Book Review: How Long ‘Til Black Future Month, by N.K. Jemisin

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Afrofuturism, Book, Book Review, Fantasy, Magical Realism, N.K. Jemisin, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Short Story

Published in November 2018, this collection of short stories from three-time Hugo award winner N.K. Jemisin was something I had been looking forward to since it first starting appearing on lists of upcoming releases early last year.  In her introduction to the collection, Jemisin sets the tone by talking a bit about her experiences getting started as writer and “how hard it’s been for me to love science fiction and fantasy as a black woman” given the genre’s historical issues with representation.  She goes on, however, to express her cautious excitement that enough people in the community are now willing to engage in open and earnest conversations about its flaws and what can be done better going forward. It was in this spirit that the stories in this compilation came to life as a part of Jemisin’s ongoing journey to “finally accept myself and begin spinning the futures I want to see.”

As for my own experience with book, I absolutely loved it!  With only a couple of exceptions, I highly enjoyed everything that these 22 short stories had to offer.  They comprised a variety of genres, alternating between magical realism, Lovecraftian horror, medieval fantasy, post-apocalyptic earthes, and space adventures.  What each story had in common were excellent characters, settings, and ideas that gave the reader a tantalizing glimpse into each of the worlds created. Jemisin’s ability to give vibrant life to the people, and often even the places, she writes about really drew me in and immersed me into each and every story.

Going into the book my plan was to feature a top five in this space, but by the time I got to the end I found that I had flagged over half of the stories as potential favorites!  It was definitely a joyous problem to have, but after some serious deliberation I finally narrowed my list down to the following six, presented in the order they appeared:

The Effluent Engine (2011): Set in the early 1800s, this steampunk-inspired tale tells the story of a Haitian secret agent named Jessline.  We meet her in New Orleans where she is trying to recruit to a famed Creole scientist to help the newly independent nation of Haiti develop methane-propelled airships defend its borders.  Though she initially fails to get his attention, she may perhaps have found a more receptive partner in his sister.

Brides of Heaven (2007): After an accident in transit, a group of Muslim women find that they are the sole survivors of colony ship sent to a distant planet.  While they have been able to establish a secure settlement on their new home, the odds of long-term survival of the colony seem non-existent.  That outlook may have been changed, however, after one woman’s unapproved expedition into the wilderness leads her to encounter a seemingly sentient pool of liquid.

Cuisine Des Memoires (2018): Two friends dine in an ultra-exclusive restaurant that purports to be able to recreate any meal from the past, be it of historical or personal significance.  When the skeptic among them is finally convinced of the restaurant’s authenticity, he begins a desperate search for answers that may lead him to places best left alone.  In addition to making me really hungry, I really liked this story’s warning about living excessively in the past.

The Narcomancer (2007): Set in a roughly medieval African society where mages wield the power of sleep magic, this story follows the quest of a particularly adept Gatherer named Cet who accepts a mission to relieve a nearby settlement beingpreyed upon by a rival magician.  Although more than capable of carrying out the task, he finds his focus tested by an alluring woman named Namsut, the scorned secondwife of the village’s deceased leader.

On the Banks of the River Lex (2010): On a post-apocalyptic Earth, humans have died off and their old Gods and ideas are slowly wasting away in the ruins of their abandoned cities.  Death, however, has been particularly restless of late and finds that a chance encounter with a family octopi may give his existence a new purpose.  Just good, bizarre fun in this one.

Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters (2010): Set in New Orleans, a man named Tookie chooses to stay in his house even as Hurricane Katrina approaches the city.  On the eve of the storm he is befriended by a winged lizard who helps our hero navigate the flooded streets and confront a malevolent creature lurking in the depths.

