Genre Fiction
![Haruki Murakami - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B000AP7AFI.jpg)
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
An instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
One of the most revered voices in literature today gives us a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is the remarkable story of a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present.
A New York Times and Washington Post notable book, and one of the Financial Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Slate, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, and BookPage's best books of the year
One of the most revered voices in literature today gives us a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is the remarkable story of a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present.
A New York Times and Washington Post notable book, and one of the Financial Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Slate, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, and BookPage's best books of the year
Editorial Reviews
"Mesmerizing, immersive, hallucinogenic." -Entertainment Weekly
"Readers wait for [Murakami's] work the way past generations lined up at record stores for new albums by the Beatles or Bob Dylan. . . . Reveals another side of Murakami, one not so easy to pin down. . . A book for both the new and experienced reader." -Patti Smith, The New York Times Book Review
"Hypnotic." -The Boston Globe
"Brilliant." -The Miami Herald
"A masterpiece." -Elle
"Wistful, mysterious, winsome, disturbing, seductive." -The Atlantic
"Remarkable." - The Washington Post
"Intoxicating. . . . Full of beauty, strangeness, and color." -NPR
"[Murakami] is ever alert to minds and hearts, to what it is, precisely, that they feel and see, and to humanity's abiding and indomitable spirit. . . . A deeply affecting novel, not only for the dark nooks and crannies it explores, but for the magic that seeps into its characters' subconsciouses, for the lengths to which they will go to protect or damage one another, for the brilliant characterizations it delivers along the way." -The Washington Post
"More than just a story but rather a meditation. . . . There is a rawness, a vulnerability, to these characters." -Los Angeles Times
"Tsukuru's pilgrimage will never end, because he is moving constantly away from his destination, which is his old self. This is a narrow poignancy, but a powerful one, and Murakami is its master. Perhaps that's why he has come to speak not just for his thwarted nation, but for so many of us who love art-since it's only there, alas, in novels such as this one, that we're allowed to live twice." -Chicago Tribune
"Bold and colorful threads of fiction blur smoothly together to form the muted white of an almost ordinary realism. Like J.M. Coetzee, Murakami smoothly interlaces allegorical meanings with everyday particulars of contemporary social reality. . . . Tsukuru's situation will resonate with anyone who feels adrift in this age of Google and Facebook." -San Francisco Chronicle
"Colorless Tsukuru spins a weave of . . . vivid images around a great mystery. . . . The story flows along smoothly, wrapping around details like objects in a stream." -The Boston Globe
"The premise is simple enough, but in the works of Murakami, nothing is simple. . . . A perfect introduction to Murakami's world, where questions of guilt and motivation abound, and the future is an open question." -The Miami Herald
"Beautiful, rich with moving images and lush yet exquisitely controlled language. . . ...
"Readers wait for [Murakami's] work the way past generations lined up at record stores for new albums by the Beatles or Bob Dylan. . . . Reveals another side of Murakami, one not so easy to pin down. . . A book for both the new and experienced reader." -Patti Smith, The New York Times Book Review
"Hypnotic." -The Boston Globe
"Brilliant." -The Miami Herald
"A masterpiece." -Elle
"Wistful, mysterious, winsome, disturbing, seductive." -The Atlantic
"Remarkable." - The Washington Post
"Intoxicating. . . . Full of beauty, strangeness, and color." -NPR
"[Murakami] is ever alert to minds and hearts, to what it is, precisely, that they feel and see, and to humanity's abiding and indomitable spirit. . . . A deeply affecting novel, not only for the dark nooks and crannies it explores, but for the magic that seeps into its characters' subconsciouses, for the lengths to which they will go to protect or damage one another, for the brilliant characterizations it delivers along the way." -The Washington Post
"More than just a story but rather a meditation. . . . There is a rawness, a vulnerability, to these characters." -Los Angeles Times
"Tsukuru's pilgrimage will never end, because he is moving constantly away from his destination, which is his old self. This is a narrow poignancy, but a powerful one, and Murakami is its master. Perhaps that's why he has come to speak not just for his thwarted nation, but for so many of us who love art-since it's only there, alas, in novels such as this one, that we're allowed to live twice." -Chicago Tribune
"Bold and colorful threads of fiction blur smoothly together to form the muted white of an almost ordinary realism. Like J.M. Coetzee, Murakami smoothly interlaces allegorical meanings with everyday particulars of contemporary social reality. . . . Tsukuru's situation will resonate with anyone who feels adrift in this age of Google and Facebook." -San Francisco Chronicle
"Colorless Tsukuru spins a weave of . . . vivid images around a great mystery. . . . The story flows along smoothly, wrapping around details like objects in a stream." -The Boston Globe
"The premise is simple enough, but in the works of Murakami, nothing is simple. . . . A perfect introduction to Murakami's world, where questions of guilt and motivation abound, and the future is an open question." -The Miami Herald
"Beautiful, rich with moving images and lush yet exquisitely controlled language. . . ...
