Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami (2014) (Trans. Philip Gabriel) (JK)

Oeuvre rule: as previously mentioned in my review of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (WITAWITAR), Murakami is the author of the only book I have read in the past 8 years that did not result in a review on Flying Houses.  Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is an interesting book and I would recommend it, but among the three Murakami books I have read, it would be on the bottom.  WITAWITAR would be at the top and this would be in the middle.

The incomparable Dr. Emily Dufton has graciously reviewed both IQ84 and this book for Flying Houses and now I will offer my first fiction review of this redoubtable literary giant.  Most of my comments will be repetitive of Emily's, and she has certainly read much more of his oeuvre than I have, so her review is more authoritative as a seasoned reader of his.  I hope that my review will be useful for relative Murakami newbies.

The first thing that struck me about Tsukuru is its relative lack of fantasy sequences.  Maybe Hard-Boiled Wonderland was a bad example, but I feel like most of his other works are similarly fantasy-driven.  This is actually a very realistic novel.  The main character is 36, and it takes place in present day, and I feel that its reflective of our times and remarkably perceptive about all the different forms of passive aggression.

The main thrust of the story is that Tsukuru has been abandoned by his four closest friends at age 20, and 16 years later, he goes back to investigate why they suddenly decided to cease contact.  It ends up being a relatively simple explanation--and while I am not going to spoil it here (unlike The Art of Fielding - let spoilers be reserved for disappointing endings)--the explanation does sort of reference the only quasi-fantasy sequences in this book, which are erotic dreams.  I do want to say that I think that element is beautifully evoked in Tsukuru.

I was with a friend at the library and he wanted to pick something out to read on his spring break, and they didn't have the Tolstoy he wanted.  I perused the aisles with him and thought to see if they had any Murakami.  I found this available and told him to take it out.  He read it in like a day or two.  It's 380 pages or so but the pages are small.  He said I should read it, so after finishing M Train I picked this up.  It was good for us to read the same thing and to be able to talk about it.  For example, I asked him, "Does Haida come back?"  He said, "Do you want me to spoil it for you?" I said, "No."  And now I know what happens and I have to say that matters being left sort of unresolved at the ending (I don't think it's spoiling anything to reveal that) made the book feel less satisfying to me.  Murakami did not want to write a standard happy ending.  This is a really quirky little book, and kind of delightful at times for its simplicity and directness.  It is a pleasure to read the language, which is to the credit of Philip Gabriel.

I could quote any number of passages, but inevitably I must include something from the sequence with Haida...But first I came across one hilarious aspect of the sequence with Ao:

"As Tsukuru was wondering how to respond, 'Viva Las Vegas!' blared out on Ao's cell phone again.  He checked the caller's name and stuffed the phone back in his pocket.
'I'm sorry, but I really need to get back to the office, back to hustling cars.  Would you mind walking with me to the dealership?
They walked down the street, side by side, not speaking for a while.  Tsukuru was the first to break the silence, 'Tell me, why "Viva Las Vegas!" as your ringtone?'
Ao chuckled.  'Have you seen that movie?'
'A long time ago, on late-night TV.  I didn't watch the whole thing.'
'Kind of a silly movie, wasn't it?'
Tsukuru gave a neutral smile.
'Three years ago I was invited, as the top salesmen in Japan, to attend a conference in Las Vegas for U.S. Lexus dealers.  More of a reward for my performance than a real conference.  After meetings in the morning, it was gambling and drinking the rest of the day.  '"Viva Las Vegas!" was like the city's theme song--you heard it everywhere you went.  When I hit it big at roulette, too, it was playing in the background.  Since then that song's been my lucky charm." (182)

Murakami translated Raymond Carver into Japanese, and spent time with him in the late 80's.  At times I feel as if he is mimicking Carver in the starkness of the language and the generally sad story.  This is not an unwelcome development.  Anyways, in the Haida sequence, I thought things were just going to be so innocent, so when it became the raunchiest part of the book, I was sort of relieved:

