A Very Well Written Novel: My Impression of Haruki Murakami’s New Novel “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage”

I’ve just finished Haruki Murakami’s new novel “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage.”

To put it bluntly, this is a very well written novel.

Haruki Murakami wrote a short novel after a long novel. He wrote “South of the Border, West of the Sun” after “Dance Dance Dance”, “Sputnik Sweetheart” after “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, “After Dark” and “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” after “Kafka on the Shore”, and this novel after “1Q84.”

His long novels are somewhat confusing. I guess that Haruki Murakami intentionally made them confusing. Dostoyevsky’s long novels, for example “The Brothers Karamazov”, are confusing, too. The intentional confusion of such long novels moves me deeply.

On the contrary, Haruki Murakami’s short novels are very well constructed. When I’m tired, it is too hard to read his long novels, because I don’t want to be moved but be calm. Thus I read his well written short novels, like “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage.”

If you try to read his first novel, I recommend his short novels.

I’d like to translate several passages from this novel.

Jealousy that Tsukuru understood in his dream was the most desperate prison in the word. That was because it is the prison where prisoners locked themselves up. Nobody forced to imprison them. They themselves got into it, locked the door from inside, and threw the keys outside of the iron bars. Nobody knew that they were locked up there. Of course, if they decided to get out of there, they could do so, because the prison existed in their own heart. But they couldn’t choose to. Their hearts got as hard as stonewalls. This is the essence of jealousy. 

嫉妬とは―つくるが夢のなかで理解したところでは―世界で最も絶望的な牢獄だった。なぜならそれは囚人自身が自らを閉じ込めた牢獄であるからだ。誰かに力尽くで入れられたわけではない。自らそこに入り、内側から鍵をかけ、その鍵を自ら鉄格子の外に投げ捨てたのだ。そして彼がそこに幽閉されていることを知るものは、この世界に誰ひとりいない。もちろん出ていこうと本人が決心さえすれば、そこから出ていける。その牢獄は彼の心中にあるのだから。しかし、その決心ができない。彼の心は石壁のように硬くなっている。それこそがまさに嫉妬の本質なのだ。

“You just say what you feel honestly. It isn’t an excuse.” 

「君は自分の気持ちを正直に口にしているだけだ。言い訳とは違う」

“I had been thinking of myself as a victim. I was forced into a cruel experience without any reason. So I suffered from a deep pain in my soul, and this ruined my natural life. Honestly, I blamed four of you. I wondered why only I had a terrible experience. But it may not be true. I’m not just a victim, but I might also hurt people around me. And I might also hurt myself. ” 

「僕はこれまでずっと、自分のことを犠牲者だと考えてきた。わけもなく苛酷な目にあわされたと思い続けてきた。そのせいで心に深い傷を負い、その傷が僕の人生の本来の流れを損なってきたと。正直言って、君たち四人を恨んだこともあった。なぜ僕一人だけがこんなひどい目にあわなくちゃならないんだろうと。でも本当はそうじゃなかったのかもしれない。僕は犠牲者であるだけじゃなく、それと同時に自分でもしらないうちにまわりの人々を傷つけてきたのかもしれない。そしてまた返す刃で僕自身を傷つけてきたのかもしれない」

“If you are a empty vessel, it’s OK,” said Eri. “Even so, you are truly a wonderful and fascinating vessel. Nobody knows what they really are, don’t you agree? If you are so, it is enough for you to be a beautiful vessel, which someone wants to put something into. A favorable vessel.”

「 たとえ君が空っぽの容器だっとしても、それでいいじゃない」とエリは言った。「もしそうだとしても、君はとても素敵な、心を惹かれる容器だよ。自分自身が何であるかなんて、そんなこと本当は誰にもわかりはしない。そう思わない？それなら君は、どこまでも美しいかたちの入れ物になればいいんだ。誰かが思わず中に何かを入れたくなるような、しっかり好感の持てる容器に」