Readers Top Reviews
Kindle
From the offset, Murakami has the reader questioning. This continues throughout the book as the character pursues answers, and we are taken on an unusual journey for answers with a surprisingly satisfying ending that has us questioning the events of the book and leaves us thinking and asking questions.
L. HuttR. Taylor
As a Murakami fan (In particular I love 1Q84, Kafka on the Shore and Hardboiled Wonderland), I was really looking forward to this. It was a major disappointment. A bit like a much lesser version of Norwegian Wood in style but the main character was insipid and the story was uninspiring and directionless. I did not like the 'reason' for the mystery that drove the story in the beginning and I began to become quite irritated by the ways in which women were being portrayed. There was so very little of the bizarre that Murakami does so well and without that, and with an absolute overload on the classic Murakami OTT descriptions of features it just really started to annoy me.
Miss K. SouthernNico
Oh. Boy. I had to really give myself a little bit of time to breathe and control myself before reviewing this one, because my reaction to it was SO STRONG. On the one hand, that's a good thing...right? On the other hand...no it wasn't. It's actually the second time in my life that I've broken my vows to the bookworm life and thrown an actual book across the room. But let me explain. To begin with? I was kind of into this book. It was a slow starter, took ages to get to any of the points that it wanted to make and was probably the most hipster thing I'd read in a long time. But that's okay, I was in the mood for something a little deeper, full of symbolism, and possibly a teeny bit pretentious. Then came the middle, and my rating of this book soared. I was totally gripped! It got weird of course, which I understand to be a trait of Murakami's. Sex dreams, paranormal stories, an obsession with stations and strange inner monologues all featured, but I was gripped by a need to get answers. The story has so many plot twists, and they all are designed to make the reader not only question themselves and life, but be invested in what had happened and would happen to the characters. I liked Tsukuru as a characters, elements of his life (his anxieties and depression especially) resonated with my own experiences and that made me care about him. And then...it ended. Or rather, it didn't. Because after solving only one mystery, Murakami wasted his final chapters obsessing some more over Japanese stations, reflecting on Tsukuru's watch and family, do some 'deep thinking' and then go to bed not answering a phone that KEPT RINGING. Who was on the other end? I don't know. But what about Sara's answer? *shrug*. Hang on, what happened to Shiro and Haida? NO IDEA. It left me feeling SO frustrated, and even a little cheated. I hate vague endings, but this didn't even feel like an ending. I should never feel like I'm missing pages when reading a book. So why did I give this book a high-ish rating? Because it has been a while since I cared THAT much about 'what happens at the end'. I can't deny that I was hooked on this one, and the writing was good too. Murakami is certainly a master at what he does. I'm just not sure it's to my personal taste.
Short Excerpt Teaser
From July of his sophomore year in college until the following January, all Tsukuru Tazaki could think about was dying. He turned twenty during this time, but this special watershed-becoming an adult-meant nothing. Taking his own life seemed the most natural solution, and even now he couldn't say why he hadn't taken this final step. Crossing that threshold between life and death would have been easier than swallowing down a slick, raw egg.
Perhaps he didn't commit suicide then because he couldn't conceive of a method that fit the pure and intense feelings he had toward death. But method was beside the point. If there had been a door within reach that led straight to death, he wouldn't have hesitated to push it open, without a second thought, as if it were just a part of ordinary life. For better or for worse, though, there was no such door nearby.
I really should have died then, Tsukuru often told himself. Then this world, the one in the here and now, wouldn't exist. It was a captivating, bewitching thought. The present world wouldn't exist, and reality would no longer be real. As far as this world was concerned, he would simply no longer exist-just as this world would no longer exist for him.
At the same time, Tsukuru couldn't fathom why he had reached this point, where he was teetering over the precipice. There was an actual event that had led him to this place-this he knew all too well-but why should death have such a hold over him, enveloping him in its embrace for nearly half a year? Envelop-the word expressed it precisely. Like Jonah in the belly of the whale, Tsukuru had fallen into the bowels of death, one untold day after another, lost in a dark, stagnant void.
It was as if he were sleepwalking through life, as if he had already died but not yet noticed it. When the sun rose, so would Tsukuru-he'd brush his teeth, throw on whatever clothes were at hand, ride the train to college, and take notes in class. Like a person in a storm desperately grasping at a lamppost, he clung to this daily routine. He only spoke to people when necessary, and after school, he would return to his solitary apartment, sit on the floor, lean back against the wall, and ponder death and the failures of his life. Before him lay a huge, dark abyss that ran straight through to the earth's core. All he could see was a thick cloud of nothingness swirling around him; all he could hear was a profound silence squeezing his eardrums.
When he wasn't thinking about death, his mind was blank. It wasn't hard to keep from thinking. He didn't read any newspapers, didn't listen to music, and had no sexual desire to speak of. Events occurring in the outside world were, to him, inconsequential. When he grew tired of his room, he wandered aimlessly around the neighborhood or went to the station, where he sat on a bench and watched the trains arriving and departing, over and over again.
