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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013) by Haruki Murakami & The Imaginary Reality

“Maybe I am fated to always be alone, Tsukuru found himself thinking.”

cg fewstonColorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013) blends itself well into the other twelve books by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who happened to lose the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature to singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (aka, Robert Allen Zimmerman).

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From the beginning of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, the reader is pulled into the story of a loner and social outcast with a young man named Tsukuru Tazaki who has no color in the meaning of his name unlike his close friends which form the bond that binds the plot through twenty years of unspoken regret and hidden lies:

cg fewston
Haruki Murakami, Japanese Novelist (born 1949)

“And aside from Tsukuru Tazaki, they had another small coincidental point in common: their last names all contained a color. The two boys’ last names were Akamatsu – which means ‘red pine’ – and Oumi – ‘blue sea’; the girls’ family names were Shirane – ‘white root’ – and Kurono – ‘black field.’ Tazaki was the only last name that did not have a color in its meaning. From the very beginning this fact made him feel a little bit left out. Of course, whether or not you had a color as part of your name had nothing to do with your personality. Tsukuru understood this. But still, it disappointed him, and he surprised himself by feeling hurt. Soon, the other four friends began to use nicknames: the boys were called Aka (red) and Ao (blue); and the girls were Shiro (white) and Kuro (black). But he just remained Tsukuru. How great it would be, he often thought, if I had a color in my name too. Then everything would be perfect.

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“Aka was the one with the best grades. He never seemed to study hard, yet was at the top of his class in every subject… Ao was impressively built, with wide shoulders and a barrel chest, as well as a broad forehead, a generous mouth, and an imposing nose. He was a forward on the rugby team, and in his senior year he was elected team captain…cg fewston

“Shiro was tall and slim, with a model’s body and the graceful features of a traditional Japanese doll. Her long hair was a silky, lustrous black. Most people who passed her on the street would turn around for a second look, but she seemed to find her beauty embarrassing…

“Kuro wasn’t beautiful, but she was eager and charming and always curious. She was large-boned and full-bodied, and already had a well-developed bust by the time she was sixteen” (pgs 6-9).

cg fewston
Haruki Murakami, Japanese Novelist (born 1949)

To understand these initial traits, albeit void of brevity, is vital to understanding the group dynamics which not only brought these five individuals closer at the end of their high school years but would also silently create a catastrophe among these three boys and two girls as they entered university and the real world. If Tsukuru had a color, gray would have suited him well. He was always on the edge, an outsider. Timid and alone.

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Fast forward into the future, Tsukuru is in this mid-thirties and dating a woman who hopes for more, but something from his past tugs at his soul which haunts him to the point of causing relationship after relationship to be doomed to failure. For him, life is not spectacular but routine and mundane. Gray and boring.

Tsukuru hasn’t spoken to his four, colorful friends since soon after he entered university, and all through his young adulthood and adulthood he never knew why his close-knit group shunned him and ostracized him. Perhaps, he thought, leaving his small village town to enter university in Tokyo was one of the main reasons. And this mystery follows him like a raincloud over his shoulder and dooms his life to mediocrity.

With flashbacks, the reader learns Tsukuru had sexual desires for his two female friends, and one wonders if this could’ve been the reason why Tsukuru was kicked out of the group all those years ago. His girlfriend, Sara, in the present has her suspicions as well.

“How much of this is real? he wondered. This wasn’t a dream, or an illusion. It had to be real. But it lacked the weight you’d expect from reality.

“Mister Gray.

“Tsukuru must have fallen asleep again, but he woke up once more in a dream Strictly speaking, it might not be a dream. It was reality, but a reality imbued with all the qualities of a dream. A different sphere of reality, where—at a special time and place—imagination had been set free.

“The girls were in bed, as naked as the day they were born, snuggled up close on either side of him. Shiro and Kuro. They were sixteen or seventeen, invariably that age. Their breasts and thighs were pressed against him, their bodies smooth and warm, and Tsukuru could feel all this, clearly. Silently, greedily, they groped his body with their fingers and tongues. He was naked too.

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“This was not something Tsukuru was hoping for, not a scenario he wanted to imagine. It wasn’t something that should be happening. But that image, against his will, grew more vivid, the feelings more graphic, more real.

“The girls’ fingers were gentle, slender, and delicate. Four hands, twenty fingers. Like some smooth, sightless creatures born in the darkness, they wandered over every inch of Tsukuru’s body, arousing him completely. He felt his heart stir, intensely, in a way he’d never before experienced, as if he’d been living for a long time in a house only to discover a secret room he’d never known about. Like a kettledrum, his heart trembled, pounding out an audible beat. His arms and legs were still numb, and he couldn’t lift a finger.

