The Historical Implications of The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

I found that Strecher’s text on “Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in Haruki Murakami” provided further insight into the intentions of Murakami’s The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. In his text, Stretcher discusses Murakami’s audience as the “post Zenkyōto era” generation (264). This greatly influences Murakami’s work because this generation is defined, according to Stretcher, by its search for identity. I think that this is particularly evident in The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

First, Strecher writes that, “unlike the previous generation, which understood hunger and deprivation and could define itself in terms of affluence via its own participation in the efforts of the rapid-growth era, Murakami’s generation, like the generation in the United States that reached maturity in the 1950s, did not understand affluence as a goal in itself, and this could not identify in those terms” (265). I think what Strecher means here is that, in a more developed world, self-identification relies less on survival and the material. Murakami’s narratives thus appeal to a generation that is in search of an identity—a generation on a “pilgrimage” of sorts.

The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is a good example of this. Murakami writes that all five friends were from “suburban, upper-middle-class families,” with parents that “spared no expense” on education, and that their families were generally “peaceful and stable” (9). This is an important component because it takes away problems regarding the material, so that the attention is focused solely on inner-identity. 

The lack of color in Tsukuru’s name also strips him of a sense of identity, and makes him feel isolated. All of his friends (with colors in their name) seem to have fixed personalities. Tsukuru, on the other hand, “was the only one in the group without anything special about him” (15). However, though I have not read the entire book, I assume that his obsession with trains represents a certain transience. To me, trains in books have always represented a state of transience, and I think that Murakami making Tsukuru be interested in trains means that identity is not meant to be fixed and easy to categorize (like colors), but rather, always in flux. 

In all, I found that Stecher’s text helped me understand Murakami a bit more. Then historical implications that Strecher discusses unpack why Murakami might write his characters so that they are “quiet,” “detached,” and “losing their capacity to know or understand themselves” (265); his characters mirror the generation in which he is catering to. 

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