Broad Sound

cw: sexual assault & self-harm

Haruki Murakami is my favorite author. After falling in love with his novel Norwegian Wood in college, I consumed a steady diet of his works, scrambling to get paperbacks of all the books I’d missed while also making sure to pick up the newest hardcovers on the first day of release. Of course, I’m not alone. 

Really, I’m just one of a legion of Murakami fans all around the world, each brought into the fold by a gateway text. Maybe it’s a novel like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore that converts a new reader to the Gospel of Haruki. Or perhaps it’s a film adaptation like Lee Chang-dong’s Burning or Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car that motivates someone to seek out Murakami’s original work. I’m sure the initiation is different for everyone.

While each of Murakami’s books has its fans, the one that I have come to love above all others is his 2013 novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. Without a doubt, it’s the most personally meaningful of all his works to me, but that’s not the only reason I like the book so much. I also believe that the novel is a prime example of Murakami’s talents as a writer.

In the novel, thirty-six-year-old Tsukuru Tazaki embarks on a quest to solve the central mystery of his life:

One day his four closest friends, the friends he’d known for a long time, announced that they did not want to see him, or talk with him, ever again. It was a sudden, decisive declaration, with no room for compromise. They gave no explanation, not a word, for this harsh pronouncement. And Tsukuru didn’t dare ask. (5)

Tsukuru’s abrupt expulsion, occurring during his sophomore year of college, serves as a bitter confirmation of his most private fears, as he always felt that he didn’t quite belong. For starters, his surname was the only one among his friends that didn’t have a color in it, so while everyone else picked nicknames to match—Aka (red), Ao (blue), Shiro (white) and Kuro (black)—Tsukuru was left “colorless” by comparison. Sadly, Tsukuru comes to believe that the lack of color in his name reflects a much deeper issue; in terms of personality, he always felt that he paled in comparison to his more vibrant peers. After his unceremonious exile from the group, Tsukuru falls into a deep depression for the next five months, as their cruel rejection pushes him to the brink of suicide. Although he eventually recovers and attempts to put the past behind him, the deep emotional wound never fully heals.

Sixteen years later, Tsukuru’s new girlfriend, Sara Kimoto, encourages him to seek out the real reason for his banishment in the hopes that he might overcome this unresolved trauma. Serving double duty as both armchair therapist and private investigator, Sara uses social media to track down the whereabouts of Tsukuru’s friends, and sends him on a mission to discover what really happened all those years ago.

Of course, Tsukuru’s pursuit of the truth drives the plot, but another mystery lingers long after this storyline reaches its conclusion—although not in Tsukuru’s mind, nor perhaps even in that of the reader. At the beginning of his junior year of college, Tsukuru is hit with a second unexplained occurrence: his first and only friend in Tokyo vanishes without a trace, never to be heard from again. 

Considering how Murakami treats this dangling subplot in the context of the entire novel, I can see how many readers would be tempted to accept the character’s unexplained departure as an interpretive dead-end—a purposely impenetrable mystery. However, I would argue that this unresolved, largely unexamined element of the story operates as a covert parable, illustrating the larger lesson of Murakami’s novel that is made clear at the end of Tsukuru’s pilgrimage. Without calling particular attention to itself, the disappearance of the protagonist’s friend not only reflects the book’s preoccupation with meaning and (mis)interpretation but also provides a gentle critique of the insecurity and obliviousness of youth. Due to the damaging effects of his initial trauma, Tsukuru fails to see the truth about his missing friend, even though all the clues are hidden in plain sight. 

A Gray Area

Why do I love Haruki Murakami’s work? While my interpretation of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage will likely shed considerable light on this subject, I believe a brief discussion of a more recent publication would be more immediately helpful, as it illustrates a particular feature of Murakami’s writing in a succinct and comprehensible way.

While reading Murakami’s 2020 short story collection First Person Singular, I had the distinct pleasure of remembering why I found his work so captivating in the first place. In one story, a man receives an invitation to a piano recital from an old classmate, only to find the venue mysteriously deserted when he arrives. In another strange tale, a college student writes a tongue-in-cheek review of a Charlie Parker album that doesn’t actually exist. Fifteen years later, he visits a used record store in New York and discovers a vinyl record bearing the same title and track list that he made up as a joke. In yet another enigmatic yarn, the protagonist is accosted at a bar by a woman claiming that he committed a horrible, shameful misdeed against a mutual friend, but he has no idea who or what she’s talking about. These are just a handful of the odd, unexplained experiences detailed in this collection, which are representative of similar moments that recur throughout Murakami’s fiction. As the narrator of “Cream,” the collection’s first short story, remarks, “Things like this happen sometimes in our lives […] Inexplicable, illogical things that nevertheless are deeply disturbing” (24).