“The girls entwined themselves lithely around Tsukuru. Kuro’s breasts were full and soft. Shiro’s were small, but her nipples were as hard as tiny round pebbles. Their pubic hair was wet as a rain forest. Their breath mingled with his, becoming one, like currents from far away, secretly overlapping at the dark bottom of the sea” (pgs 94-95).

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This feeling of helplessness within the context of sexuality on the fringes of rape backgrounds the themes of this book and interweaves Tsukuru’s story heedlessly and expertly. Is Tsukuru a victim? Or has he raped one of the girls and his mind shut the tragic experience out? What happened to cause the group to splinter and reject Tsukuru, nearly causing him to die? The reader asks these questions and many more as Murakami blends the real and unreal into one, as he so often does with effortless ease.

Then Murakami drops a bomb on the reader and the themes of this book when Tsukuru is in university, now excluded from the group of high school friends. Tsukuru befriends a young man by the name of Haida who happens to be a loner as well and who happens to love coffee and classical music.

The two quickly become swimming buddies and have sleep overs where Haida would make and share his special coffee with Tsukuru. And the reader asks, as Tsukuru asks himself: was the coffee drugged? Was Tsukuru raped by Haida, his male friend? Or was it all a dream, much like the dreams he had about Shiro and Kuro?

“Beyond that, he couldn’t think. Shiro’s movements grew faster, more pronounced. And before he knew it, he was coming inside her. The time elapsed between penetration and orgasm was short. Too short, Tsukuru thought, way too short. But maybe he’d lost any sense of time. At any rate, the urge was unstoppable, and, like a huge wave crashing over him, this urge engulfed him without warning.

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“Now, though, he wasn’t coming inside Shiro, but in Haida. The girls 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.

“Even after he came, Tsukuru’s penis remained erect. He could feel the warmth and softness of Shiro’s vagina, as if it were the afterglow of actual sex. And he still couldn’t grasp the boundary between dream and imagination, between what was imaginary and what was real” (pg 96).

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And neither does the reader. Murakami has cast his spell once again and the themes of the book consider the serious implications of rape, even within the often taboo subject of homosexuality.

Tsukuru is left friendless once more when Haida and he never speak again because of a silent barrier having risen between them after that night. After that dream? After that sexual encounter? Tsukuru, like the reader, questions Tsukuru’s reality.

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“Maybe I am fated to always be alone, Tsukuru found himself thinking. People came to him, but in the end they always left. They came, seeking something, but either they couldn’t find it, or were unhappy with what they found (or else they were disappointed or angry), and then they left. One day, without warning, they vanished, with no explanation, no word of farewell. Like a silent hatchet had sliced the ties between them, ties through which warm blood still flowed, along with a quiet pulse… ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki,’ he said aloud. I basically have nothing to offer to others. If you think about it, I don’t even have anything to offer myself” (pgs 100-101).

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As for what happened between the high school classmates and Tsukuru (in the past) or what happens between Sara and Tsukuru (in the present), you will just have to be a little patient and read this book.

But I will share a little secret with you about the title: “His Years of Pilgrimage” refers to the name of an album consisting of three piano solos called “Years of Pilgrimage” by Franz Liszt. One song, “Le Mal du Pays” (translated simply as: “Homesickness”) Tsukuru loved to listen to with Haida on lonely, rainy nights as they both sipped coffee together.

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cg fewston

CG FEWSTON

cg fewston

The American novelist CG FEWSTON has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (Italy), a Visiting Fellow at Hong Kong’s CityU, & he’s a been member of the Hemingway Society, Americans for the Arts, PEN America, Club Med, & the Royal Society of Literature. He’s also a been Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) based in London. He’s the author of several short stories and novels. His works include A Fathers Son (2005), The New America: A Collection (2007), The Mystics Smile ~ A Play in 3 Acts (2007), Vanity of Vanities (2011), A Time to Love in Tehran (2015), Little Hometown, America (2020); A Time to Forget in East Berlin (2022), and Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being (2023).

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He has a B.A. in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors), and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction. He was born in Texas in 1979.

cg fewston
cg fewston

Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being is a captivating new dystopian science fiction novel by CG Fewston, an author already making a name for himself with his thought-provoking work. Set in the year 2183, Conquergood is set in a world where one company, Korporation, reigns supreme and has obtained world peace, through oppression... The world-building in the novel is remarkable. Fewston has created a believable and authentic post-apocalyptic society with technological wonders and thought-provoking societal issues. The relevance of the themes to the state of the world today adds an extra wrinkle and makes the story even more compelling.”

cg fewston
cg fewston

“A spellbinding tale of love and espionage set under the looming shadow of the Berlin Wall in 1975… A mesmerising read full of charged eroticism.”

