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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator
Narrated by: Bruce Locke
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Brought to you by Penguin.

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.

© Haruki Murakami 2013 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Coming of Age Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature
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Critic reviews

A naturalistic coming-of-age story… sprinkled with strange images and written in a hauntingly mournful key
[Murakmi’s] elegant, frugal prose creates a tale of courage and hope as Tsukuru tries to unlock the secrets of his past
Critics have variously likened Murakami to Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Arthur C Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K Dick, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon – a roster so ill-assorted to suggest he is in fact an original
A rich and even brilliant piece of work… Genuinely resonant and satisfying (James Walton)
This is a book for both the new and experienced reader....[it] reveals another side of Murakami, one not so easy to pin down. Incurably restive, ambiguous and valiantly struggling toward a new level of maturation (Patti Smith)
Murakami’s prose seamlessly fuses folksiness and profundity… A harmonious blend of naivety and riddling sophistication’ (Boyd Tonkin)
Neat, economical, even minimalist... surprisingly painful and poignant
Murakami is like a magician who explains what he’s doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers . . . But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves
Delicately crafted masterpiece
Remarkable… Spellbinding… [Murakami] is ever alert to minds and hearts…and to humanity’s abiding and indomitable spirit (Marie Arana)
All stars
Most relevant
great story. but a strange decision by the narrator to read the dialogue out in a Japanese English accent

excellent story, strange narration

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The narrator kept putting on weird accents for direct speech. They were quite different from the (unaccented) way he narrated the rest of the story, which was very jarring.

Weird performance

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I liked it. A bit different from his other novels - not fantastical but still a beautiful story of longing and loneliness.

Good narration. Liked the story

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Tsukuru finds himself abruptly cut off by his adolescent friends with damaging repercussions that lead him to live a relatively solitary life. He has difficulty with relationships and trust. This is the story of how, 16 years later, he seeks the reason for is abandonment, finds a kind of reconciliation and attempts to move on.

In this book Murakami avoids magical realism, well, almost. The little false trails that seem like they belong to other stories - Haida's father encounter with Midorikawa and the Stationmaster's tale of the severed sixth fingers, Tsukuru's speculations about Shiro's murder, all hint at an alternative reality just out of reach.

The Magic of Murakami

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I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. Pointless story, doesn’t get anywhere. Went into waffle overload in the last chapter. Silly story.

Pointless meandering waffle

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