Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Murakami creates such bizzare, yet, so captivating worlds in his books, that your attention gets captured right from the first line. The story itself is very life-like. There are no crazy adventures, however, the complicated emotions of characters, and their relationships between each other are so intriguing, that I actually read this book in about 2 days, just because I couldn't put it down!

Murakami writes odd stories, but I did enjoy this one. Not sure if his other books are quite interesting as this one, but I will read them eventually.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki was enjoyable but admittedly somewhat stale. This book is somewhere between “I liked it” and “it was ok,” so 2-2.5 stars I guess. Its similarities to [b:Norwegian Wood 11297 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924361s/11297.jpg 2956680] and [b:South of the Border, West of the Sun 17799 South of the Border, West of the Sun Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1443685506s/17799.jpg 1739145] factor into the enjoyment of the book if you make reading Murakami a habit(which I have), so I imagine it's a better experience if it's your first time with him. If it's not, I do feel that this book is pretty much worth the quick read despite its issues and ironic empty/flat feeling.Colorless is good in that Murakami weaves a web of themes and symbols and emotions that are easy to identify with in it(at least personally)–loneliness, torrid yet fickle human relationships, insecurity, the experience of reality and time. However, Murakami kind of pushes the envelope with the indecipherable happenings and the circular, somewhat useless path of Tsukuru in Colorless. Some parts of the “web,” unfortunately, simply seem meaningless when I think they're supposed to be another “ball of mysterious symbolism.”Let me explain more of the similarities between Colorless, [b:Norwegian Wood 11297 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924361s/11297.jpg 2956680] and [b:South of the Border, West of the Sun 17799 South of the Border, West of the Sun Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1443685506s/17799.jpg 1739145]. Spoiler alert? I tried to be vague. I don't know how much similarity to other works should count against a book, but here are some major ones that I noticed. If I went into the protagonists themselves, there'd be a lot more. (NW = Norwegian Wood, SBWS = South of the Border, West of the Sun, CTT = Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki)- NW: ambiguous ending involving a phone call from a girl that the protagonist desires a relationship(to the end of marriage, presumably) with.- NW/SBWS: music ‘theme' song that is ridiculously present in the novel - NW/SBWS: “special person” strongly linked to “special song” (“Norwegian Wood” in NW; “South of the Border” and “The Star-Crossed Lovers” in SBWS; “Le Mal du Pays” in CTT)- NW: older protagonist flashbacks to life as a lonely student in Tokyo with like one friend- NW: loss of friend circle due to traumatic event- NW/SBWS: protagonist seems to connect with women on an especially deep level, even if he has close male friends. Tsukuru mentions this himself. - NW: freaky story from friends, involving piano(mysterious piano player in CTT, lesbian pedophilic incident in NW)- NW: mentally unstable piano teachers- NW: remote retreat-like location- NW: sexual, sleep-interrupting, night ‘apparition' from close friend- NW: friend that protagonist is living with disappearsBonus: I just picked up [b:The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 11275 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327872639s/11275.jpg 2531376] and I swear, I've seen this one line in every novel I've read so far: “I lifted my cup and took a sip of my now lukewarm coffee”.

So umm, parts of this are great, magical, intriguing, fun; other parts are ‘slice of life' and relatable, which are good, but I hated hearing about his sexual fantasies and dreams. And since I was listening to this as an audiobook it was harder for me to skim. Also breast are mentioned A LOT, and while I tried to have compassion that it might have been a fixation that one doesn't have control of it was still grating.
I'll be honest, I sometimes lost track of the characters and I mostly wanted to read this because I had heard that the main character might have been autistic.

Tazaki makes a lot of sense to me and I liked the importance/symbolism of names. It was a little confusing at times and hard to tell what was important. What was with the magic cloth bag and possible soul deal?

It ends with Tazaki ignoring the phone the evening before he's supposed to see Sara and find out if she's choosing him over a man he saw her with and hoping to propose to her...even though she's only said she's fond of him, whereas he's been very direct with ‘I love you' and ‘I want to be with you' multiple times.

Now that I've read the book, I've gone back and read some of the reviews, and the gist of it is: if you like Murakami, you'll recognize a lot of his previous works in this book.

As someone who hasn't read anything of his before (actually, I read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which is non-fiction, not realizing it was the same author), I went in with an open mind.

I found the book pretty rote, similar to what they refer to “on rails” when talking about video game. Very linear, lots of loose ends, and not a ton of deep thoughts being provoked. I'd say about a quarter of it was pretty good, a quarter was ok, and half was kind of pointless.

Given that two stars here means “It was ok”, I'm giving it that rating because it's pretty much exactly how I felt about it. It was ok.

not everything was lost in the flow of time

“Condolences to gentle hearts who couldn't bear to try.
I don't wanna live like this, but I don't wanna die.”

3.75 stars

Phew, this is probably the first Murakami I've actually completed. My last abortive attempt was perhaps not the best starting point with his works (Hard-Boiled Wonderland) so I'm really glad that this one was much more successful. This was OK, I'd give it a 3.5/5.

