Murakami On Friendship

 |  By Cassandra Neyenesch - 

Posted: 03/16/2015 - HuffPost Books

March 1, 2015 — It might be fair to say that Norwegian Wood (1987) illustrate his “normal” mode, in which he recounts a nostalgic, affecting tale of relationship and loss. In his “weird” mode -- weird in the eerie, old-fashioned sense -- he gives us talking animals and dream states. This mode is at work in his sprawling novel 1Q84, where we even get a small, lopsided extra moon that shows up in the night sky, and tiny megalomaniac people walking out of a goat’s mouth as the world slips into a different dimension.
Haruki Murakami has had two narrative modes in his novels and short stories. Works like

If there is nothing very weird in Murakami’s latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, this may be because Murakami didn’t need to go into his uncanny toolbox for this quiet fable, which is ultimately about friendship. With its short, simple narrative, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage has the feeling of a palate cleanser after the epic, claustrophobic alternate universe of 1Q84.

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