Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years Of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years Of Pilgrimage is possibly one of Murakami's more believable novels. Murakami writes about nightmarish situations which are relatable but usually too surreal to be taken seriously. In this novel though, whilst there is a small amount of the surreal, the power of dreams is considered by many to be our unconscious state talking to us, and so there is the element of suspended disbelief when reading the book.

Tsukuri’s four best friends at school all have names which mean colours, red, blue, white and black. Tsukuru is the only one whose name is colourless and this upsets him, he thinks he is the boring one of the group, the outsider. The five friends promise to stay together forever, but an opportunity comes for Tsukuru to study away from home in Tokyo. He visits his friends frequently, as promised, but one day he returns and his friends no longer want to see him again. No explanation is given; apparently he should know the reason why he has been ostracised but he doesn’t. He returns dejected to Tokyo, stops eating and looks death in the face; his hurt unbeknown to his friends. He recovers physically, but mentality he faces abandonment issues which plague him for years, leading to an inability to form meaningful relationships. What is the point of giving yourself to someone, giving them your whole being, if one day they turn around and toss you away like a piece of rubbish?

You assume you know someone…but you don’t…not really.

Sixteen years later Tsukuru finally embarks on a journey to find out what happened. He confronts his friends, visiting each one without warning, piecing together a jigsaw about his past. It is a hauntingly beautiful tale which questions how people’s actions can affect someone so much. Tsukuru had low self-esteem and being abandoned by his friends made him feel worse. How strange to find out that his friends thought he was the strong one, the survivor, the one most equipped to deal with the real world.

He thought he was plain, the colourless one whilst his friends thought him the best looking of the group, the achiever. It shows the differences with how we see ourselves, and how others see us. At times the novel is painful, you hurt when Tsukuru hurts, it is a novel where at times you see yourself, and at other times you see people you have known. It is a poignant tale which expands the mind, to make you think about how your words or actions might be misconstrued by people. If someone accuses you of something, can you really be sure that your friends know you well enough to stand up for you? Or will they fade into the background, vehemently agreeing with the perpetrator and leaving you out in the cold?  Once again, Murakami weaves a his magic in an excellent book which is hard to put down.

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