In my own life, I can’t tell you how many bizarre experiences I’ve had. I’m a logical person, so I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation behind each one, but many of these incidents remain a complete mystery even now. That’s one of the reasons why Murakami’s work has resonated with me. Even in his most realistic fiction, he has always demonstrated a knack for depicting how the uncanny can creep into our otherwise mundane lives—those moments where we’re not quite sure what’s happening. Is it a coincidence? A prank? A dream? As with the best mystery novels, Murakami’s work perfectly captures how unsettling it feels to be plunged headlong into the great unknown. However, unlike the ending of a classic detective story, the answers he provides are never tied up in a neat little bow.

This uncanny effect occurs repeatedly in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. Beyond the novel’s central premise, nothing is more puzzling than the abrupt disappearance of Haida, Tsukuru’s first and only friend in college. Curiously, like Tsukuru’s high school pals back in Nagoya, Haida boasts a color-based surname: “The young man’s name was Haida, which meant, literally, ‘gray field.’ Fumiaki Haida. Another person with a color, Tsukuru mused. Mister Gray. Though gray, of course, was a fairly subdued color” (48). The color gray has numerous connotations, but ambiguity seems to be the most apt in this context. Neither black nor white, gray signifies an unclear situation, as in the expressions “a moral gray area” or “shades of gray.” It’s the perfect name for Tsukuru’s missing friend because the novel is all about the lack of clarity in the protagonist’s life, and his failed attempts to make sense of it.

Some critics view Haida’s inclusion in the novel in terms of his narrative purpose. In the 2014 monograph The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami, scholar Matthew Carl Strecher provides the first extensive analysis of the novel in English and claims that “Haida’s role in the narrative, then, is to awaken in Tazaki an awareness of the nature of his inner sexual desire” (199). Similarly, in her glowing appraisal of Murakami’s novel for The New York Times Book Review, musician Patti Smith posits that “Haida serves an important purpose, filling Tsukuru’s postsuicidal days with companionship and shaking him out of his solitary torpor.” While I agree with both their assessments, I would argue that Haida serves an even greater purpose.

In the novel, Tsukuru and Haida quickly become the best of friends, but everything changes one fateful weekend when Haida sleeps over at Tsukuru’s apartment. In the middle of the night, Tsukuru senses a presence watching him in the corner of the room—it’s Haida, barely visible in the darkness. Even so, Tsukuru isn’t sure that it’s actually Haida: “The real Haida, his actual flesh and blood, was sound asleep on the sofa in the next room. The Haida standing here must be a kind of projection that had slipped free of the real Haida. That’s the way it felt” (98). After this “projection” of Haida leaves the room, Tsukuru falls back asleep, only to find himself in bed with a naked Shiro and Kuro. The two women begin sexually pleasuring Tsukuru, but just as he is on the verge of climaxing, they suddenly disappear, only to be replaced by Haida, who performs oral sex on him as he orgasms.

After awakening the next morning, Tsukuru is both puzzled and deeply ashamed by his erotic dream, especially Haida’s surprising inclusion. For a second, he wonders whether the dream really happened, only to dismiss it as an impossibility: “It had all taken place in the dark interior of my mind” (103). This also seems to be the consensus opinion of many critics who have read the book—it was all a dream. For example, in Janet Maslin’s review for The New York Times, she clearly believes that Tsukuru was only dreaming about his friends. Although Tsukuru comes to share this opinion as well, the dream itself remains a cause for anxiety.

Nevertheless, to Tsukuru’s relief, Haida behaves normally at breakfast, and the two carry on as usual—until Tsukuru’s younger friend vanishes that afternoon. Naturally, Tsukuru begins to speculate about his friend’s reasons for disappearing, concluding that Haida left because he simply saw too much:

Tsukuru began to think that his younger friend had left him because of the graphic sexual dream he’d experienced. Maybe something had made it possible for Haida to observe all that had taken place in Tsukuru’s consciousness, and it had disgusted him. Or maybe it angered him. (106)

Although Tsukuru recognizes the unlikeliness of astral projection as an explanation, he still “couldn’t shake the feeling that Haida’s clear eyes had honed in on the twisted aspects that lay buried in Tsukuru’s mind, and the thought left him feeling ashamed” (106). Tsukuru’s thinking turns further inward, as he theorizes that Haida deliberately chose to avoid him because he “observed Tsukuru’s secret fantasies and desires” and “had just needed some time apart from Tsukuru in order to accept what he’d seen” (108-109).