"Now, though, he wasn't coming inside Shiro, but in Haida.  The girls had suddenly disappeared, and Haida had taken their place.  Just as Tsukuru came, Haida had quickly bent over, taken Tsukuru's penis in his mouth, and--careful not to get the sheets dirty--taken all the gushing semen inside his mouth.  Tsukuru came violently, the semen copious.  Haida patiently accepted all of it, and when Tsukuru had finished, Haida licked his penis clean with his tongue.  He seemed used to it.  At least it felt that way.  Haida quietly rose from the bed and went to the bathroom.  Tsukuru heard water running from the faucet.  Haida was probably rinsing his mouth." (127)

Okay, I'm sorry, that was probably the dirtiest thing I have ever posted on this blog, so I'm sorry if it offended you.  It's just that something about this book just seems a little prudish, and then it kind of breaks into this hugely graphic scene.  It's a nice contrast.

I really don't know what else to say about this book.  Dr. Dufton noted that Murakami seems to be getting repetitive with age, but this was still a very good book.  And I agree, while professing ignorance on the former topic.  I do want to say that I think there are a few loose ends that remain untied.  Of course, there is the obvious big uncertainty at the end with Sara, but on the whole I think the whole ending sequence is very beautiful, if a bit strange with all the phones ringing and not getting picked up.  There's a definite atmosphere to the ending, as well as with Tsukuru's lonely pastime of watching from a bench as the trains arrive and depart at stations in Helsinki and Tokyo.  I don't understand what Haida's story about his father (or is it made up?) means, or the significance of Haida as a character in relation to Shiro.  There is this great passage though, involving Tsukuru's first girlfriend at age 21, shortly after Haida leaves their college:

"She wasn't good at cooking, but enjoyed cleaning, and before long she had his apartment sparkling clean.  She replaced his curtains, sheets, pillowcases, towels, and bath mats with brand-new ones.  She brought color and vitality into Tsukuru's post-Haida life.  But he didn't choose to sleep with her out of passion, or because he was fond of her, or even to lessen his loneliness.  Though he probably would never have admitted it, he was hoping to prove to himself that he wasn't gay, that he was capable of having sex with a real woman, not just in his dreams.  This was his main objective." (142-143)

It's a good story, and though it seems a few things remain unsettled, it seems like this narrative gets wrapped up a bit more tidily than most of Murakami's other novels.  Dr. Dufton could correct me if I am wrong.  Like her, I am glad I read it.  Unlike her, I look forward to experiencing the rest of Murakami's oeuvre for the first time.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami (2008)

There are less than 3 books that I have read since April 1, 2008 that have not subsequently appeared as reviews on Flying Houses.  Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the quintessential example.  I cannot think of the other 2 books, but they may exist.  I read HBWATEOTW in early 2008 and found it so-so.  After about 100-150 pages, I started to "get it," and found some parts fantastic, but on the whole found it a bit overrated.  Seven years later, I have absolutely no memory of the story, except that there is some sort of tower or castle in it, or "two worlds" (and this is why I maintain Flying Houses).  Later on I would realize that it is generally not a good place to start with Murakami.  I've heard that Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood are better options.

I signed up for the Chicago Marathon on May 5, 2015, exactly one month ago today.  I have logged just over 100 miles on MapMyRun, but that does not include treadmill workouts, or a few along my usual route (which is almost exactly 4.20 miles, and my goal is 4:20 for the 26.2).  I am not keeping a running journal or a blog of my marathon training, though I have thought about it.  This is because I have never been a good runner and I am afraid that I will fail to finish, or worse, may die on October 11, 2015.  Other people may call BS on that and I say I am a good runner, as I've been doing it pretty consistently for 9 years.  But I've never done anything longer than a 5K.  I did Cross Country in high school, but consistently finished at the back of the pack (dead last, several times).  Right now I feel that I am in the best physical shape of my life, but I rarely break 10 minute miles.  I remember when I used to give tours of my high school as my "work job," and once shepherded a potential X-C recruit through the campus.  He asked my PR and I said it was about 23 or 24 minutes and he laughed at me.  So I am wary of looking like a charlatan.  But the wonderful thing about What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is the feeling that nobody should ever be ashamed of their speed.  Running is a competitive sport, but it is mostly a competition with yourself.  Murakami understands this and writes with such modesty and good humor that almost any reader (whether a novice or non-runner) may develop the confidence to run their first marathon.

