I have, in general, really quite enjoyed Haruki Murakami's novels. I prefer the weirder ones - he's got a knack for surreality, a world that feels just a jump or two over from normal, in fascinating ways. I like the discombobulation and estrangement from the world I get from those novels.
This book is less surreal, more, I think, realistic. I kept expecting weirdness to break out - it feels like it should. But it never quite does, and so I think I was always waiting for the shoe to drop and was a bit disappointed that it never did. I know that's judging a book for what you think it should be, rather than what it was, and Murakami can certainly write whatever he wants. But because of all of the above, this particular book felt a bit flat.
It's not terrible, by any means. It captures melancholy very well, the feeling of someone drifting. Less a pilgrimage, as the title suggests, but more the passage of years while feeling fundamentally unmoored. Depression and isolation, both are strongly present.
I sit here, trying to write this on the day after the first anniversary of my Mom's death. I grapple with how I'm feeling all the time, knowing that I'm doing as well as I am because of the people around me, because I'm not isolated, because I have many wonderful friends and family who check in and get it when I need to pull back for a while to just be sad. In a lot of ways, I'm in an opposite space than Tsukuru. Feelings are strong, and I feel more connected, not less. (I'm also fortunate in that my personal biochemistry seems to have no ability to linger in depression. A day, at most, then I tend to find my footing again.)
Then again, Tsukuru's depression stems from the fact that he was severed unexpectedly from the group of friends he made in high school that were so absorbed in each other there was no room for anyone else, or room for a self apart from the group. As an adult, he is still marked by the way they severed ties while he was away in university.
His new girlfriend sends him on a mission to meet each of his old friends who cut him off to find out why. When we, the audience, find out why, I was disappointed. Given where we are right now, in this particular moment, having the book hinge on a false accusation of rape made me want to pull myself back from engaging. It's unfortunate this coincided so closely with the #MeToo moment - at a moment when we still don't trust any women when they say they've been raped, reading a book where a main character is railroaded without a chance to defend himself from a frivolous rape charge, but whom everyone assumes or knows was false, was difficult.
And then going into the violent and sexual nature of the death of the character who made the rape charge, from the depths, it seems, of mental illness, without ever having her present as a character, just a memory and a body, it's just...it made me deeply uncomfortable.
Then, at the end, Tsukuru still pins his happiness, his very life, on having others who put him first, who commit to him utterly. It doesn't feel like he's changed. We are left in that melancholy space. I might have forgiven a lot more if this incorporated some magical realism, but what we have is just realism, and it was disappointing.
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