R E K. (bigstone) - , reviewed Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage on + 1438 more book reviews
They are a group of five, friends who make a complete circle. Four have colors in their names while Tsukuru does not and refers to himself as colorless. Yet as close as they are one day the five become four with Tsukuru cast away. He broods on this change for months even contemplating suicide yet fails to discover why he is no longer connected. Finally, he stores the experience away and goes on with his life.
His name, given to him by his father, means "to make, to build, to construct." What Tsukuru hopes to make is train stations, a goal he has had since his youngest years. However, he discovers his professional life is more about changing stations rather than building them. Perhaps this is one of the messages that the author is sending to the reader.
Many of us encounter trauma in our younger years. The question is how does one reconcile a past trauma and lost relationships from earlier years. Like many of us, Tsukuru postpones the discovery of what really happened. It is years later and Sara, a current lover, who urges him to find the truth about what happened between him and his friends. It is she who urges him to undertake this pilgrimage to visit each former friend and talk about their relationship. I totally enjoyed taking these trips with him. It made me think about some of the issues of my teenage years, many of which are still unresolved. Perhaps, that is because I did not have the courage to find out why or perhaps it no longer mattered.
I found a quote among the reviews I read that I should be shared again because I think it is so appropriate for this novel. The quote sums what I felt as I finished it. And, for me it is most appropriate because it is from one of my favorite authors, Ursula Le Guin.
"Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed."
His name, given to him by his father, means "to make, to build, to construct." What Tsukuru hopes to make is train stations, a goal he has had since his youngest years. However, he discovers his professional life is more about changing stations rather than building them. Perhaps this is one of the messages that the author is sending to the reader.
Many of us encounter trauma in our younger years. The question is how does one reconcile a past trauma and lost relationships from earlier years. Like many of us, Tsukuru postpones the discovery of what really happened. It is years later and Sara, a current lover, who urges him to find the truth about what happened between him and his friends. It is she who urges him to undertake this pilgrimage to visit each former friend and talk about their relationship. I totally enjoyed taking these trips with him. It made me think about some of the issues of my teenage years, many of which are still unresolved. Perhaps, that is because I did not have the courage to find out why or perhaps it no longer mattered.
I found a quote among the reviews I read that I should be shared again because I think it is so appropriate for this novel. The quote sums what I felt as I finished it. And, for me it is most appropriate because it is from one of my favorite authors, Ursula Le Guin.
"Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed."