Ian Skewis, Associate Editor for Bloodhound Books, & author of best-selling novel A Murder of Crows (2017)  

“An engrossing story of clandestine espionage… a testament to the lifestyle encountered in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War.”

“There is no better way for readers interested in Germany’s history and the dilemma and cultures of the two Berlins to absorb this information than in a novel such as this, which captures the microcosm of two individuals’ love, relationship, and options and expands them against the blossoming dilemmas of a nation divided.”

~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

A Time to Forget in East Berlin is a dream-like interlude of love and passion in the paranoid and violent life of a Cold War spy. The meticulous research is evident on every page, and Fewston’s elegant prose, reminiscent of novels from a bygone era, enhances the sensation that this is a book firmly rooted in another time.”

~ Matthew Harffy, prolific writer & best-selling historical fiction author of the “Bernicia Chronicles” series

“Vivid, nuanced, and poetic…” “Fewston avoids familiar plot elements of espionage fiction, and he is excellent when it comes to emotional precision and form while crafting his varied cast of characters.” “There’s a lot to absorb in this book of hefty psychological and philosophical observations and insights, but the reader who stays committed will be greatly rewarded.”

cg fewston

GOLD Winner in the 2020 Human Relations Indie Book Awards for Contemporary Realistic Fiction

FINALIST in the SOUTHWEST REGIONAL FICTION category of the 14th Annual National Indie Excellence 2020 Awards (NIEA)

“Readers of The Catcher in the Rye and similar stories will relish the astute, critical inspection of life that makes Little Hometown, America a compelling snapshot of contemporary American life and culture.”

“Fewston employs a literary device called a ‘frame narrative’ which may be less familiar to some, but allows for a picture-in-picture result (to use a photographic term). Snapshots of stories appear as parts of other stories, with the introductory story serving as a backdrop for a series of shorter stories that lead readers into each, dovetailing and connecting in intricate ways.”

~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

“The American novelist CG FEWSTON tells a satisfying tale, bolstered by psychology and far-ranging philosophy, calling upon Joseph Campbell, J. D. Salinger, the King James Bible, and Othello.”

“In this way, the author lends intellectual heft to a family story, exploring the ‘purity’ of art, the ‘corrupting’ influences of publishing, the solitary artist, and the messy interconnectedness of human relationships.”

“Fewston’s lyrical, nostalgia-steeped story is told from the perspective of a 40-year-old man gazing back on events from his 1980s Texas childhood…. the narrator movingly conveys and interprets the greater meanings behind childhood memories.”

“The novel’s focus on formative childhood moments is familiar… the narrator’s lived experiences come across as wholly personal, deeply felt, and visceral.”

cg fewston
cg fewston

American Novelist CG FEWSTON

 

cg fewston

This is my good friend, Nicolasa (Nico) Murillo, CRC, who is a professional chef & a wellness mentor. I’ve known her since childhood & I’m honored to share her story with you. In life, we all have ups & downs, some far more extreme than others. Much like in Canada, in America, the legalization of marijuana has become a national movement, which includes safe & legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use & research for all.

“This is a wellness movement,” Nico explains. The wellness movement is focused on three specific areas: information, encouragement, & accountability.

In these stressful & unprecedented times, it makes good sense to promote & encourage the state or condition of being in good physical & mental health.

To learn more you can visit: Americans For Safe Access & Texans for Safe Access, ASA (if you are in Texas).

The mission of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research.

Link: https://www.safeaccessnow.org/

TEXANS FOR SAFE ACCESS ~ share the mission of their national organization, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research, for all Texans.

Link: https://txsafeaccess.org/about-1

Stay safe & stay happy. God bless.

 

Nico Murillo Bio ~ Americans & Texans for Safe Access ~ Medical Cannabis

 

 

cg fewston

4 comments on “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013) by Haruki Murakami & The Imaginary Reality

  1. Hi Fewston! I would like to ask you a question. In your opinion, what is the best analysis that could be applied in Colorless Tzukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage?

    • Felix, there are all kinds of types of analysis, but if I had to choose one particular theme of the book to study further I would choose the “coming of age element” and how it is delayed (not only with Tazaki but also in Oriental cultures, like Japan, where the children often live with their parents for much longer periods of time than in Occidental cultures). Tazaki is wounded as a teen (sorry, no spoilers) and is unable to “grow up” (if you will). The wound is so deep he is unable to find solace in companionship as an older man (in his late thirties). This is what struck me as an interesting theme to consider more in-depth: how something in childhood could greatly impact adulthood to the degree it does to Tazaki. I hope this helps. Keep reading and smiling…

  2. Pingback: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir (2009) by Haruki Murakami & the Duty of Being a True Novelist | CG FEWSTON

  3. Pingback: The Tragedy of American Fiction (2014) by Prof. CG FEWSTON - CG FEWSTON

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