Thursday, August 07, 2014

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

Full of ambiguity and sex – all Murakami's signature flourishes are here

Illustration by Clifford Harper/Agraphia.co.uk
Illustration by Clifford Harper/Agraphia.co.uk

Very few writers reach the stage of being able to include in their books wry references to their failure to win the Nobel prize in literature. But, in Bech at Bay (1998), John Updike awarded his authorial surrogate, Henry Bech, the Swedish medal and cheque that Updike feared (correctly, it proved) he was doomed never to win himself. And now the 14th work of fiction by Haruki Murakami, a Nobel favourite in recent years among the bookmakers but not the judges, features a young physics student lamenting that few in his profession make much money unless they "win the Nobel prize or something".
    Although his dig is less pointed than Updike's, Murakami will have known the effect that even such a glancing nod to the Swedish Academy will have had on his readership: in Japan, fans have taken to gathering in cafes with champagne on ice on the day that the news comes from Stockholm. 
    The connection of the Nobel with wealth can be seen as cheeky, because Murakami is perhaps the only contender for the prize to whom the millions of kronor wouldn't make much difference. Almost without precedent in modern times, he has combined giddy popularity – in Japan, his novels can sell 1m copies in the week of publication – with the literary prestige of admiring reviews from giants such as Updike.
    More


    While at The New York Times:

    Deep Chords: Haruki Murakami’s ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage’

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