The story follows Tsukuru Tazaki and basically his attempts to reconcile himself with his past, specifically his history with four high school friends, each aptly with a colour in their names. Because he is the only one without a colour, they call him Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, and the nickname stuck. When he moves to Tokyo for college, at first all seems well but suddenly and apparently out of nowhere, all four of his friends cut off all ties with him and refuse to speak or see him again. The shock and sudden absence of this friend group, which had formed the core of Tsukuru's life, threw him into a downward spiral. Years and years later when Tsukuru is in his mid-30s, he is encouraged by a girlfriend, the first one he feels deeply for, to look back at his past and find out what really happened so that he can put down the burden and move on with his own life.

As you might expect from such a story, there are a fair bit of time jumps in the narrative. This isn't super jarring, but also isn't as smooth as I would've expected. We also get to see and hear a lot of side characters who appear and then disappear, and hear stories that seem like they may have some significant importance to the overarching plot but end up not. On some level, I wonder if that's the point. Tsukuru's one big passion in life is railway stations - he loves everything about them, from the way they are designed to safely transition commuters from platform to train, to the way they are the one stationary spot in a world that's endlessly changing. Tsukuru himself can be likened to such a train, remaining rooted to that same spot from that very moment when his group of high school friends abandoned him. People come and go in Tsukuru's life, often without warning either way, and he has to grow used to the idea of basically losing people out of nowhere.

This book would probably be much more of a hit with people who enjoy leaving a lot of things open to interpretation, but if you're like me and want something that wraps most, if not all, plot elements up nicely by the end, this book may not quite satisfy. Still though, despite the lack of a resolution, I did somewhat enjoy reading this. There was something compelling, an onward motion to the narrative of this book that kept you going and going trying to figure out why things happened. We don't always get concrete answers to every question in the end, but I think we get enough of an ending that it isn't completely left dangling out of nowhere either. It's a great book to read for a book club.

From this, I can hopefully assume that I am perhaps more inclined to enjoy Murakami's less abstract and more “real-life” works, like this one.

it feels so weird to read haruki's works with a developed prefrontal cortex
like damn, am i even reading the same thing that i read a few years ago????

It's more of the same, and that's just fine with me! There are fewer cats than usual, that's the only difference really.

I don't know what it is with Murakami, but his books really move me like no other author's ever have. Maybe it's because I've always felt like I don't quite fit in. Murakami's books give me comfort and solace. There's nothing quite so soothing as being out in a dark winter's morning with the dogs and my headphones on, listening to a Murakami audiobook. It's got me wondering whether I ought to immerse myself in Japanese for a few years so that I can read his novels in their original language! Although, as a translator myself, I can tell you that the translation of this book is very good indeed. Hats off to Mr Gabriel for the great job.

The book started out with a premise I could understand; namely, good friends turned strangers, and the coping one has to go through to put things into perspective. I felt like this book took a sudden turn after the first half or so, and turned into something less identifiable and interesting. The main character becomes fixated, almost whiny in places. His inability to move forward grates on my nerves. Side characters end up moving in and out of focus, with no resolution. I don't really know if Tsukuru finds the peace of mind he was seeking throughout the entire book, and maybe that was my biggest gripe. Your mileage may vary.

I truly enjoyed this book, but I would give it a 3.5/5. Haruki Murakami's writing is absolutely beautiful as per usual and got me hooked from the moment I started the book. However, I wish the story would've ended in a way that made it complete. Some things I wish to further understand is who murdered Kuro and what caused Haida to suddenly leave and never come back. I feel like the answers to these questions would have made the book more complete in a sense. Nevertheless, it was a great story full of meaning and life in writing.

DNF at 25%. Although I am curious as to why his friends suddenly and inexplicably cut ties with him, I just can't deal with the mystic bullshit right now. Soz.

The cover art might actually have fascinated me more than the novel itself.
A weird next step for Murakami, reverting to quasi Norwegian Wood-esque themes and atmospheres after much time spent in the realm of magical realism.
Good enough, despite an intermittently stale prose.

Oh my! Another Murakami wonder. In this latest episode of one of Murakami's especially strange and vivid dreams, our star is the colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, the only person in his small circle of friends who has no color in his name. And, like his name, Tazaki feels he is similarly colorless. Suddenly, his friends break away from him, without explanation. After a prolonged period of despair, and motivated by a new girlfriend, Tazaki goes off in a quest to meet up with his old friends, one by one, and discover what happened. Another mysterious Murakami wonder.

This is a little bit of a slow burn. There’s a lot of great reflections on purpose, relationships, and growing as a person, all within a very grounded and realistic world, but sometimes can feel banal. But that’s kind of what life is, and the emotional points do hit well.

Murakami really takes his time with character exploration and I love it. Reminded me a lot of self-actualisation in a counselling context. Great introspective read. 

I wanted to love this book. But I couldn't.

This book was not good. It was dull. For one, there is no story at all. For Murakami, the entire booked seemed like a subplot to any other character in any other novel he's written.

Plus, we don't even get an ending. We don't find out about two major, major characters (S and H) at all before the book ends.

There were guns involved in the story and yet neither were fired.

This leaves much to be desired and I, for one, am saddened.

I said I would 2 star this book, go higher if something in the last 50 pages happened. Instead, it was a recap of the whole book while he sat in a train station.

1 star it is. I'm sorry. But it just wasn't good.

It is a rounded up 5 starts. Probably 4.5 would be better. The book takes a little while to find its footing but then develops in a exquisite story with many layers. Thoroughly enjoyable and it is always interesting to learn about how a Japanese character would behave and feel. I'm childishly disappointed by the fact that the plot doesn't develop exactly like I would have preferred, but that is my problem.