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Halloween Double Feature: The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham, by Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene

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Blogoween, Blogtober, Book, Book Review, Brian Keene, Cthulhu, Fear and Loathing, H.P. Lovecraft, Halloween, Horror, Hunter S. Thompson, Nick Mamatas, Politics, Reading

Welcome to my second annual BeerRantsAndBooks Halloween Double Feature!  I had so much fun with this last year that I decided to do it again. Just like last time, my first post of the day is a book review and later on this evening I’ll share a beer with you.  I don’t recall exactly how I came across this title, but once I saw it I knew I found my Halloween book. Written by Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene, described in-world as an “avowed communist” and “vicious libertarian,” respectively, the story is an occult homage to Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that drops everyone’s favorite Doctor of Journalism into the universe of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Set in the early months of 1972, the book opens with our fictional Hunter Thompson holed up in his Colorado compound furiously typing away into the night and cursing the fame and attention drawn to him by that “Las Vegas book” and “comic strip” (Doonesbury) that borrowed his likeness.  Inspired by strange noises outside his door and the realization that the American Dream has died, he assumes the alias Uncle Lono and sets off on a new journey in search of the great American Nightmare.  Among the forces standing in his way are nothing less the the cults of Moloch and Cthulhu, the Nixon youth, mutant townies, J. Edgar Hoover, the Deep Ones themselves, and some really powerful hallucinogenic mushrooms from Yuggoth.  And then things get weird.

I had a fantastic time reading this!  A big part of this experience was surely based on the authors doing an excellent job channeling Hunter’s voice and running monologue.  They were clearly familiar with his works and heavily referenced a wide range of things he had written by the time the story takes place.  My one criticism here is that they were maybe a bit over reliant on a few of his sayings throughout the book, but on the whole I’d say they nailed it.  The book was packed full of amazing quotes and rants, almost all of which were unfortunately too long to suitably excerpt here. Another highlight of this story for me was seeing Lono’s infamous attorney burst into the scene right as the Lovecraftian references started to really pick up.  He brought with him an entirely other level of energy and intensity to a book that, despite some really dark and bizarre moments, was a hilariously wild ride that more successfully merged these two worlds than one might think possible.

Again, I can’t say enough just what an incredibly entertaining read this was and don’t think I could have asked for a better book to review on Halloween!  I would definitely recommend it to any Hunter Thompson fan looking for a bit of a twist.

Book Review: A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising, by Raymond A. Villareal

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Blogoween, Book, Book Review, Fiction, Halloween, Horror, Raymond A. Villareal, Vampire

The moment I saw this book in someone’s ARC pile earlier in the year I made a mental note to get my hands on it for my Halloween reviews.  With a name like that how could I not? Officially released in June 2018, this is the debut novel of author Raymond A. Villareal.

The book opens as a young Center for Disease Control agent is sent to investigate a pair of unusual deaths in an Arizona border town, only to learn upon arrival that the corpses seem to have walked away.  The agent and her team soon realize they are at ground zero for the outbreak of a disease they call the NOBI virus, an affliction of the blood that effectively turns those affected into vampires. Dubbed “Gloamings,” this new group of people begin their struggle to win over the hearts and minds (not to mention blood) of humanity.  Extraordinarily well-funded and highly selective about expanding their ranks, the Gloamings work quickly to exert their influence in human society. Using a combination of social influencers and political bribes, their ambitions rapidly move away from mundane goals like access to basic services and protections under the American Disability Act into more nefarious criminal and world domination schemes.  The book tracks the progression of these endeavors through a series of POV chapters told from the perspective of the CDC agent who discovered the outbreak, the head of a FBI task force formed to investigate Gloaming criminal activity, and a Jesuit priest working to combat the Gloaming infiltration of the Catholic Church.

While I thought this book had an interesting premise and some amusing social satire, I ultimately found it falling a bit short of my expectations.  Although the characters and overall story were interesting enough, the flow of the book was a bit choppy. There was a sufficient amount of action and intrigue to keep things interesting, but the story as a whole lacked a cohesive context in which to place the events of each chapter.  With chapters skipping months at a time and only loosely connected to each other I was often left thinking “so what?” when seemingly major developments where either glossed over or abandoned shortly thereafter. Unfortunately that sentiment stuck with me upon finishing the book as well since it did not offer much in the way of resolution to the any of the main conflicts presented and stopped rather abruptly.  At the end of its 400+ pages, I was left feeling that story just kind of rambled on without really going anywhere.

