Haruki Murakami’s latest novel relates the past in its multi-coloured and multi-vocal brilliance. But is it too simplistic? Subhalakshmi Gooptu reviews ….
Haruki Murakami’s latest novel could easily be regarded as one of the most anticipated releases of 2014. After being published in April in Japan, English readers all over the world patiently waited for their turn in August. Murakami has become the common factor in most reading lists, owing to the sensitivity of his characters and stunning descriptions of Japanese landscapes. Despite the rush of pre-sale bookings, I managed to get my hands on a first edition copy of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. Along with a minimalist cover, the title added to the intrigue that surrounded the interplay of ordinariness and beauty within a background of seeming colourlessness. Philip Gabriel’s translation ensures that the story of Tsukuru Tazaki is narratedlucidly. This simplicity allows for an experience of emotion that is unique to Murakami’s novels. Murakami is hardly ever afraid of allowing his readers to dive into the private emotions and thoughts of his characters. The novel follows an uncomplicated trajectory of Tsukuru’s life as he relives past experiences. Functioning as a kind of coming-of-age novel, it moves back and forth in time, to progress into the formation of Tsukuru’s identity.
Pilgrimage is usually defined as a journey undertaken to attain spiritual or religious salvation. For Tsukuru, his pilgrimage is a journey traversing cities and continents, to find salvation. As the title suggests, his colourlessness is a central trope. The novel begins with an introduction to Tsukuru who seems to be “sleepwalking through life.” Pre-occupied with death, Tsukuru’s character seeks solace not in morbidity but in ordinariness. Tsukuru works at a train construction company, and his childhood memories are strewn with images of railway stations and platforms. Trains symbolise journey but without a real sense of belonging, only serving a purpose when in motion, lacking stability. It is in this kind of detached movement, always moving towards something but never staying there permanently, that Tsukuru finds comfort. Even his lover, Sara, works at a travel agency. Tsukuru’s ordinariness is balanced with his child-like love for trains – always in motion and exploring new places, but never at home. “What really fascinated him … was the models of ordinary stations set down among the other parts, like an afterthought… He loved to watch as the trains passed by the station, or slowed down as they pulled up to the platform … What was real and what was imaginary mingled in his mind, and he’d tremble sometimes with the excitement of it all.”
It is upon Sara’s insistence that Tsukuru agrees to revisit his past – almost as if to prove his love for her, to her and himself. Described as lacking a “striking personality,” Tsukuru is immediately plunged into memories – of his childhood, of schooldays filled with love and jealousy – as he seeks to find the incident that led to his estrangement with his friends. Murakami describes his four friends as having names with colour in them. While Tsukuru maintained the balance of colourlessness, his four childhood friends were associated with distinct colours suggested by their names- Akamatsu (red pine), Oumi (blue sea), Shirane (white root) and Kurono (black field). The novel explores the relationships that Tsukuru shared with each of them, as he struggles to find his own identity in an expansive world. While he attempted to rid his lives of the betrayal of his friends, Sara’s interest in his past brought up important questions of forgiveness, friendship, sanity and coming to terms with rejection and grief. Sara convinces Tsukuru by saying, ”You can hide memories, suppress them, but you can’t erase the history that produced them … If nothing else, you need to remember that. You can’t erase history, or change it. It would be like destroying yourself.” Murakami explores concepts of memory and history as being crucial in self-realisation. While it presents itself as a legitimate concern, dealt with a wide range of authors, Murakami negotiates this relationship through a simple, semi-allegorical narrative, where his protagonist must return to his past, meet those he has left behind or forgotten, so that he may move forward. Every experience of the world is marked with its presence of colours in the world of Murakami. As Tsukuru is able to forgive and move forward, his perception of colours changes – “as if they’d been covered by a special filter.”
Murakami blends the age-old concern with identity with the contemporary fear of detachment due to technology. Sara’s describes our world as a “pretty apathetic age” – one that has lost the ability to make human connections despite technological assistance. Here, I feel, Murakami becomes overtly simplistic. While he argues for the importance of emotion, he stands dangerously close to sounding didactic, showing his readers the unpleasantness of the modern world. The lack of nuances in dealing with this fear of alienation makes the character of Sara to be an inflexible voice of unjustified warning. However, in the open-endedness of the novel, Sara’s deception and inconsistency, Tsukuru stands as the sole inheritor of Murakami’s affirmation. Although Tsukuru says, “I have no sense of self, I have no personality, no brilliant colour. I have nothing to offer. That’s always been my problem. I feel like an empty vessel. I have a shape … but there’s nothing inside,” Murakami’s narration provides the comfort of Eri, his friend, who tells him of the attractiveness and appeal of simplicity. With language that is simple, and plot strewn with everyday real emotions of love and estrangement, Murakami’s novel is replete with characters that stand as an ideal balance of honest, vulnerability and sensitivity. As Murakami traverses the landscapes of Japan and Finland, his narrative makes steady inroads into the psychological act of finding one’s true self. Tsukuru, always considered to be ‘colourless’ and dull, becomes an intriguing character of compassion and childlike curiousity who is nevertheless bound to a transient reality.