Murakami wrote this book between the years of 2005 and 2006, and it centers around his training for the New York City marathon in November 2005,  He opens the book by describing his original motivations for running.  He used to run a jazz club in Tokyo, near Sendagaya Station, which was actually quite successful.  Before he decided to start running, he decided to write a novel, and he pinpoints the exact date and location (April 1, 1978 at a baseball game at Jingu Stadium) of his inspiration to beautiful effect:

"Hilton got a hit down the left field line.  The crack of bat meeting ball right on the sweet spot echoed through the stadium.  Hilton easily rounded first and pulled up to second.  And it was at that exact moment that a thought struck me: You know what? I could try writing a novel.  I still can remember the wide open sky, the feel of the new grass, the satisfying crack of the bat.  Something flew down from the sky at that instant, and whatever it was, I accepted it." (27-28)

So this book is not just about running, but also Murakami's writing career.  He doesn't mention HBWATEOTW but he does say his career took off at Norwegian Wood and that his first "big" novel was A Wild Sheep Chase.  He eschews specific plot details from these works in favor of his general creative process.  His output, as he approaches his late 60's, remains most impressive, and his status as a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize puts him on a similar playing field as Philip Roth.  Now, Murakami's output is not quite as prolific as Roth's (his turnaround time is closer to 2 years rather than 1), but his books seem to carry more weight.  Roth "retired" around the time he turned 80.  One expects Murakami to achieve a similar longevity,  No predictions on the Nobel Prize for either, except to say that our last author (also foreign, and currently at 75, right in the middle of these two) was recognized for a much more streamlined oeuvre.  While Murakami's novels may elevate him into the category of the greatest writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, WITAWITAR (great acronym) is the sort of gift to humanity that should carry weight in gaining membership to such prestigious pantheons.

I have not personally reviewed a Murakami novel on Flying Houses, but the incomparable Emily Dufton has reviewed his two most recent ones, 1Q84 and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, on this site.  Both reviews reference WITAWITAR, and the former even suggests that it may be his strongest work (or at least the most enjoyable).  On this basis, as well as the enthusiasm I have for it (particularly its willingness to "unlock" the secrets of running), it deserves recognition as one of the Best Books of Flying Houses.  It may be a slight volume, but since Points of Rebellion makes the list (certainly an idiosyncratic choice), this does too.

When he decided to start running, he was 33 and smoked 60 cigarettes a day.  By the time he started writing WITAWITAR, he had completed 20 marathons in 20 years.  After the inspiration to write a first novel (Hear the Wind Sing) has passed and bloomed, with a prize from a literary magazine, he decides to quit his day job, and to begin running:

"A problem arose, though, with my decision to become a professional writer: the question of how to keep physically fit.  I tend to gain weight if I don't do anything.  Running the bar required hard physical labor every day, and I could keep my weight down, but once I started sitting at my desk all day writing, my energy level gradually declined and I started putting on the pounds.  I was smoking too much, too, as I concentrated on my work.  Back then I was smoking sixty cigarettes a day.  All my fingers were yellow, and my whole body reeked of smoke.  This can't be good for me, I decided.  If I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to keep fit and maintain a healthy weight." (33)

Before running with all of the other usual competitors in a race, Murakami went to Greece in 1983 and ran the original route from the town of Marathon to the city of Athens.  He does this in part for a men's magazine article, but also to see the original route and convince himself that he can do it.  It is actually about a mile shorter than the standard 26.2, but this trip took place during the hottest part of the summer.  For me at least, anything between 75 and 80 degrees is perfect weather for running.  Anything over 90 tends to exacerbate exhaustion, and I felt as if I were "dying of thirst" once when I went about 10 miles in 95 degree heat.  As one might guess, the description of this fun event is brutal.

