagination, in which temporality and states of consciousness merge and overlap. Tsukuru has erotic dreams involving Shiro (white) and Kuro (black): we wonder if they are unbidden aspects of his unconscious or whether they have more sinister portent.
Murakami is extraordinarily attentive to the feelings of love and hate, injustice, jealousy and guilt that engulf Tsukuru. When a new friend, the handsome boy Haida (the name means “grey field”) appears in one of these sex dreams we know we are in a different reality. Haida’s story-within-a-story further confuses Tsukuru. Haida’s father is offered a “death token” that, among other things, heightens the ability to see colours. Is the story about Haida or his father? Is Haida even real?
Murakami often pushes the outer limits of language, using music where words fail. In Colorless, the leitmotif is the beautiful Mal du Pays, one of three piano suites by Franz Liszt known collectively as Years of Pilgrimage. Mal du Pays translates as “homesickness” and it’s this mood of nostalgia and regret that permeates Colorless. It is as if Murakami had set out to translate the wordless, felt experience of music into prose.
Murakami is not all ineffable atmosphere, however. There’s a satiric edge to the novel in the setting of the friends’ home in Nagoya, a city long derided as the industrial armpit of Japan, more often passed through than visited. These days Nagoya is climbing out of recession faster than almost any other city in Japan. Not for nothing does Ao sell Lexus cars, the luxury end of the Toyota range in this Detroit of Japan. In a sly note, Aka has become a life coach offering “personal development” to large corporations. His professional skill is to train employees to do what they’re told while still believing they are independent thinkers.
Murakami likes to portray himself as the most ordinary of men with simple tastes: baseball, spaghetti, whisky. It’s a considerable achievement, given Colorless sold a million copies in a week on its release in Japan last year. He owned a Tokyo jazz bar for years, he has a huge record collection, he runs marathons. He refuses to cash in on his celebrity. His literary style is part of this ordinary persona. Despite the occasional fireworks, his writing is concentrated to the point of minimalism, a stripped-back style he shares with Raymond Chandler, whose work he has translated into Japanese (along with J.D. Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald).
Greek mythology pops up unexpectedly, such as in Tsukuru’s Prometheus-like dream of being pecked by birds. (The entire plot of Kafka in the Shore is an elaborate reimagining of the myth of Oedipus.)
If Murakami can be said to be a nihilist, it is in the way he taps archetypal fears. To be human is to be vulnerable and prey to unseen forces. Western readers can never really be sure how much of Murakami’s otherness is down to his Japanese-ness. John Updike once attempted to draw a line between Murakami and the eleventh-century Japanese classic the Tale of Genji. In trying to find an antecedent for Murakami’s metaphysics, he cites an episode where Lady Aoi’s suppressed emotions manifest as evil spirits. It’s a seductive theory, considering both Murakami’s grandfather and father were steeped in Japanese literature and trained as priests, but perhaps irrelevant to most readers.
“We don’t understand him either,” says a young Japanese friend when I asked him about the influence of Buddhism and Shinto on Murakami. “We just think he’s weird.”
Though more muted than previous work, Colorless rewards attentive rereading for emotional truths that belie its brevity and simplicity. Tsukuru’s “vocation”—designing railroad stations—is a case in point. Bullet trains are a triumph of modern Japan, symbols of order and timetabled reliability. But train stations are also redolent of departures and arrivals, missed connections and lonely commutes. As travellers we are sometimes comfortably seated when the train pulls out of the station. At other times we are left standing on the platform watching the back end shrink until it disappears into the darkness. Nonetheless, Murakami seems to be saying, the rails connect us all.

Compared to many of his previous novels, this one is a rather straightforward, realistic read. In this sense, Murakami really took a risk, and, in my opinion, it works. The familiar themes of loneliness and isolation are woven in, but where his previous novels are dark, this one is (dare I say) touching. In spite of this, the tone and style are distinctly Murakami, and his fan base should not be at all disappointed.

His last novel, 1Q84 was extraordinary, yet dense and worth savoring and pondering. Tsukuru Tazaki is worth a few reads, if only for the pleasure. I may be a bit bias, considering I like everything the man puts out, but in my opinion this novel is a definite five stars. This is a great read for hardcore Murakami fans and first-time readers alike. Don't pass this up.

I'm a long time reader of Haruki Murakami and have loved everything else I've read. This novel was well written, the characters well developed and interesting and believable, and the story interesting. However it doesn't feel like it was finished. I'm hoping for another volume named something like "the further adventures of Tsukuru and his friend and what happened to Shiro" that ties together all the loose ends and completes the story.

I know the Japanese culture well enough to know that the endings of Japanese stories are often ambiguous compared to western stories, but this is more extreme than I've seen before.