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Often we view ourselves in the way we think that is how the others see us.In one sense, growing up means we should
be able to know when to care and not care about things that happen to us or said about us. Nothing is certain, everything in life is subject to change. Life is full of challenges even in its banality thus there is nothing wrong to crave some
sense of predictability in our everyday
life. There are times when certain unresolved memories from the past crop up to
haunt us and makes it necessary for us to revisit the past just like Tsukuru
Yazaki, the main character in Colourless
Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, the novel written by Haruki Murakami.
At a public high
school In the suburbs of Ngoya, Tsukuru belongs to a rare and harmonious group
of friends where all but he had a family name corresponding to a colour :
White, Black ,Red and Blue. Red and Blue are boys and White and Black are
girls. Tazaki was the only last name that did not have a colour in its meaning.
‘ His father
had been the one who named him. Well before Tsukuru was born, his father had
already decided on his name. Why was unclear. Maybe it was because his father
had spent many years of his own life far removed from anything having to do
with making things. Or maybe at some point he’d received something akin to a
revelation – a bolt of unseen lightning, accompanied by soundless thunder,
searing the name Tsukuru in his brain. But his father never spoke of where he’d
gotten the idea for the name. Not to Tsukuru, and not to anybody else.
When it came
to which Chinese character he would choose to write out “Tsukuru,” however –
the character that meant “ create,” or the simpler one that meant “make” or
“build” ----his father couldn’t make up his mind for the longest time. The
characters might read the same way, but the nuances were very different. His
mother had assumed it would be written with the character that meant “ create,”
but in the end his father had opted for the more basic meaning.’
Tsukuru goes to
Tokyo for his sophomore years. One
day he is told that the group no longer wishes to have further contact with
him. He quietly carries the pain of rejection into his adulthood. When he is a
grown man, he makes two friends, one is Haida who draws him into the realm of
classical music and when he plays a recording of Liszt’s “Years of Pilgrimage”,
it reminds him of his school friend , Shiro (White)who plays “Le Mal de Pays”
beautifully. When Haida vanishes from Tsukuru’s life, he has left behind the
record set of “Years of Pilgrimage”. Tsukuru feels that he is an empty vessel
and when people come to him, they discover how empty he is, and leave and
sometimes they leave behind a momento, like Haida and the boxed set of Years of
Pilgrimage.
‘ Maybe I am
just an empty, futile person, he thought. But it was precisely because there
was nothing inside of me that these people could find, if even for a short
time, a place where they belonged. Like a nocturnal bird seeks a safe place to
rest during the day in a vacant attic. The birds like that empty, dim, silent
place. If that were true, then maybe he should be happy he was hollow.’
When Tsukuru
meets Sara , the latter senses that the former has to rid of the pain of the
loss of his four school friends, thus she insists that he seeks them out. He
must find out the reason that they
no longer wish to have any
further contact with him. After Sara has made on line search through Google,
Facebook and Twitter, she provides him the information about his friends who are located as close as his boyhood
home of Nagoya and as far as Finland.
Even though he is successful as a young man, Tsukuru has low regard for himself. He works as an
engineer and builds and refines railroad stations. He is the kind of person who
craves stability. The only real interest he has is train stations so he ends up
working in an area where his passion lies.
Finland is his
first trip abroad and when he arrives at Helsinki, he feels no different than
when he had gone back to his hometown, ‘only
the currency in his wallet had
changed’.
“Where are you from?” asked the taxi driver in English,
shooting Tsukuru a glance in the rearview mirror. He was a middle-aged man with
a full, thick beard.
“ Japan,” Tsukuru replied.
That’s a long way to come with
so little luggage.”
“ I don’t like heavy baggage.”
The driver laughed. “Who
does?But before you know it, you are surrounded by it. That’s life. C’est la
vie.” And again he laughed happily.
Tsukuru laughed along with him.
Coffee is the drink for Tsukuru and the characters in the story. As someone who loves coffee and cares about the roast of the beans, I appreciate one particular quote from the book ‘The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.' click
Coffee is the drink for Tsukuru and the characters in the story. As someone who loves coffee and cares about the roast of the beans, I appreciate one particular quote from the book ‘The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.' click
Unlike the
Murakami’s other books, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki is rather casually written
with the usual wry observations interjected by the author. Since I do not read
Japanese, I can only read the
English translation copy of the novel. I like the minimalist writing style as I can glide through the
story in one sitting.
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