Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE

Author : Haruki Murakami

Translator            : Philip Gabriel

Publisher             : Penguin Random House.

Date Published: 12 April 2013 in Japan and was released worldwide on 12 August 2014.

Pages, chapter  : 298 (UK version), 370 (JP); 386 (US); 19

Genre                   : Psychology, Mystery

Difficulty              : Medium

Characters in the story

Tsukuru Tazaki

The Protagonist of the story, 36-years-old engineer who works for railroad company and builds station.

Eri Kurono Haatainen (black)

Pottery artist, married and has 2 daughters. Now lived in Finland

Yuzuki Shirane (white)

A private piano teacher and lived in Hamamatsu, before being strangled to death in an unsolved murder six years ago.

Kei Akamatsu (red)

A seminar seller, he has a successful business that offers employee training to big companies in Nagoya.

Yoshio Oumi (blue)

Now a car dealer still in Nagoya, he sells Toyota's luxury car Lexus.

Sara Kimoto

Tsukuru’s love interest. She is two years older than Tsukuru, lives in Tokyo, and works as travel agent.

Tsukuru Tazaki had four very close friends while he was in high school. The group consists of two boys named Oumi (blue) and Akamatsu (red), and two girls named Shirone (white) and Kurono (black). They always did everything together (despite sometime Tsukuru felt left out from the group and wondered whether it happened because his name didn’t contain any color). When they grew up and went to college Tsukuru decided to continue his study in Tokyo but even though they were separated by distance they still get along together. One day a single phone from them suddenly announce that  they did not want to see him, or talk with him, ever again. They gave no explanation and Tsukuru didn’t dare to ask.

Tsukuru was heartbroken and almost died over the coming months the cut off from his group. He did recover and eventually became an engineer, as he'd planned. At the university, Tsukuru had friend named Haida. They did everything together and even listened to the same classical music.

One night, while Haida slept over on his coach, Tsukuru had erotic dream that involved Shiro and Kuro. The next day, Haida didn’t show up for the next semester. All he left was just the boxed set of Years of Pilgrimage he had lent Tsukuru. Haida left without any explanation like Tsukuru’s friends.

Tsukuru discussed the facts that he never able to build friendship and relationship with Sara, she advised him if he wanted to improve his current relationship, he needed to find out what happened in his past in order to move on. Tsukuru realized Sara was right and she helped him track down the four who had hurt him so badly. Since Tsukuru didn’t use internet, Sara helped him to gather information about his friends and arrange ticket for him.

He traveled back to his hometown, Nagoya. He met Ao whom from him, Tsukuru learnt that Shiro had accused him for raped her and prompted to cut off all communication between the friends and Tsukuru. Shiro eventually became a successful piano teacher, but six years ago she was found strangled in an unsolved murder case.

Days later, Tsukuru met Aka who now is a successful trainer in big company. From Aka, Tsukuru was told that Shiro’s story didn’t stop at the time, and that Shiro was lost her spirit to live before she died. Both Ao and Aka at first did not believe that, but Kuro convinced them

Tsukuru then back to Tokyo, and told Sara what he found from Ao and Aka. He decided to find out the rest of the story. And to do that he must met the other member of the friends, Kuro, who now live in Finland with his husband and two daughters. While he went to prepare the visit and buy present for Kuro’s daughter, he saw Sara hand in hand with a middle-aged man, smiling in a way she never did with Tsukuru.

Tsukuru flied to Finland with his feeling jealous and sad of what he saw. In Helsinki, he contanct Sara's friend Olga to help him track down Kuro for his an unannounced visit. The next day, he drove to Hämeenlinna, and met with Kuro and her family. At coffe shop, Tsukuru and Kuro talked. Kuro told him that Shiro was mentally ill and the rape accusation was just fabrication, but he was cut off as the way to save Shiro and to help her deal with her problem. Shiro was actually raped and had miscarriage. She even developed anorexia so she wouldn’t pregnant again. Tsukuru was sacrificed to help Shiro because the group thought that Tsukuru was strong enough to deal with the cut off.

With all the story has been revealed, Tsukuru then felt relieved, and he able to move on. He backed to Tokyo and said he love Sara and wanted to build serious relationship with her. She said she'll give him an answer in three days and the story ends with him waiting for Sara’s answer.

Ulfah Azizi Putri