Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

A new Murakami is always a reason to celebrate. Its been over fifteen years since I read my first one, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. My gosh, fifteen years. I wonder if your first Murakami always remains your favorite. It would be interesting to hear what other fans have to say about this. There are scenes from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle that I'll just never forget.

I enjoyed the journey of reading his new novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. It was truly a journey in every sense of the word. Thirty-six year old Tsukuro, who has always felt a bit lost in the world, seeks to find out why his close knit group of high school friends suddenly abandoned him with no explanations sixteen years ago. This leads him back to his old home town, Nagoya, and even as far away as Finland. I loved reading this book but the ending did disappoint me at first. There were too many open-ended questions left unanswered. However, once I had time to digest it more and read what other readers thought, I realized that it was a perfect ending. Tsukuro who had always been safe and lived in the fringes of life, found the courage to love. He takes that leap into the unknown not knowing whether he'd end up getting the girl or not. We never find out what happens but the point is Tsukuro finally had the spirit to live and let live.

Loved this quote from the book. It's so true.

"It's strange, isn't it? No matter how quiet and conformist a person's life seems, there's always a time in the past when they reached an impasse. A time when they went a little crazy. I guess people need that sort of stage in their lives."