By Tabitha Redder/managing editor

Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, like his other works, is spellbinding and strange.

The story follows the protagonist, Tsukuru Tazaki, through a short period of his mundane, miserable life as he tries to uncover the reasoning behind his high school friends suddenly shunning him 15 years prior and the way it still haunts him and his relationships in the present.
Through beautiful metaphors and diction, the author addresses the fleeting nature of friendship along with loneliness and the troubles of adulthood.

Readers will be lost before slowly making connections within the novel and understanding the plot, but it’s almost impossible to not get engrossed with the story and its few characters, even if readers initially feel baffled.

Murakami is known for certain themes and motifs in his books and Colorless Tsukuru is no exception. Bits of historical knowledge, classical and jazz music references and Japanese geographical information are all seamlessly tucked into the storyline.

The book has some eclectic scenes, but devoted fans of the bizarre twisted plots and parallel worlds of his masterpiece 1Q84 will be surprised to find this novel a bit bland. Or maybe just more “normal.”

It also seems Murakami set the book up for a sequel or just enjoys creating agonizing cliffhangers.

It is a quick, compact read compared to the three-volume 1,000-page vastness of 1Q84 but in a way, pales in comparison. However, given the 1 million copies sold in its first week of release in Japan, Colorless Tsukuru is far from disappointing.