Similarly, the questions raised regarding civil rights for Gloamings, a key advertising point and a central theme of the earlier chapters, were non-starters for me as well.  The reader is never given a clear view of the social dynamics at play in this world and most of the insights into the causes being taken up were presented through dry court documents that were far too easy to skip over.  Since we were never introduced to any even remotely sympathetic or everyday Gloaming characters, the issues they were pushing for seemed inconsistent with what we were told about their secretive and elitist population.

Despite my misgivings, I did stick through with this to the end since more often than not the chapters were intriguing enough as standalone adventures and I was stubbornly holding out hope for some sort of big payoff or revelation.  I don’t know if perhaps my expectations were out of line for what the book was, but I ultimately felt neutral/bordering on disappointed about this one. I can’t say that I’d recommend it, but if you’re intrigued I wouldn’t warn you off it either.

Book Review: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, by Jill Twiss and Marlon Bundo (Illustrated by E.G. Keller)

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Book, Book Review, BOTUS, Childrens Book, Jill Twiss, LGBTQ, Marlon Bundo, Politics, Reading

As the father of a soon to be two-year old, I read a whole lot of children’s books on a daily basis.  While I have never felt the compelling need to review any of these, this one was different and as soon as I found out that it was making the rounds at my son’s playgroup I knew what I had to do.  I’m guessing most of you are aware that this story was written in response to a children’s book published by members of Michael Pence’s family about their pet bunny.  Looking to call out the Vice President on his homophobic beliefs, the creators of this particular story have imagined said pet falling in love with another male bunny.  This book has been featured prominently on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and all proceeds from it benefit AIDS United and the Trevor Project, which provides suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.

This is the story of an exceptional day in the life BOTUS (Bunny of the United States) Marlon Bundo, beloved family pet of Vice President Pence.  Marlon’s day starts out like any other by watching the morning news with Bunderson Cooper, ignoring his boring grandfather, and hopping about the White House premises.  Everything changes, however, when he spots a dashingly handsome boy bunny named Wesley and the two fall in love at first sight.  Standing in the way of their happiness is President Stink Bug, an abrasive, boorish creature with a bad toupee that does not approve of their relationship.  Fortunately, with the help of their animal friends and a timely civics lesson, Marlon and Wesley learn that it is okay to be different and are able to live happily ever after.

I thought this was a cute, fun read that delivered an important and positive age appropriate message to children about embracing each other’s differences and the importance of our right to vote.  Given the specific nature in which it parodies both Donald Trump and Michael Pence I don’t think this will age well enough to go down as an all-time classic children’s story, but it will put a smile on your face and I highly encourage giving it a read.  So long as you’re predisposed to its political leanings you’ll enjoy it whether you have kids to read it with or not.

 

 

 

Book Review: Frankenstein in Baghdad, by Ahmed Saadawi

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Ahmed Saadawi, Baghdad, Book, Book Review, Fantasy, Fiction, Frankenstein, Horror, Iraq, Reading

I was so eager to get started on this next novel that I made it my first non-Kindle read in quite some time.  Written by Iraqi author Ahmed Saadawi, it was originally published in 2013 and went on to win the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.  The English translation came out in January of this year and was released to a good amount of critical acclaim.

Set a few years after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and told from the overlapping perspectives of its diverse cast of characters, this is the story of how a truck bomb exploding in Baghdad’s Tarayan Square begins an extraordinary chain of events in these people’s lives.  It is from this tragedy that Hadi, a nearly impoverished junk trader, finds what he needs to complete his prized project: a human nose. For the past several months he has been covertly collecting body parts from bomb scenes and sewing them together in the hope that he can assemble a complete corpse that can get buried with dignity.  His plan, however, takes an unexpected turn when the newly completed corpse goes missing and a wave of brutal murders begin occurring in the surrounding neighborhoods.

