Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the second book I read written by Haruki Murakami. I don't know if all his books are this way, but I have noticed some common points between the two I have read. They are both about bland people who go through life without actually living it. Both are cheated on and take it without blinking, setting themselves up for more because they love the person doing it. There is no moment in that book in which any of these characters wonder if there should be more to their life, nothing happening to show them that maybe they should try to get out of their environment and try to do something with their life. They just quietly sit and meditate on the nothingness their life is, without actually doing anything about it.

Maybe Murakami's purpose is to have the reaction with the reader by showing the reader how routine life can just send you to bland nothingness and how meaningless life can be if you don't actually do something. Maybe the reason he is not introducing a pivotal turning point is to motivate the reader to do so in his own life. But to me the reaction was part anger ("how can these people just sit there and slowly head towards death without any reaction?") part bafflement ("how can anyone live like this?"). Maybe that was Murakami's purpose. Or maybe his view is that life is just something you sit through.

But, in truth, it is sad. There are way too many people in the world who live like this.

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