Although Haida returns ten days later, he disappears for good during winter break. This time, Tsukuru attempts to check up on his friend, only to realize that he doesn’t have a phone number or a home address for Haida’s family. When Tsukuru embarks on a cursory investigation, he discovers that Haida’s dorm room is empty and that his friend has taken an official leave of absence from school. Tsukuru is shocked that Haida had never once uttered a word of his plans, even though they had spent most of their free time together prior to winter break. 

In the aftermath, Tsukuru doubles down on his initial theory, believing “that Haida had partially absorbed Tsukuru’s sin, his impurity, and as a result he had had to go far away” (114). Curiously, this is the only interpretation that Murakami offers the reader. No additional theories are even entertained. Further, Tsukuru does not agonize over Haida’s departure for long. He does not ask questions. He does not seek a more complete understanding of the truth. In fact, he drops the matter entirely. Tsukuru’s thought process is best exemplified by the way he filed “doubt inside a drawer in his mind labeled ‘Pending’ and postponed any further consideration” (104-105). Amazingly, Murakami himself also seems to toss Haida into the “Pending” drawer of the larger narrative, as the character never reappears. For both Tsukuru and the reader, Haida’s disappearance is presented as a mystery without a solution. 

But is it really?

In Black and White

Another thing that I love about Haruki Murakami’s fiction is how it transports me to an earlier time in my life, of which Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is a prime example. Murakami often writes from the perspective of an outsider, and ever since I was a young boy, I have felt like one. Maybe it’s because I was born in Singapore and raised in rural Oklahoma. Maybe it’s because I’m half Chinese and half white. Maybe it’s because of a lot of things. For the longest time, I just felt like the whole world was in on a joke that had been purposely kept from me. Even worse, I worried that I might be the punchline.

The last time I felt that way was during my first year in my doctoral program. I have the distinct memory of my classmates milling around outside after the seminar had finished. The moment I joined them, the conversation came to an abrupt halt. I stood there anyway, while idle chatter resumed. It seemed like they had been making plans. It seemed like they had wanted to go somewhere. It seemed like they were waiting for me to leave. So, I left first. Of course, I’ve since learned that this wasn’t remotely the case at all—it was my own mistaken perception of what was happening, born of my personal insecurities and past experiences. And that’s the exact same mindset that Murakami is tapping into with this novel.

In truth, Tsukuru suffers from a similar problem as my younger self. Beyond his exile from the group, the one mystery that baffles him well into adulthood is why he was included among these four people in the first place. While his subsequent pilgrimage to visit his former friends does reveal the shocking reason behind his excommunication from the group, it also suggests that Tsukuru’s memories of high school cannot be completely trusted.

Based on the way the novel is written, one thing that is easy to forget is that the third-person narration is neither omniscient nor impartial; although the narrative voice seems authoritative, it never communicates more than what Tsukuru knows, and never challenges his mistaken impressions. Murakami frequently employs free indirect discourse, a literary technique in which Tsukuru’s thoughts and the third-person narration blend together. Other times, the narrator will directly attribute certain thoughts solely to Tsukuru. For example, after numerous passages that list the various merits of Tsukuru’s friends, Murakami slips in a clause that reveals the subjectivity of these assessments: “But when it came to Tsukuru himself, there was not one single quality he possessed that was worth bragging about or showing off to others. At least that was how he viewed himself. Everything about him was middling, pallid, lacking in color” (13; emphasis mine). In truth, he is not necessarily colorless at all; that’s simply how Tsukuru views himself. Gradually, as Tsukuru tracks down his former friends one by one, the reader discovers that his overly critical perception of his teenage self is not how the others saw him at all.

In fact, each former friend paints a much different picture of Tsukuru than the one he has sketched for himself. Ao, now a Lexus dealer in Nagoya, gushes about how handsome, polite, and level-headed Tsukuru was as a teenager. Aka, a successful businessman, sees Tsukuru as the real trailblazer of the group: “The four of us who stayed behind weren’t brave enough to venture out like you did. We were afraid of leaving the town we were brought up in […] We couldn’t leave that warm comfort zone” (167-168). The biggest revelation comes at the end of his pilgrimage when Kuro, now living in Finland, reveals that she was secretly in love with Tsukuru back in high school:

“I never knew,” Tsukuru said.