I found this book to be thoroughly enchanting and a real joy to read.  The creature was a fascinating character that offered both a window into the hopes and fears of the Iraqi people and a statement on the madness of country’s internal conflicts.  More than anything this was a book about the average person’s struggle to find stability, and perhaps even some measure of success, amidst the constant violence and disorder of their everyday lives.  As such, it was the human characters who were the real stars here. People of particular note beyond Hadi include Elishva, an elderly Assyrian Christian widow longing for her missing son; Aziz the Egyptian, the owner of a local coffee shop and resident gossip; and Mahmoud al-Sawadi, an ambitious young journalist and rising star at al-Haqiqa magazine.  They collectively provide a gripping charisma and energy that brought the book to life and engulfed me in a world that combined the magical realism and ambiance of a Murakami novel with the grit of a war story.

This is probably my favorite book of the year so far and one that I highly to recommend to fans of all genres (with disclaimers about gore and violence).  Mysterious and thought-provoking throughout, this story was a captivating read that put a very human face on a country a lot of people may not think about much beyond the violence that makes the news.

Book Review: The Last Days of New Paris, by China Mieville

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Book, Book Review, China Mieville, Fiction, Horror, Reading, Surrealism

And now for things to get a bit weird.  This 2016 novel is my second reading from author China Mieville and probably one of the strangest books I’ve read for the blog so far.  

The story takes place in 1950 in an alternate version of Paris.  In this world not only is the war-torn city still occupied by Nazi Germany, but certain events that occured in 1941 have also made it an epicenter of supernatural activity.  Demons, in loose alliance with the Nazis, prowl the streets, while bizarre apparitions called manifs, manifestations of Surrealist art, are springing to life throughout the city with motivations known only to themselves.  The novel follows a young French resistance fighter named Thibaut who has decided to try escaping the city after seeing his resistance cell wiped out.  As he makes his way through the distorted remains of Paris, he teams up with a mysterious American photographer and a massive exquisite corpse, both of whom seem drawn to him as part of some higher purpose.

This was a strange one, but I enjoyed it immensely.  I’ll admit that the concept might sound a bit out there, but the Mieville pulled the story off quite well by maintaining a tight focus on Thibaut’s wanderings.  He didn’t really spend a whole lot of time justifying or explaining the weirdness, opting instead to just throw the reader in and let it flow. Haunting and engaging from the start, I found it very easy to get caught up in the bizarre and often grotesque imagery of this world.  Not knowing a whole lot about the Surrealist movement, I occasionally found myself going on tangents to look up a particular person, concept, or work of art that got referenced and quickly came to enjoy these efforts in their own right. Although the ending was a bit rushed in how quickly it wrapped up the conflicts that emerged, this book was definitely more about the journey than getting sort of resolution, and in that regard it most certainly delivered.

If you’re on the lookout to read something unique and a bit weird, I highly recommend picking this up.  I certainly had a good time with this book and consequently will be adding more from this author to my reading list.

 

Book Review: Men Without Women, by Haruki Murakami

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Book Review, Books, Fiction, Haruki Murakami, Reading

I’ve been a pretty avid reader of Murakami for some time now and as such made sure this new release got on my list as soon as possible.  As luck would have it, my hold came through only a few days after finding myself in-between books for the first time in several months.

Men Without Women is a collection of short stories featuring male protagonists and their complex, often troubled, relationships with women in their lives.  Rather dark in tone, issues of death, separation, and personal/societal estrangement are common features throughout all the stories in this volume.  Each character is lost in some way and have either resigned themselves to their situation or spend their days searching for something within themselves that may or may not be within their power to find.

On the whole I found this collection to be something of a mixed bag.  There were a few stories that I liked, but aside from those none of the others appealed to me as much as I had hoped they would.  The overall feel of the book was generally very bleak and it didn’t seem to have that same sense of magical realism that usually draws me into Murakami’s work.  While each story was without a doubt well-written, Murakami does an excellent job setting a scene and building characters throughout, these just wasn’t really what I was looking for.  None of the characters captured my interest all that much and as such I couldn’t get fully invested in their stories.  Appropriately enough, I didn’t make it through the one from which the collection took its name.

