Fans and journalists stayed up all night to get their hands on Murakami's tale of 'loss
and isolation' in the shadow of the tsunami, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Japanese readers flip through Haruki Murakami's new book. Photograph: Kimimasa Mayama/EPA
Nothing had been revealed but the mysterious title, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, but that didn't stop hundreds of Haruki Murakami devotees queuing at midnight outside Tokyo bookshops last night to get their hands on the cult novelist's latest title.
Newspapers and broadcasters rushed to post reviews of the book, which had been kept closely under wraps. Fans and journalists stayed up all night to get to grips with Murakami's first major novel in three years, with early reviews proving positive.
On Friday morning, an NHK journalist told the broadcaster he was still only halfway through the "gripping" title, while Michiko Mamuro, a bookstore employee in central Tokyo, breezed through its 370 pages in a couple of hours.
Mamuro revealed that the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown form the work's backdrop. "I got the impression that Murakami faced the disaster head on," she told the Asahi Shimbun. "The book is filled with strong messages and many encouraging words."
According to the Asahi Shimbun's early review, the novel is "the tale of a man who tries to overcome his sense of loss and isolation". At high school, protagonist Tsukuru Tazaki had four close friends whose names represented different colours. His did not, and at university he was rejected by his friends. Now 36, Tazaki is looking back on his empty, colourless life. "From July of his sophomore year at college to January next year, Tsukuru Tazaki was living while mostly thinking about dying," the novel opens.
Reviewer Chiaki Yoshimura wrote that while the novel lacked the "strong personalities" of Murakami's acclaimed 1Q84, she "empathise[d] with Tazaki, who tries to overcome the emotional trauma he suffered in the past while trying to take back his life".
With the publisher Bungeishunjū adding another 100,000 copies within hours of its release to an initial print run of 500,000, according to Reuters, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki is set to top charts in Japan. It is already sitting at number one on Amazon.co.jp's bestseller list.
But Murakami's refusal to reveal anything about the book in advance – a tactic he used to great effect with his last novel, 1Q84, which sold a million copies within a month in 2009 – drew some acerbic comment online.
One Twitter user claimed he didn't need to read the book to know the storyline. "It's about a man who is smart but lonely, has no friends, but somehow attracts women and makes spaghetti," he speculated.
In a quotation on the cover of the book, Murakami said that even he had been surprised by how the book turned out. "One day I just felt like it, and I sat at my desk and started to write the first few lines of this story," he said, according to Reuters. "Then for about half a year, I continued to write this story without knowing anything like what would happen, what type of people would appear and how long the story would be."
A publication date for the book in English has not yet been announced.
Newspapers and broadcasters rushed to post reviews of the book, which had been kept closely under wraps. Fans and journalists stayed up all night to get to grips with Murakami's first major novel in three years, with early reviews proving positive.
On Friday morning, an NHK journalist told the broadcaster he was still only halfway through the "gripping" title, while Michiko Mamuro, a bookstore employee in central Tokyo, breezed through its 370 pages in a couple of hours.
Mamuro revealed that the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown form the work's backdrop. "I got the impression that Murakami faced the disaster head on," she told the Asahi Shimbun. "The book is filled with strong messages and many encouraging words."
According to the Asahi Shimbun's early review, the novel is "the tale of a man who tries to overcome his sense of loss and isolation". At high school, protagonist Tsukuru Tazaki had four close friends whose names represented different colours. His did not, and at university he was rejected by his friends. Now 36, Tazaki is looking back on his empty, colourless life. "From July of his sophomore year at college to January next year, Tsukuru Tazaki was living while mostly thinking about dying," the novel opens.
Reviewer Chiaki Yoshimura wrote that while the novel lacked the "strong personalities" of Murakami's acclaimed 1Q84, she "empathise[d] with Tazaki, who tries to overcome the emotional trauma he suffered in the past while trying to take back his life".
With the publisher Bungeishunjū adding another 100,000 copies within hours of its release to an initial print run of 500,000, according to Reuters, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki is set to top charts in Japan. It is already sitting at number one on Amazon.co.jp's bestseller list.
But Murakami's refusal to reveal anything about the book in advance – a tactic he used to great effect with his last novel, 1Q84, which sold a million copies within a month in 2009 – drew some acerbic comment online.
One Twitter user claimed he didn't need to read the book to know the storyline. "It's about a man who is smart but lonely, has no friends, but somehow attracts women and makes spaghetti," he speculated.
In a quotation on the cover of the book, Murakami said that even he had been surprised by how the book turned out. "One day I just felt like it, and I sat at my desk and started to write the first few lines of this story," he said, according to Reuters. "Then for about half a year, I continued to write this story without knowing anything like what would happen, what type of people would appear and how long the story would be."
A publication date for the book in English has not yet been announced.
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