But nothing is more brutal than the description of the ultramarathon.  He ran this in 1996.  It took place in Hokkaido.  It is not 52.4 miles, as one might expect, but 62 miles.  Now in my opinion the human body is not meant to go this far in a single day, and it is around this point in the book that Murakami appears totally insane to the reader.  Certainly, there is much personal satisfaction that comes with finishing a marathon, but I just can't see why going an extra 38 miles would do anything for you.  It's like by that point, you've become more alien than human.  Regardless, this is the most compelling portion of the book to describe the physical act of running, and perhaps the value in the ultramarathon is the confidence that it might instill in first-time marathoners.  If Murakami can do 62, then you can probably do 26.

One example from this chapter is necessary, because it probably contains the most hilarious and gut-wrenching prose in the book:

"Even though my legs were working now, the thirteen miles from the thirty-four mile rest stop to the forty-seventh mile were excruciating.  I felt like a piece of beef being run, slowly, through a meat grinder.  I had the will to go ahead, but now my whole body was rebelling.  It felt like a car trying to go up a slope with the parking brake on.  My body felt like it was falling apart and would soon come completely undone.  Out of oil, the bolts coming loose, the wrong cogs in gear, I was rapidly slowing down as one runner after another passed me.  A tiny old lady around seventy passed me and shouted out, 'Hang in there!' Man alive.  What was going to happen the rest of the way?  There were still twenty-five miles to go.
As I ran, different parts of my body, one after another, began to hurt.  First my right thigh hurt like crazy, then that pain migrated over to my right knee, then to my left thigh, and on and on.  All the parts of my body had their chance to take center stage and scream out their complaints.  They screamed, complained, yelled in distress, and warned me that they weren't going to take it anymore.  For them, running sixty miles was an unknown experience, and each body part had its own excuse.  I understood completely, but all I wanted them to do was be quiet and keep on running.  Like Danton or Robespierre eloquently attempting to persuade the dissatisfied and rebellious Revolutionary Tribunal, I tried to talk each body part into showing a little cooperation.  Encouraged them, clung to them, flattered them, scolded them, tried to buck them up.  It's just a little farther, guys. You can't give up on me now.  But if you think about it--and I did think about it--Danton and Robespierre wound up with their heads cut off." (109-110)

Later, Murakami details his efforts at completing triathlons.  He writes about the madness of cycling, but not derisively enough for me:

"It's the same movements, repeated over and over.  You go up slopes, on level ground, and down slopes.  Sometimes the wind's with you, sometimes against you.  You switch gears as needed, change your position, check your speed, pedal harder, let up a bit, check your speed, drink water, change gears, change your position...Sometimes it strikes me as an intricate form of torture.  In his book the triathlete Dave Scott wrote that of all the sports man has invented, cycling has got to be the most unpleasant of all.  I totally agree."  (141-142)

There may be another section in the book where he references the psychological torture that comes from sharing a path with bikers, and this is the best I can find:

"Yesterday I listened to the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet as I ran.  That funky "Hoo hoo" chorus in "Sympathy for the Devil" is the perfect accompaniment to running.  The day before I listened to Eric Clapton's Reptile.  I love these albums.  There's something about them that gets to me, and I never get tired of listening to them--Reptile, especially.  Nothing beats listening to Reptile on a brisk morning run.  It's not too brash or contrived.  It has this steady rhythm and entirely natural melody.  My mind gets quickly swept into the music, and my feet run in time to the beat.  Sometimes, mixed in with the music coming through my headphones, I hear someone calling out, 'On your left!' And a racing bike whips by, passing me on the left." (95)

But when I write my running memoir, I will be sure to mention one of my old running routes--down the Brooklyn Bridge, through the World Trade Center and back--as pure psychological torture, due to the speed of bikers on the bridge.  And the rudeness.  These experiences gave me a very negative opinion of bikers, but also of families walking three or four abreast, creating additional anxiety vis-a-vis bikers.  Lately, I have been running on the newly-opened 606 Trail in Chicago, and I love it.  There are many bikers, but the anxiety is nothing compared to the Brooklyn Bridge, even though my elbow has already made contact with one biker.

