COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI & HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE was an interesting read.

Before I get on with the review though, some basic plot. Tsukuru Tazaki is a forty-something civil engineer who specializes in designing railroad stations, which he has found fascinating his entire life. One day, Tazaki meets Sarah, a travel agent, and they begin dating. Wanting to know more about his past, Sarah asks about Tazaki's high school days, and boy, does she get more than she bargained for. Turns out that Tazaki had 4 friends in high school, and they existed in near perfect communal harmony. Even when Tazaki went to university in Tokyo and they stayed local, they were the best of friends. Until, without warning, Tazaki's friends told him they never wanted to see him again because "you know why." Tazaki's inner emotional life has been messed up ever since, and Sarah suggests visiting each friend to find out why they kicked him out of the group. Tazaki agrees and goes on a pilgrimage to visit each friend.

Outside of the manga universe, I'm still pretty unfamiliar with Japanese literature, and listening to Tsukuru Tazaki's struggles on audiobook only highlighted this factoid to me. I was prepared for the beautiful setting descriptions, the lovely, tangled personal intricacies, and the emphasis on telling in order to show. What I was not prepared for was Tazaki's pilgrimage, while also occupying physical reality, emotionally being about traveling out of suicidal depression. That packed a lot of whallop for me.

Granted, perhaps the first line about Tazaki wanting to kill himself in university should have been warning enough. But, being a brave reader, I forged ahead anyway. By the middle of the book, though, I was frustrated. It might have partially been the audiobook narrator's bland, matter-of-fact style or it might have been Murakami's intent with Tazaki's character, but it seemed like Tazaki was thinking something SO DUMB at every turn. He constantly puts himself down, and this verbal tic awkwardly corners his companions into building (ha!) him back up. Despite this chapter-ly listing of his faults, he takes zero steps to change his behavior, and therefore takes no responsibility for what he sees as his defects. After each pilgrimage visit, he thinks he will never re-visit the friend again and erases all the positive emotional feeling he attained talking with them. It's a bit maddening, though I suppose that's authentic mental illness for ya.

The most disturbing part of Tazaki's attitude is his thoughts on women. According to Tazaki, women's bodies are "stronger" and "more sensitive" than men's, and therefore women can bear suffering easier. One of his high school friends, Shiro, especially possessed this delicate strength, and on her went all the group's adolescent feelings they had to suppress in order maintain their perfect sense of harmony. And so, all their mental illness, all their carnal (and sometimes same-sex!) longing, and all their violence is almost literally superimposed on Shiro's body. The outright misogyny is really quite gross.

The ending is also not the best, because, while the pilgrimage is complete, what Tazaki's learned about himself is minimal. A start, to be sure. He still depends on Sarah, like Shiro before her, to subdue and suppress his mental issues. He's taken the first step out of an self-made death, but it's a small step. Even couched in Murakami's beautiful language, that's not enough for me.