Comment

Aug 14, 2017SCL_Justin rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is the new novel by Haruki Murakami. It was more in the realm of Sputnik Sweetheart or South of the Border, West of the Sun than it was a 1Q84 or Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Really, that’s probably all the review this needs. I love Murakami novels (even the ones I have issues with) and this is very definitely a Murakami novel. In this one, the protagonist Tsukuru Tazaki is trying to reconnect with his tight group of friends from when they were young. There’d been five of them and he was the only one who didn’t have a colour in his name. He lost contact when they all abruptly cut him off one day, out of nowhere. Tazaki is pushed into this task by a girlfriend and it involves a lot of reflection and listening to Liszt. It didn’t get very weird. It echoed the dream responsibilities and other worlds of some of his other books, and there’s speculation about what could have happened and Tazaki’s responsibility for what a nonexistent version of himself was capable of. That the plot feeds into rape-culture - where disbelieving victims of sexual assault and sympathizing with the nice guy who doesn't think he raped anyone is the norm - is problematic, but I think it's handled in not-atrocious fashion. In general I liked the book as comfort reading from one of my favourite authors, but wasn't set on fire by it.