That said, there were two stories that I was particularly taken by.  Kino, my favorite of the group, is the story of a recently divorced man trying to open a new chapter in his life by converting his aunt’s tea house into a bar.  When something happens to drive away his two most reliable guests, a mysterious book-reading man and a stray cat, Kino is advised to get out of town for a while and lay low.  This was the one story that really left me wanting more and also the one that best captured the otherworldly mysticism that usually draws me into Murakami’s books.  The other note-worthy story for me was Samsa in Love, a tale far creepier and horror-like than anything I’ve read from Murakami to date.  It’s protagonist, a man named Samsa, regains consciousness in a boarded up room.  Disoriented and in a great deal of pain, he gradually comes to his senses and begins exploring his surroundings, taking step by excruciating step through an unfamiliar house.  As he does so, the reader slowly gets the impression that something is very wrong.  Samsa doesn’t seem fully comfortable inside his body and certain thoughts suggest that he may not have always been human.  His awkward interactions with a hunchbacked young woman he encounters adds to the sense of foreboding and gives the story a very eerie vibe that for better or worse goes unresolved.

Overall though, I surprised to say that I consider this book a miss for me, a rarity from this author.  After reading a number of other reviews I realize that I am in an extreme minority in my opinion here, so I’ll say that dedicated Murakami fans would probably find this worth checking out (I wouldn’t fault someone else for being more into these stories than I was).  That said, for someone new to the author I would personally recommend they start elsewhere.

Book Review: The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

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Book Review, Books, Fiction, Neil Gaiman, Reading

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book came highly recommended by my wife, who not so subtly hinted that I would really enjoy reading it.  Since we now have a son who will be spending a significant amount of time walking through graveyards and cemeteries with us, I saw potential in it despite some initial reservations; namely I wasn’t that into the last book I read by this author (American Gods – yeah, I know, you disagree) and I was wary of picking up a YA title.  Her persistence paid off, however, and I ultimately gave it a read.

The book follows the childhood adventures of Nobody (Bod) Owens, a boy who is orphaned in the first chapter after his family is murdered by a mysterious assassin.  Although only a toddler, he was able to escape from harm by hiding in a local cemetery, where the ghostly denizens decided to take him in.  Granted Freedom of the Graveyard, he is allowed both residence and certain powers within its domain.  Through a variety of otherworldly teachers and caretakers, Bod learns about life and survival in the graveyard and beyond.  Though there is an overall story, the book is divided into several episodic chapters each taking place at different years in boy’s life wherein he typically meets a new challenge and makes new discoveries and acquaintances.  As the story progresses, Bod grows into a young adult and eventually faces the man responsible for killing his family.

So here’s the part where I say that I ended up enjoying this book a lot.  It was a nicely told story that, despite a somewhat grisly opening chapter, was rather heartwarming and fun.  The author did a good job conveying a sense of child-like wonderment and adventure throughout.  I also really liked how the story came full circle by the end, with seemingly random bits and pieces from each chapter all coming together.  The other characters, though used somewhat sparingly, were all interesting and each added something of value to the story.  While this wasn’t a particularly deep novel, it was something that I am glad I took the time to read.  I might even look at the cemeteries we walk through a bit differently as a result.

Back to the Books: Two More from Murakami

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Book Review, Books, Fiction, Haruki Murakami, Reading

Next on my reading list were a pair of Murakami novels I first read a few years ago: Wild Sheep Chase and its sequel, Dance, Dance, Dance.  There are actually another two books in this series that take place before Wild Sheep Chase, but I have yet to come across English language translations of these.  Fortunately, they are not required to enjoy the books I do have access to.