“That’s because you were a moron,” [Kuro] said, pressing an index finger to her temple. “We were together that long, and I tried sending out signals. If you’d had even half a brain, you would have picked up on them.” Tsukuru pondered these signals, but couldn’t come up with a thing. (250)

During their reunion, Kuro gives Tsukuru some measure of closure and catharsis, as he realizes that he’s misinterpreted so much of how he saw the past. In the end, the novel’s message seems crystal clear: the insecurities and obliviousness of youth can obscure the full truth, giving us a faulty view of ourselves and others. The interlude with Haida is a microcosm of this underlying theme—in fact, it is the entire novel in miniature, albeit without a happy reunion or revelation.

To understand Haida’s greater significance, I must first discuss one more crucial element of the novel: the solution to its central puzzle. Tsukuru’s journey to discover the reason behind his banishment from the group results in an answer, albeit one that only raises more questions. Early in his investigation, Tsukuru discovers that Shiro falsely accused him of rape. Kuro didn’t actually believe her, but to preserve Shiro’s fragile mental health, she demanded that the others cut Tsukuru off entirely. Ao and Aka eventually came to doubt Shiro’s story, but by then, the damage had been done. Nevertheless, the rape itself was real, as Shiro became pregnant and later miscarried. Each former friend speculates as to why Shiro lied about Tsukuru, but none of their theories are truly satisfying. Unfortunately, Shiro is unable to explain herself, as she was murdered six years earlier.

Readers will likely perceive Shiro’s initial rape and eventual murder as connected events, but the novel refuses a simple answer. Despite a number of colorful characters from which to choose, Murakami provides no viable suspect for Shiro’s rapist. Even the circumstances of her death are mysterious, resembling a classic locked-room mystery. Shiro was found on her kitchen floor, strangled to death with a cloth belt. There were no signs of robbery, no evidence of a struggle, and no suspicious noises to alert the neighbors. Her door automatically locked from the inside. With no leads, the investigation quickly turned cold, and her case was forgotten. In the end, Shiro’s actual rapist, her motive for accusing Tsukuru, and the identity of her murderer remain eternal question marks.

It’s tempting, then, to think of Haida’s disappearance in the same way. However, while Haida is indeed “Mister Gray,” the solution to the mystery of his departure may be more black and white than Tsukuru realizes. What immediately clouds the issue is Tsukuru’s fanciful interpretation of what happened. His ideas about astral projection and absorbing sin may sound far-fetched as I have presented them, but in Tsukuru’s defense, his hypotheses make a certain kind of sense for reasons that exist both inside and outside the novel. 

First of all, both before and after the interlude with Haida, the subject of alternate realities, shadow selves, and evil spirits are brought up time and again. When characters speak on these subjects, there is rarely a distinction between the literal and the metaphorical. In that respect, Tsukuru’s belief that Haida somehow witnessed what happened within his unconscious mind fits within the novel’s larger tableau of dream logic, potentially influencing the reader’s judgment on its viability as a theory.

Secondly, Tsukuru’s version of events makes even more sense if the reader is at all familiar with the magical realism that permeates much of Murakami’s prior and later work. After all, a talking Sheep Man appears in A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance; parallel realities collide in 1Q84, a man has the ability to communicate with cats in Kafka on the Shore, and the list goes on. As a matter of fact, the entire premise of Matthew Strecher’s aforementioned monograph is Murakami’s propensity for creating strange, metaphysical worlds that exist outside reality as we know it. Characters disappearing suddenly into another realm, or having sexually explicit, yet somehow meaningful dreams, are not uncommon in Murakami’s work. For readers who know this, there may be a temptation to simply accept the bizarreness of the novel and look no deeper than what the text provides.

But one shouldn’t be fooled by what occurs in the book or in Murakami’s larger oeuvre; Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage isn’t that kind of novel. Not really. While characters may believe in evil spirits or tell stories about men claiming to possess supernatural powers, the novel is an example of realist fiction in the vein of Norwegian Wood. Nothing that occurs in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage defies the laws of nature. However, the saturation of these fantastical elements, both in the text itself and in Murakami’s larger canon, makes Tsukuru’s suppositions more palatable. If you also consider that the novel provides no discernible solution for the mystery surrounding Shiro’s rape and eventual murder, it makes sense to conclude that Haida’s disappearance operates in the exact same manner. From such a standpoint, it is not that Murakami left things for the reader to decide; it’s that there is simply nothing there for them to decide.

However, I don’t believe that’s the case at all. Upon closer examination, Tsukuru’s theory that Haida’s alter ego visited him in a dream and became so repulsed by his fantasies that he left college without a trace is, in a word, preposterous. The only thing more absurd is that Tsukuru never seriously considers an alternate explanation. Even so, it’s in keeping with his character, and sets up the lessons he must learn on his eventual pilgrimage. 

