A review by kc_ya_later
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

dark reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

As a survivor of
sexual trauma, in the “post-me-too-movement” (BIG quotes around that), this was not the time I wanted to be reading a cis man’s fictional musing about the repercussions another cis man might face if falsely accused of sexual assault.
In fact, I don’t think there will ever be a time I want to read that take again.

20 years ago I couldn’t get enough of Murakami’s writing — it was exactly the kind of magical realist worlds my pensive, identity-forming, wallowing and nostalgic self wanted to exist in back then. I started on a high with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka On The Shore, and honestly it’s been downhill from there. 

When I revisit his books today — most recently/alarmingly was my long-proclaimed Favorite Book™️ “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World”) — the misogyny, fatphobia and objectification of women is just too f**cking repelling to wade thru to get to swim in his dreamy subconscious anymore. Clearly I grew up to better see this, and he still has yet to.
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