Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
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4.0 • 64 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
A mesmerising mystery story about friendship from the internationally bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and 1Q84
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Internationally bestselling author Haruki Murakami’s writing has a hypnotic quality, drawing you in to a story shrouded in mystery with seemingly effortless grace. During his second year at university, Tsukuru Tazaki was abruptly and explicably ostracised by his tight-knit group of high school friends. Years later, still haunted by this betrayal, the solitary engineer—who designs train stations for a living—goes in search of the truth. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is another stunningly original and beautiful novel by the Japanese master.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Murakami's (1Q84) latest novel, which sold more than a million copies during its first week on sale in Japan, is a return to the mood and subject matter of the acclaimed writer's earlier work. Living a simple, quotidian life as a train station engineer, Tsukuru is compelled to reexamine his past after a girlfriend suggests he reconnect with a group of friends from high school. A tight-knit fivesome for years, the group suddenly alienated Tsukuru under mysterious circumstances when he was in college. For months after the break, not knowing what had gone wrong, he became obsessed with death and slowly lost his sense of self: "I've always seen myself as an empty person, lacking color and identity. Maybe that was my role in the group. To be empty." Feeling his life will only progress if he can tie up those emotional loose ends, Tsukuru journeys through Japan and into Europe to meet with the members of the group and unravel what really happened 16 years before. The result is a vintage Murakami struggle of coming to terms with buried emotions and missed opportunities, in which intentions and pent up desires can seemingly transcend time and space to bring both solace and desolation.
Customer Reviews
Over hyped
With the the amount of noisy, and glamor surrounding the UK release of this book, it falls rather short of Murakami's best novels. Norwegian Wood, Wind Up Bird Chronicle or Hard Boiled Wonderland are brimming what I love about Murakami, a completely unique reading experience. This is not, it labours as the main character is under developed and least interesting so far. I hope this is not his last book because I believe he has another classic in him.
Colorless Tsukuri Tazaki
This novel lacks the usual compellimg elements that make Murakami’s work so compelling and memorable to read. The usual absence of boundaires between the real and unreal is missing. The central and other characters lack the colour and interest of the characters in his other novels.
Ultimately disappointing and a little dull. if you are new to Murakami try one of his earlier works instead.
Colourless
To me this read more like a rough draft of a novel. All the elements of a story were there, but there was not enough flesh on the bones to give it the usual depth and richness of Murakami's work. The characterisation was especially lacking in this respect and I did not feel any real connection to any of them, even though the descriptions of their emotional experiences are revealing and personal. This novel also is devoid of any of the surreal elements that have added layers to some of his best work. A return to the human narrative of Norwegian Wood could have been a good thing, but the reliance on human emotion to hold the story together may, this time, have been lost in translation?