Murakami also does not discuss the psychological torture that comes with running in large groups in races.  For me at least, I think I am a worse runner in a race than on my own during an afternoon workout, because the despair kicks in when a bunch of people pass me.  This happens on the 606 with some regularity, and is unusual for me on almost all of my previous efforts (including the lakefront trail in Chicago, which I must be wrong about), and it tends to destroy my confidence.  Like, I believe I am the best runner out there when I'm alone, but when I'm surrounded by others passing me by, leaving me in the dust, I realize I am nothing special, and am in fact mediocre (or worse than mediocre, as Murakami describes himself as being--which is just wrong, considering his regimen and professional accomplishments).  This feeling needs to be addressed somewhere in this book, and though one of the passages above does reference feeling bad about getting passed, the phenomenon is unexplored.

I loved this book, in any case.  Murakami may be one of the world's greatest living writers, but he gets down to such a human level in this book that you love him even more:

"Sometimes when I run, I listen to jazz, but usually it's rock, since its beat is the best accompaniment to the rhythm of running.  I prefer the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gorillaz, and Beck, and oldies like Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Beach Boys.  Music with as simple a rhythm as possible.  A lot of runners now use iPods, but I prefer the MD player I'm used to.  It's a little bigger than an iPod and can't hold nearly as much data, but it works for me.  At this point I don't want to mix music and computers.  Just like it's not good to mix friends and work, and sex." (14)

I would like to ask him if he runs with his phone now or not.  There are lots of things I want to ask him, but probably more things about running than writing.  Writing is so abstract, and you can say anything you want about the process.  But running is something you can talk about in very concrete terms.  It may seem like most other people are "super runners" and that you can't identify with anything they're going to say because they're just on a different level, but Murakami really subverts this fear.  Whether you are a novice or an expert, I think you will find pretty much the entire thing to be absorbing.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami (2014)

          

          My husband Dickson belongs to a book club, and last week we hosted his group’s bi-monthly meeting, when six or eight or sometimes ten literary men gather to drink beer, discuss books and eat whatever snacks the host has kindly provided. For this meeting they had read, at my suggestion, John Updike’s Rabbit, Run, because the club is mostly made up of runners and Rabbit Angstrom’s story has a decidedly athletic feel. Even though I didn’t attend the meeting (it’s a boys’ club, so I stayed upstairs), when I came down after they were done, the conversation had turned to the newest Murakami – a far cry from Rabbit and his troubled relationship with Janice – and the excitement many club members had about reading his new work.

            I had already finished Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage three days after I bought the book, and the members of Dickson’s club asked me what I thought. Was it as much of a slog as 1Q84? Was it as otherworldly as A Wild Sheep Chase or Kafka on the Shore? Or was it quieter, like Norwegian Wood, or Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running? I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. So much of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki is like much of Murakami’s other writing, thick with descriptions of simple meals and lonely men and strange, often very strange, sex – yet other parts of it also felt fresh and new. In sum, it was a decent new book from a man who has perfected his own subtle style. Colorless won’t make anyone turn away from Murakami, even if they’ve never read him before, and it’s engaging enough for his diehard fans. I don’t consider the three days I read it misspent.

As we sat in my living room discussing Murakami, we realized that, between us, we had read almost all of his work, and there were things we could all recite as commonalities between his books. In an interview from 2011, Murakami told a Spanish audience that he was a lonely child, and the three things that filled his quiet hours were “cats, books and music.” You can see the vapor trails of each of these things in the work Murakami has since produced, as each is filled with those reoccurring themes playing distinct roles in his characters’ lives.