He took a shower every morning, shampooed his hair well, and did the laundry twice a week. Cleanliness was another one of his pillars: laundry, bathing, and teeth brushing. He barely noticed what he ate. He had lunch at the college cafeteria, but other than that, he hardly consumed a decent meal. When he felt hungry he stopped by the local supermarket and bought an apple or some vegetables. Sometimes he ate plain bread, washing it down with milk straight from the carton. When it was time to sleep, he'd gulp down a glass of whiskey as if it were a dose of medicine. Luckily he wasn't much of a drinker, and a small dose of alcohol was all it took to send him off to sleep. He never dreamed. But even if he had dreamed, even if dreamlike images arose from the edges of his mind, they would have found nowhere to perch on the slippery slopes of his consciousness, instead quickly sliding off, down into the void.
The reason why death had such a hold on Tsukuru Tazaki was clear. One day his four closest friends, the friends he'd known for a long time, announced that they did not want to see him, or talk with him, ever again. It was a sudden, decisive declaration, with no room for compromise. They gave no explanation, not a word, for this harsh pronouncement. And Tsukuru didn't dare ask.
He'd been friends with the four of them since high school, though when they cut him off, Tsukuru had already left his hometown and was attending college in Tokyo. So being banished didn't have any immediate negative effects on his daily routine-it wasn't like there would be awkward moments when he'd run into them on the street. But that was just quibbling. The pain he felt was, if anything, more intense, and weighed down on him even more greatly because of the physical distance. Alienation and...
Perhaps he didn't commit suicide then because he couldn't conceive of a method that fit the pure and intense feelings he had toward death. But method was beside the point. If there had been a door within reach that led straight to death, he wouldn't have hesitated to push it open, without a second thought, as if it were just a part of ordinary life. For better or for worse, though, there was no such door nearby.
I really should have died then, Tsukuru often told himself. Then this world, the one in the here and now, wouldn't exist. It was a captivating, bewitching thought. The present world wouldn't exist, and reality would no longer be real. As far as this world was concerned, he would simply no longer exist-just as this world would no longer exist for him.
At the same time, Tsukuru couldn't fathom why he had reached this point, where he was teetering over the precipice. There was an actual event that had led him to this place-this he knew all too well-but why should death have such a hold over him, enveloping him in its embrace for nearly half a year? Envelop-the word expressed it precisely. Like Jonah in the belly of the whale, Tsukuru had fallen into the bowels of death, one untold day after another, lost in a dark, stagnant void.
It was as if he were sleepwalking through life, as if he had already died but not yet noticed it. When the sun rose, so would Tsukuru-he'd brush his teeth, throw on whatever clothes were at hand, ride the train to college, and take notes in class. Like a person in a storm desperately grasping at a lamppost, he clung to this daily routine. He only spoke to people when necessary, and after school, he would return to his solitary apartment, sit on the floor, lean back against the wall, and ponder death and the failures of his life. Before him lay a huge, dark abyss that ran straight through to the earth's core. All he could see was a thick cloud of nothingness swirling around him; all he could hear was a profound silence squeezing his eardrums.
When he wasn't thinking about death, his mind was blank. It wasn't hard to keep from thinking. He didn't read any newspapers, didn't listen to music, and had no sexual desire to speak of. Events occurring in the outside world were, to him, inconsequential. When he grew tired of his room, he wandered aimlessly around the neighborhood or went to the station, where he sat on a bench and watched the trains arriving and departing, over and over again.
He took a shower every morning, shampooed his hair well, and did the laundry twice a week. Cleanliness was another one of his pillars: laundry, bathing, and teeth brushing. He barely noticed what he ate. He had lunch at the college cafeteria, but other than that, he hardly consumed a decent meal. When he felt hungry he stopped by the local supermarket and bought an apple or some vegetables. Sometimes he ate plain bread, washing it down with milk straight from the carton. When it was time to sleep, he'd gulp down a glass of whiskey as if it were a dose of medicine. Luckily he wasn't much of a drinker, and a small dose of alcohol was all it took to send him off to sleep. He never dreamed. But even if he had dreamed, even if dreamlike images arose from the edges of his mind, they would have found nowhere to perch on the slippery slopes of his consciousness, instead quickly sliding off, down into the void.
The reason why death had such a hold on Tsukuru Tazaki was clear. One day his four closest friends, the friends he'd known for a long time, announced that they did not want to see him, or talk with him, ever again. It was a sudden, decisive declaration, with no room for compromise. They gave no explanation, not a word, for this harsh pronouncement. And Tsukuru didn't dare ask.
He'd been friends with the four of them since high school, though when they cut him off, Tsukuru had already left his hometown and was attending college in Tokyo. So being banished didn't have any immediate negative effects on his daily routine-it wasn't like there would be awkward moments when he'd run into them on the street. But that was just quibbling. The pain he felt was, if anything, more intense, and weighed down on him even more greatly because of the physical distance. Alienation and...
