Book Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami has to be one of my favorite writers and storytellers of all time, but I'm only giving this particular book three stars out of five, which is simply a "Good"; leaving me saddened, in my own personal feelings during my reading; saddened for the main character's feelings; and saddened in the overall writing of this story. 

The boredom I continually felt, fought with my knowledge of my wanting to find something worth salvaging from this story. There were interjections of words of wisdom, but confused them in the mix of sexual meaningless. 

I wanted to feel each point of the story, to connect them to other points of the story, but it blasaily continued on, and on, leaving me feeling cheated in small disconnected ways, and then watching the main character, Tsukuru Tazaki, sit endlessly watching trains go by, time after time,was equivalent to watching paint dry. 

For the life of me, I can't stand it when a writer has a character "biting her lip", on multiple occasions no less, until I want to "swoon" in dismay!  Why do writers like Murakami stoop to an Austenesque melodrama? 

I felt as if I were dropped in the midst of a Murakami personal journal, not good, not bad, just "lacklusterly" there and resigned.  I think “lackluster” pretty much covers it in a word.  

Yes, writers can leave endings to the reader’s own imagination, but my imagination was split right down the middle, almost hoping Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki would simply die in the end from one of his “shooting pains to the heart”.  Yes, again, this main character depressed me to that point.., but instead Tazaki fades away into his colorless unconsciousness...  Was there hope for him in the end?  Only Murakami can answer that..

It saddens me to have to say these negative things about this novel, but that's how it left me feeling, saddened to my core.

Book Review - A Life of One's Own by Ilana Simons

Rarely do we get a chance to enter the little known world of an author’s most private thoughts. We read their stories and we see their character’s visions through their voice. Plots are seamlessly developed along the way, blending the climactic concordance of these elements. But with this said, I hear a voice in which I have never heard before, by this author, Ilana Simons. She gives a personal account of another author, one who had fought to give her own voice to the world.

Virginia Woolf becomes not just the central character to Ilana’s story, but the narrator of this new author’s dreams and visions. We see the many lives of Woolf, translated into a wealth of intertwining plots.

There was not a single word unsaid, gathering us in, together and around this captivating tribute to a woman to reckon with. Ilana has come to it with force and with beauty, showing us Virginia, a woman who wanted to be everything in life, but only after death, soared and became.

Ilana gives us a rare and intimate voice, in the telling of Woolf’s life challenges, in turn applying them within her own life, then relating it into ours. This wisdom for us is unique, and graces each page she writes. Hard facts and ideas are folding and blending with soft personal thoughts within Virginia’s thoughts, seeking and showing the feelings to which we can all identify.

Virginia strived to relate to her everyday existence, an existence in which she fought her entire life to maintain with balance, while dealing with an illness that brought her life to an all too soon end.

It is, indeed, a rare voice we hear within this book; Ilana showing us what desires can be fulfilled through Virginia’s wisdom, and works Virginia had fought to put in print; Ilana has given to us her own voice in print, straight to our ears, touching our own desires for a better life.

There is no perfect self, or a perfect world, but with Ilana Simons’ tender words, they translate Virginia Woolf’s heart to your heart. You will not come away hungry after reading this book, unless it is a hunger for life.