Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Perhaps one of the worst books I have read. I have heard great things about Haruki Murakami, so when this came out, I was excited to read a novel of his for the first time. It was disappointing. The writing felt immature, with every typical literary gimmick thrown in. The only redeeming part was that it started with a premise of ‘why did his friends abandon him’ which kept you curious to know – ‘eventually there is a story here right’? but to get to the end and think ‘seriously??’ – sucks. I suppose some people like books like this which try overtly hard to be profound, but it comes across more as banging your head on a brick wall. The character descriptions were poor, the scene set ups even worse — the entire time I was reading the book, I don’t think I ever once pictured a setting in Japan (or Tokyo where a lot of it takes place). It would have been a great book to read when I was a teenager. I took this book along on the start of a 4 month sabbatical thinking it would be a great read, and am left thinking I wish I hadn’t wasted the baggage space on it.
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