ŷ������

Haruki Murakami and I are breaking up, and it’s him, not me.

I was at first enchanted by 1Q84’s mystery, unique, easy-to-read style and peculiar dialogue. I was less impressed by my second dip into the Murakami pool in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, though I realize a lot of people love that novel. So, this was it, Murakami’s last chance. Would he wow me with Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, or leave me out in the cold.

Dear reader, the star-rating is at the top, so you already know what I thought of this steaming mess.

My problems with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle are present here again in Colorless. Murakami’s simplistic language just seems uninspired, and the occasional odd word choice just seems like poor translation rather than a cool stylistic trick. Also, while I was swept away by the ethereal feel of 1Q84 (really, I’d read nothing like it before), it just seems that Murakami likes all of his writing to be filled with oppressive vagueness. In Colorless, Murakami populates the story with dialogue that feel flippant, passages that are extraneous under the guise of profundity, and some of the worst literary device use the world has ever seen.

But you don’t believe me? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

”The original purpose, like I said, was to help out at an after school program. This was where we all met and we all felt strongly about it—it remained an important collective goal. But as time passed, simply becoming a community ourselves became a goal too.��
“You mean maintaining the group itself, and keeping it going, became one of your aims?��
“I guess so.��
Sara narrowed her eyes in a tight line. “Just like the universe.��

Me once I realized that 362 pages of this type of mess were to follow.

JUST LIKE THE UNIVERSE? That has to be the weakest attempt at a serious thought I’ve read in a long time. I can’t think of anything that would fit so well with just about ANY OTHER CONCEPT as the universe. It is, as they say, universal.

But you don’t believe me? Don’t worry, I’ve written my own version of the passage.

”I had a particularly malodorous bowel movement the other day. Once I had finished with my regular habits, I flushed the offensive matter down the drain. But as time passed, the scent continued to linger.��
“You mean maintaining the smell, became the aim of the feces?��
“I guess so.��
Sara narrowed her eyes in a tight line. “Just like the universe.��

Ah, perhaps you are thinking to yourself, Low blow, Matthew. Toilet humor to try and get your point across? Have some decency. But that’s another of my axes to grind with Murakami, he writes passages that are just straight up gross. I mean, do you really want to read a book that uses “copious semen�� multiple times in a single chapter? Do you enjoy the rape-y ghost erotica that Murakami writes? I for one, have expended my tolerance for the subject in Murakami’s hands after initially processing 1Q84’s sexual deviance as a novel type of story. Instead, this is seemingly Murakami’s modus operandi.

I can’t say that any other book has had the ability to travel back in time and make me question what I ever had enjoyed in the author’s work to begin with. In that respect, I suppose he has impressed me. Was he always painting this ill-defined subject? Am I able to appreciate 1Q84’s nebulous ending now that I know that this is just what Murakami seems to do with all of his stories? The answer is mixed. A bit of a yes and a no. My enjoyment of 1Q84 when I first read it is not robbed by Colorless’s mediocrity, it just spoils my view of his writing.

Oh yeah! How about that story? Tsukuru Tazaki’s four friends abandoned him without an explanation 16 years ago. Since then, he’s been down in the dumps and has never quite recovered from this desertion, but boy, does Tsukuru ever like the subway! So, he meets a new woman who suggests that Tsukuru has some unresolved feelings about his past, and he needs to reconcile them in order to move forward with their relationship.

So, a slightly compelling premise: why did his friends cut ties with him? SPOILERS: it doesn’t matter, because they all decide in the end that they couldn’t have believed what he was accused of if they’d really thought about it, so, SORRY FOR BEING DICKS, TSUKURU, PEACE OUT. It is a pain to get through, and I felt the character underwent no development, the words he and others spoke were empty, and that


Murakami, I can only assume, plotting to rob my weekend of a good read

I’m sure a lot of readers out there are going to tell me I missed the point, or I don’t understand the culture, or that my review has been unnecessarily angry. You know, that’s a fair point. Maybe I did miss the point, or there’s some deeper meaning here that flies over my head because of a lack of cultural understanding.

But, here’s the thing: there’s so many great books out there and I foolishly took my weekend to read this novel. I have a stack of 20+ novels that I’ve been waiting to get into, and instead I spent my time reading this book. This book that offered me no reward for my time spent, and instead penalized me for picking it up. True, I could have just abandoned the book at its outset, but that’s just not my style.

A single positive thing I have to say about the book: the cover and binding on this North American hardcover edition is quite beautiful. A stylized subway map of Japan overlaid with stripes of colour, wrapped in a semi-translucent dust-jacket. The feel of the hardcover binding is obviously high quality and has a fantastically smooth feeling in your hands. So, props to Bond Street Books for nailing this design: it really makes for a pretty book.

But, truly, you’d be remiss to think that this book’s cover makes up for the suffering I experience between its pages. I recommend a hard pass.