Wild Sheep Chase takes place in 1978 and introduces us to the unnamed protagonist of both novels.  Living in an apartment in Tokyo, he is at a crossroads in life and seems doomed to live out his days in a rut with his sickly cat until two incredible events happen.  The first is beginning to date a girl with magical ears.  The second involves a picture of sheep in the Hokkaido countryside, provided to him some years ago by a recluse friend nicknamed “the Rat.”  When he uses this picture in a brochure for work, the protagonist catches the attention of powerful right-wing business leader, whose agent tasks him with finding one particular sheep from the photo, an animal suspected of carrying within it a means to access extraordinary powers of personal influence and intellect.  With only his girlfriend’s intuition and a set of cryptic letters from his friend to go by, he must find the sheep or face the consequences.

In Dance, Dance, Dance we are reunited with the unnamed protagonist roughly four and a half years after the conclusion of Wild Sheep Chase.  Shaken by the events of the previous novel, he finds himself inexplicably drawn back to Hokkaido and a certain hotel that changed the course of his previous adventure.  He is once again on a quest, this time for something that was lost during the first book.  As part of his search, he must navigate a world of eccentric artists, deceased call-girls, and random drives with a moody teenager to piece together the clues of this mystery.  Aiding him along are the only two friends he has left, a troubled 13 year-old clairvoyant and a rather famous former classmate with whom he has recently reconnected.

I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting these books, especially since enough time had passed since my first reading for them to feel fresh in my mind.  They had a sense of mystery and intrigue about them that really drew me into the world right away.  The way Murakami incorporated the supernatural elements of the story into normal everyday life and, inversely, made aspects of the magical world more mundane is something I found quite engrossing.  His combination of eerie gloominess, resigned acceptance, and a pragmatic hope really drew me to the story, presenting a gripping and an intense mix of surreal and grimly all-too-real elements.

Enhancing this mood were a wealth of sensory descriptions and references that brought greater intimacy to the story.  Murakami did a great job getting the reader into the setting of wherever the action was taking place; forests, beaches, bars, cars, hotel rooms, etc. were all brought to life in ways that almost took the reader there themselves.  Food and drink are also brought up frequently, giving the story a taste and smell as well; mainly noodle dishes and whisky, with some international cuisine and the occasional case of beer thrown in for good measure.  Most striking of all though was the music, as both novels referenced a rich catalogue of tapes and records that provided an excellent soundtrack to the reading experience.  Running the range from 1960s jazz (Arthur Prysock and Count Basie) and rock (Rolling Stones) to contemporaries like Michael Jackson, Talking Heads, and Styx, the diversity presented was almost as much fun to keep track of as the story itself.

The thing that united all this into an amazing story though was the protagonist.  It is from his perspective alone that we experience the action, gain insight to the world, and meet the precious few other characters.  He was no doubt stubborn, aimless, and more than once referred to as “abnormal,” but at the same time he was also sympathetic, engaging, and, perhaps most importantly of all, interesting as he confronted his own existential issues about work and modern society in the course of his bizarre quests.  Through his introspection we get such memorable lines as the following:

And the same can be said for collecting garbage and shoveling snow.  It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not – a job’s a job.  For three and a half years, I’d been making this kind of contribution to society.  Shoveling snow.  You know, cultural snow.  (Dance, Dance, Dance; Page 7)

While not verbalized in the first book, this concept of metaphorically shoveling snow was central to the character’s view of his job throughout both novels.  Work-wise, he’s just doing time to earn money while he focuses on and figures the important stuff.  He is perhaps equally cynical about society as a whole, as evidenced by his thoughts that:

Although I didn’t think so at the time, things were a lot simpler in 1969.  All you had to do to express yourself was throw rocks at riot police.  But with today’s sophistication, who’s in a position to throw rocks?….Everything is rigged, tied into that massive capital web, and beyond this web there’s another web.  Nobody’s going anywhere.  You throw a rock and it’ll come right back at you.  (Dance, Dance, Dance; Page 55)

We live in an advanced capitalist society, after all.  Waste is the name of the game, its greatest virtue.  (Dance, Dance, Dance; Page 12)

Like if you listen to the radio for a whole hour, there’s maybe one decent song.  The rest is mass-produced garbage. (Dance, Dance, Dance; Page 112)

Through these insights, along with his tendency to offer absurdist non-sequiturs, the protagonist became a character that I was able to get invested in as a reader and, as a result, he really pushed these books over the top for me.  After factoring in all the other things I liked about these novels, I can easily say that they are among my favorites from Murakami.  Together or separately they make for excellent reads that showcase the author’s literary skills and storytelling abilities.  Consider them highly recommended.

