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"Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance all of their names contained a colour. The two boys were called Akamatsu, meaning ‘red pine', and Oumi, ‘blue sea', while the girls' names were Shirane, ‘white root', and Kurono, ‘black field'. Tazaki was the only last name with no colour in it.

One day Tsukuru Tazaki’s friends announced that they didn’t want to see him, or talk to him, ever again.

Since that day Tsukuru has been floating through life, unable to form intimate connections with anyone. But then he meets Sara, who tells him that the time has come to find out what happened all those years ago."


The longest title of Haruki Murakami book ever! ^^
The latest work of Haruki Murakami and it's not released in Indonesian language yet so I had to buy the English version through periplus and the fastest one is Harvill Secker edition in hardcover.


I love this hardcover edition and inside the book, attached the illustrated sticker on it. You can use it to mark your book or just stick it everywhere you want. ^^


About the story itself, it turned out to be not my favorite after all from all of Murakami's works. It's a bit different from others stories of Murakami's but it also has similar part like others. It's just like Haruki Murakami typical 'color' in writing a story. His typical style.


In most of Murakami's novel, the man (the main protagonist) was in search of his woman. You named it. Norwegian Wood, Dance Dance Dance, Kafka on The Shore, and even 1Q84. In this story, the Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki was also in search of his woman but it's not his main purpose from the beginning of story. We just realized it in the middle of his pilgrimage. Yet, in this story the man (Tsukuru Tazaki) was not searching for his woman but he was looking for the answer. The reason why he suddenly had been cut off from his group.

It's not the solution we need from this book. The answer is and the journey to find the answer.

We learn a lot from Tsukuru Tazaki's journey of his pilgrimage to the past. And what I love most from this book is the beauty of words that Murakami created and his metaphor related to the train and its station. Yes, I just realized that Haruki Murakami was also interested in train stations besides his interest of classical music and swimming/running that he usually attached it to the main protagonist (His typical style of writing). Not to mention his non-fiction book of 'Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche' which is still on my currently-reading-list and tells the story of terrorism using poisonous gas in the Tokyo subway. ^^


Well, I am a little bit disappointing on the ending of this book. Maybe I was set my standard too high on Haruki Murakami or I was expected too much. But honestly this book is worth to read if you are a fan of Haruki Murakami works. :)

We're a little bit tired of the-old-times setting of Murakami's book. And in this book we can say goodbye to that old times when no such thing called smartphones and email existed. ^^

And there is a person missing in the middle of the story. ‘Vanished like a smoke’. If you remember The Soldier-like-friend from Norwegian Wood novel, this time the character name is Haida. We expected something revealed in the end of the story about this character, but Haruki Murakami seems so strict with his style of writing a novel. A whole bunch of mystery doesn't need to resolve. I think that is the main theme of Haruki Murakami’s stories.


Well, happy reading~!
Get ready to get lost in Murakami's weirdness world.
and be careful to not get caught by bad elves. ^^


“ 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.”