In this sense, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki is no different. There are mentions of cats and their tiny, silent feet, and music, particularly the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt’s piano solo “Le mal du pays.” Books, whether the characters are active readers or not, also merit mention time and time again, whether in descriptions of people’s bookshelves or as ways to pass the time. And, as usual, there are descriptions of the other things that constantly fill Murakami’s world: of simple meals stirfried with whatever is in the fridge, of physical deformities (six fingers on each hand, like in Wind Up Bird), and of physical activity, this time spent in the pool. There are the now-customary discussions of sexual proclivities that border on the phantasmagoric, but are always told in Murakami’s simple, matter-of-fact voice. And, like Tengo in 1Q84, Tsukuru’s sexual dreams merge frighteningly into reality, blurring the lines (and the effects) between what happens in bed, awake or asleep.

It is, like much of his work, the story of a single man, one searching for something he doesn’t understand, and who may find love or may screw it up. (My bet is usually that he’ll screw it up.) But Tsukuru Tazaki is more lonely than most, and that’s what makes Colorless a remarkable book.

Tsukuru Tazaki lives alone in Tokyo, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, but you’d hardly know it from Murakami’s descriptions of the place. Except for the train stations where Tsukuru spends most of his time (he’s an engineer working to make stations more streamlined and accessible), Tsukuru rarely participates in social life and other people rarely infiltrate his world.

Tsukuru seems to prefer it that way. Save for a friend named Haida and a slowly-blossoming romance with a woman named Sara (who may or may not also be dating an older, mustachioed gentleman), Tsukuru lives, sleeps, eats and exercises alone. And, alone, his life is no big party either. He spent the bulk of his time in college contemplating death, not eating, barely drinking, attending classes to pass the time. Now, at age 36, he’s thin and stark. He eats like a bird and never finishes an entire beer. He knows what he is but can’t seem to change it: the man is boring even to himself.

What could have caused such a sad, desolate life? Herein lies this book’s charm: no one becomes a Tsukuru Tazaki unless something truly traumatic has happened, and Tsukuru’s trauma is dramatic indeed. After his first year of college in Tokyo, Tsukuru is abandoned by his high school friends, all four of whom remained in Tsukuru’s hometown Nagoya after graduation. This group, which had originally numbered five, was once so close they saw themselves as fingers on a single hand. So it came as an abrupt shock when they summarily dismissed Tsukuru with a single phone call, telling him that they never wanted to see or hear from him again, with no explanation as to how or why. And Tsukuru being Tsukuru, he didn’t feel the need to ask.

The title’s reference to Tsukuru being “colorless” comes from the nicknames of these four friends. The two men in the group were nicknamed Red and Blue (or Aka and Ao in Japanese), while the two women were nicknamed White and Black (Shiro and Kuro), with all of the colors culled from their family names. Tsukuru, whose name is a homophone for the Japanese word meaning “to build or make,” has no color; he is colorless, though his engineering degree makes a kind of onomastic sense.

The “pilgrimage” of the title is also apt, since Tsukuru goes on one of these as well. It’s Sara who pushes Tsukuru to contact his old friends (would a guy like Tsukuru ever do that on his own?) when she realizes that there’s something stuck in him that cannot be undone until Tsukuru has learned why he was dismissed. So on this pilgrimage he goes, first back to Nagoya, and then on, surprisingly, to Finland. He contacts each of his old friends in turn to learn why and how, years ago, they could so quickly and completely abandon one of their own.

I won’t reveal the outcomes of Tsukuru’s pilgrimage since that would defeat the purpose of reading Murakami’s book, but I will suggest that, as Murakami ages, we see him treading on familiar ground while, at the same time, invoking something relatively new. Reading Colorless will feel familiar, like reading Wind Up Bird or 1Q84 or Kafka or Norwegian Wood. But parts of it will also feel thrillingly unique, fresh in the increasing span of his decades-long oeuvre. For example, Murakami has never written so movingly about friendship, especially since so many of his protagonists are often alone, and, despite her possible ongoing affair with another man, Sara is one of Murakami’s most competent and least-batshit-crazy female characters yet. It would be lovely to see more of this real emotion explored, especially for the women who are still a minority in Murakami’s world.

