1/25/2019 3 Comments Haruki Murakami 1Author’s Name: Haruki Murakami Dates Alive: January 12, 1949 - Present Location: Kyoto, Japan
Major Works: Fiction: A Wild Sheep Chase, 1982 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, 1994 Hard-Boiled Wonder and the End of the World, 1985 1Q84, 2009 Hear the Wind Sing, 1979 Non Fiction: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, 2007 Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Psyche, 2000 Major Themes: Isolating yourself for a day or two from the real world is ok (it’s just like a mental health day I think lol) and it’s problems isn’t always a bad thing but it’s never good to isolate yourself from something that you can let go without isolating yourself. Companionship with friends how you spend time and care for eachother. Novel Choice Plot Summary: My novel is Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami In the novel Tsukuru Tazaki had four close friends while he was in high school. There names were Ao, Aka, Shiro, and Kuro. Every single one of them had a color in their name and unfortunately Tsukuru was the only one that didn’t have a color in his name. This was significant because he was the only member of the group that was colorless. His friends didn’t feel that way but he didn’t know that for years. When it was time to graduate high school and to move on to college, Tsukuru was the only one who wanted to go far for school. He wanted to be a engineer so he can work on trains. The college was in Tokyo and he moved to the city to attend the college. He was planning on returning home to visit his friends as often as he could. They were always happy to see him. But then one time when he was planning on going home his friends never answered or returned any of his calls that he made to them. But when he finally talked to one of the group members he was told he wasn’t apart of the group anymore and should stop bothering them with all of these phone calls. Tsukuru was in pain for months because of this. He almost died or wanted to kill himself because he struggled with the fact that he has no comfort of his friends anymore and the fact that he has no friends at all now. But time went on and he was finally over everything and started to become the engineer that he always wanted to be. As time passed he made eventually made a new friend, a young college student but unfortunately that friend also disappeared for no given reason. Years passed and it really hasn’t been that good for Tsukuru. He tried getting a girlfriends but it really didn’t so well. But until he meets this girl named Sara. Tsukuru and Sara start dating and eventually they do some things but Tsukuru is unable to do it. And Sara understands. He finally realizes that Sara is the right girl and she also helps him track down his friends that hurt him. Analysis of Main Characters: Tsukuru Tazaki - A fresh newbie college student who is very intelligent and caring young adult who thought his life was colorless, he was just normal and thought he had no meaning to him. This feeling came along when his four friends started to dis include him in everything and never returned his calls. He saw all of his friends like they belonged somewhere because their names all had a color and a meaning to it. Tsukuru’s name didn’t have a name to it so he didn’t feel any importance to him. And this is important because it took apart of his personality. Tsukuru is one of three children of a modern wealthy family with good fortunes. At a young age Tsukurus father had passed away, he really can’t remember any memories with his father. His father was a businessman and he was the one maintaining all the families wealth and beings. Tsukuru wanted to go to college in Tokyo and his friends wanted to go to college near home because they wanted to relax and to be lazy. He goes to college but then realizes that his friends haven’t been returning or answering his calls at all. He gets a hold of their parents and asks them if they can call back when they get home and they sounded like they didn’t care. It was like his friends were standing behind there parents telling them what to say. Days and months went by while he was at college and he grew to be really weak, underweight, depressed and not motivated at all. He tries to get motivated to get back in shape and he does. What he went through was because of his friends leaving/abandoning him in such little time. Theme: In the book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami the themes that are explored throughout this book is isolation and companionship. Tsukuru had companionship with his friends throughout the begging and with his girlfriend and other friends towards the middle and end of the novel. He trusted his friends, Ao, Aka, Kuro, and Shiro they had some things in common but Tsukuru thought he was kind of the outcast of the group. He was living off of companionship of his friends but he almost died from it when he lost the connection with his friends in the beginning of the novel. But he had gained it back when he started getting some more friends and also his girlfriend Sara helped a lot with gaining it back too. Isolation was the other theme explored in this novel because Tsukuru felt isolated when his friends never returned any of his calls or never wanted to hang out with him. It all started to happen before college started. Along with the companionship, isolation nearly killed him too. This is how he had gotten really weak is because he had shut himself down from the real world and never communicated with anyone after his friends shut him down. But after sometime he finally got out of his isolation and started going places. How did the author’s life influence his writing in this novel? (2-3 paragraphs) Haruki Murakami writes about family in the first person narrative and it’s a significant topic in Japanese literature. But by learning about Murakami I see how this novel has influenced him while writing it. I’ve noticed that the main character Tsukuru Tazaki has gone to college in Tokyo and so did Murakami. They both went to college to study something they both loved and wanted to do. As I read the book I see a few other examples on why Murakami was so influenced to write this book. Murakami depends on his wife too just as Tsukuru depend on Sara for being there for him all the time. Another one is that Tsukuru is a intelligent young man and grew up having a very good life with a good family and so did Murakami. It seems like Haruki Murakami took some aspects of his life and put them into the novel. As you read, you can tell that Murakami has put in a lot of creativity and a deep thought while writing this novel. And it almost makes you think that this was a life story from someone and they smacked it onto pages with loads and loads of detail. That's how good this novel was. Works Cited: Works Cited Haruki Murakami, www.harukimurakami.com/. Study.com, Study.com, study.com/. “Haruki Murakami.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Jan. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami. Murakami, Haruki. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki. 2013 By: Alexa M.
3 Comments
Kylie Logan
1/31/2019 10:10:25 am
Do you think that Tsukuru would have isolated himself even if he had more involved friends?
Reply
Terrell Williams
1/31/2019 10:11:56 am
Do you ever figure out why his friends began to ignore him or was it a carry-on from their differences?
Reply
Hannah O'Connor
1/31/2019 02:53:54 pm
Why is Sara, out of all the people in Tsukuru's life, the one who gets him motivated and happy again? Is there something special/ different about her?
Reply
Leave a Reply. |