A remote border on the edges of consciousness.” At a set time, a mysterious twilight and a bottomless darkness merely exchanged places. “All around him, for as far as he could see, lay a rough land strewn with rocks, with not a drop of water, nor a blade of grass. Suddenly, without warning, the other four cut him adrift, and this rejection by his friends sent him spiralling into depression: His problems go back to his younger days, when Tsukuru was part of a group of five inseparable high-school kids, each of whom (with the exception of Tsukuru) had a name which contained a colour. He’s rich, good looking and successful in his job, so you’d expect him to be happy – sadly, that’s not the case. At the start of the novel, he has recently begun a tentative relationship with the beautiful Sara Kimoto, one he’s hoping will grow into something stronger. Then it was time to get started: one quick read, a two-week gap, then a leisurely reread before scribbling my random thoughts down in a semi-coherent fashion – and here’s what I thought about it…Ĭolorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (translated by Philip Gabriel, review copy courtesy of Random House Australia) is the story of thirty-six-year-old train station designer Tsukuru Tazaki, a native of Nagoya who moved to Tokyo for study and work and has stayed there ever since. However, a new Haruki Murakamibook is always a big event around these parts, and I (just about) managed to restrain myself and finish the book I was on. Inside was the beautiful book you see in the photo, and I was sorely tempted to fling everything to one side and get straight into it.

After almost six years of blogging, I’m fairly used to getting books in the post, but I was still rather excited when an unexpected parcel arrived a few weeks back with a big embargo sticker on it (it actually arrived half an hour after the embargo had been lifted, but still…).

The colorless life of tsukuru tazaki