But Colorless may also be a sign of the times, or at least a sign of Murakami’s ever-increasing age (he turned 65 earlier this year). In Running, Murakami described the “wells” in his mind, and how a new one must be tapped for each book to emerge. He feared, in his 2008 memoir, that his reserves would eventually run dry, and that at some desperate point the drilling would cease and his career as a writer would dry up as well. The good news is that this clearly hasn’t happened yet. The bad news, however, is that many of the same wells are being used, often at the expense of his writing anything completely exciting or new.

Like Kurt Vonnegut (blessings upon his name), Murakami is getting repetitive with age. (Did A Man Without a Country contain anything we hadn’t read before?) The direct lines between Murakami’s life and fiction are clearer now than they used to be, and themes forming between books (cats, books, music, sex, stir fry, physical deformities, dreams-with-real-consequences, men stuck in wells) are getting easier to track. Aomame, the assassin-protagonist of 1Q84, is clearly based off of Murakami’s own physical therapist, whom he described at length in Running. (A tiny woman who stretches stiff gym-going men? Who uses surprising levels of force to bend and pull stubborn muscles into submission? Who toils and works until both the masseuse and the massaged are drenched in sweat from exertion? Wait a second, we’ve seen this before!) We can see Running’s real gym masseuse in Tokyo transform into Aomame in 1Q84 in the same way we can see a woman with six fingers pop up in Wind-Up Bird and again in Colorless, or in the same way Tengo’s orgasm with Fuka-Eri in 1Q84 results in Aomame getting pregnant while Tsukuru’s dream of sex with Shiro may have resulted in something strangely tragic happening to her in real life (it’s a spoiler alert if I say what this is). In Murakami’s world, the same weird story often gets told, but each time it’s revealed in a markedly different way.

Like the bulk of his characters, Murakami feels most comfortable when treading regular ground, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like reading it every time. Ultimately, what I liked the most about Colorless was how it showed Murakami evolving as a person. Colorless was clearly written by a middle-aged man who has his own struggles with aging and death, and who understands that the past, no matter how painful, can never be completely changed. His characters are getting deeper too: Tsukuru is a thoughtful guy, whose pilgrimage (even if it wasn’t initially his idea) is done with a sense of purpose and commitment. He’s less swept along by the winds of fate, as so many of Murakami’s characters have been before, than he is actively trying to understand his own past, and his confrontations with his former friends are deliberate and calm.

Perhaps this is suggestive of Murakami’s own more purposeful track in life, or at least of the maturity that comes with advancing age. Would a younger Murakami have written a character like Tsukuru, who willingly confronts those who unceremoniously dismissed him years before? Would anyone under the age of 65 be comfortable doing such a thing? For me, at less than half of Murakami’s age, the idea of confronting those who hurt me in the past is terrifying, but perhaps I’m still too young to be judicious about such things. I’d rather lick my wounds than have the cojones to understand why people were once dicks, and this could be the difference between a novel from a 31-year-old versus an aging baby boomer like Murakami. Despite the book returning to his ever-present themes, a younger Murakami could never have written Tsukuru. He could only appear from a more mature, evolved voice.

Ultimately, despite treading this familiar ground, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage will hardly disappoint any Murakami devotee. You can’t separate a writer from his or her themes, and why would you want to? After all, there are probably a dozen literature Ph.D.s whose degrees wouldn’t exist if Murakami didn’t write the way he does. And the world Murakami has created is a good one, a place that millions of readers regularly like to call home. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the things we see can expect to see, Murakami has created a pleasant, often exciting and certainly always perplexing place, where readers can walk on cat-like feet, alone in moments of quiet contemplation, while cooking a simple meal out of whatever they can find in the fridge.

-Emily Dufton