Book Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, by Haruki Murakami

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Book Review, Books, Fiction, Haruki Murakami, Reading

My adventure in reading continues, this time with another book by perhaps my favorite author: Haruki Murakami.  Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage was first published in early 2013 for the Japanese market, while the English version I read came out in mid-2014.  Going in I had read just about every piece of Murakami’s fiction available in English, so this one had been high on my reading list since it was released.

This book was the story of Tsukuru Tazaki, an engineer in his late-30s living in roughly present day Tokyo.  Through conversations with his girlfriend Sara and a series of flashbacks, we learn that he has spent a large part of his life struggling with feelings of emptiness and depression as a result of an incident that occurred some 16 years ago.  Growing up in Nagoya, Tazaki and four of his classmates comprised a close-knit, inseparable unit of friends that came together early in their highschool years.  Some time later, during his second year away at university in Tokyo, Tazaki was informed out of nowhere that the other four group members were severing all communication with him, no reasons or explanations provided.  With Sara’s urging Tazaki feels he is ready to seek out and confront his former friends about the past and get the closure he needs to move on with his life.

I really enjoyed this reading experience, but man was this a heavy book.  The overall tone was rather dark, as Tazaki’s moods don’t vary far outside the range of passively suicidal lows to “highs” of mild acceptance of, and resignation to, life.  It was never overly dramatic, but the mood simultaneously weighs the reader down and pushes them forward.  While the book did do a good job of getting the reader hooked from the beginning, I found that I got more and more engaged as the story went on.  By the middle, it had built up a lot of momentum and went by very quickly as it neared the end.  As I approached the final pages, I started to get very anxious about what the outcome might be and what sort of closure the reader would get.  The story had slowly built up to such an intensity, that I didn’t fully realize it until I finished the last page and would have done anything to have gotten more.  

This sense of involvement was developed by Murakami’s fantastic ability to tell a story and the strength of Tazaki as a character.  True to his form, Murakami fully engaged the reader’s senses as well.  Colors play a big role in the story and hint at tensions between the characters.  In Tazaki’s original group of friends, the two boys were “Red” and “Blue,” while the two girls were “White” and “Black.”  Unique among his group, Tazaki was the only one who did not have a family name that signified a color and instead saw himself a colorless vessel into which the others expressed themselves.  Music also featured prominently in the story, in particular Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage.  Of course a record player was involved, as was a mysterious traveling pianist.  As for Tazaki, himself, despite not being the most charismatic or engaging person, he was none-the-less a fascinatingly likeable and approachable character whom the reader wants to follow along on his journey.

Another thing that stood out to me while I was reading was that for all of its stylistic familiarity, the book had something of a different feel to it than most of the other works I had read by Murakami.  Now that I think about it, there were two key elements that contributed to this feeling.  The first was that there was less of the author’s usual mysticism present in this story.  That’s not to suggest it wasn’t there, but unlike in some of his other works, most of the story and conflicts played out either physically or psychologically in the real world.  I think this was a good choice, as it made the story that much more foreboding.  The other thing that felt different was that this book took place closer to present day than any of the other Murakami novels I have read thus far.  Characters having access to things like email and cell phones seemed almost out of sorts with the types of worlds I’d grown accustomed to in these works.  I always think of his characters inhabiting a mysterious otherworld of 1980s apartments and smoke-filled jazz bars, but again, it just seemed to feel right having these characters occupy a more modern world.

I am really happy I took the time to read this book, and would readily recommend it to others as seasoned Murakami fans and newcomers alike can enjoy it.  Just don’t go in expecting something lighthearted.