From a character perspective, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is strongly reminiscent of The Catcher in the Rye, a favorite of Murakami’s that he translated into Japanese in 2003. J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel details the exploits of Holden Caulfield, a lonely and depressed fifteen-year-old boy who embarks on his own pilgrimage through New York City. Despite constantly thinking about the past, Holden is not prone to self-examination. While embarking on numerous tangents that reveal more about himself than he intends, Holden seems perpetually on the verge of an epiphany. However, just as he approaches an uncomfortable truth or an important realization about himself, he promptly changes the subject with a single word: “Anyway.” Thirty-six-year-old Tsukuru Tazaki isn’t much different than his teenage counterpart, especially when it comes to his understanding of the world.

Consider what happens in the aftermath of Haida’s second disappearance. The following month, Tsukuru embarks on “his first real sexual relationship with a woman” at the age of “twenty-one and six months” (114). Curiously, he does not sleep with her out of sexual attraction or even loneliness: “Though he probably would never have admitted it, he was hoping to prove to himself that he wasn’t gay, that he was capable of having sex with a real woman, not just in his dreams. This was his main objective” (115). In fact, Tsukuru’s immediate takeaway from his first sexual encounter is one of pure relief: “It’s okay, Tsukuru told himself. I’m normal, after all” (116). In these passages, we discover that Tsukuru worries his intense erotic dreams of Kuro and Shiro are signs of abnormality, and that Haida’s one-time inclusion served as evidence of latent homosexuality. In his review for The Guardian,critic Mark Lawson suggests the latter in his veiled allusion to Tsukuru’s “subconscious bisexuality.” Similarly, Strecher sees Haida as “an expression of his most deeply suppressed desire,” one that could be either nostalgic or homerotic in nature (224). Like these critics, Tsukuru focuses on what these dreams say about him. However, I find it fascinating that in all the scenarios Tsukuru plays out in his mind, he never once stops to consider that Haida himself might be gay. If Tsukuru were to do so, then he would also have to consider that their late-night encounter was not merely a dream, a sexual fantasy, or some bizarre case of astral projection. 

It really happened.

If we toss aside Tsukuru’s half-baked theories about Haida’s disappearance, a much different understanding of what happened between the two friends emerges. For clues, we must look at four things: (1) the nature of Haida’s friendship with Tsukuru, (2) the symbolism of the story that Haida tells Tsukuru on that fateful night, (3) the details of the incident itself, and (4) the events that occur in its immediate aftermath. Put all of these scattered pieces of the puzzle together, and they form a much different picture of Haida, one that doesn’t require paranormal explanations.

The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Attentive readers will recall that Haida and Tsukuru’s friendship began when they kept running into each other at the university swimming pool. Polite nods in passing led to small talk in the locker room, which eventually culminated in an initial breakfast together. Hailing from faraway Akita Prefecture, Haida was two years younger than Tsukuru and attended the same engineering college. Neither of them had made any friends in Tokyo, but the pair hit it off so well that they began meeting up each morning to swim together. Eventually, their friendship grew even closer, as they fell into a comfortable routine:

He and Haida had dinner together two or three times a week. They’d listen to music, talk, and eat the meal Haida had prepared. The meals he made were mostly simple, everyday dishes, though on holidays when he had more time, he’d try more elaborate recipes. Everything he made was delicious. Haida seemed to have a gift as a cook. Whatever he made—a plain omelet, miso soup, cream sauce, or paella—was done skillfully and intelligently. (58)

On weekends, they would hang out at Tsukuru’s apartment talking well into the night, with Haida sleeping on the sofa in the living room. The following morning, Haida would make coffee and cook breakfast, before the two headed off for their daily ritual of swimming. Despite the obvious lack of sex, their friendship quickly escalates into an advanced stage of intimacy and insularity that typifies new romantic couplings.

Although matched in terms of their interests, the two share even more in common than Murakami lets on. One unspoken similarity between the two is their physical appearance. While Tsukuru constantly undermines himself throughout the novel, believing he makes no impression on others, the text plainly states that he’s handsome: “He was pretty good-looking, and sometimes people even told him so” (13). When Haida is introduced, he is described as having a “handsome face” resembling “an ancient Greek statue” with “long eyelashes” (47, 49, 98). However, this preoccupation with external beauty provides Tsukuru no help in understanding the internal workings of Haida’s mind:

When they were together Tsukuru often couldn’t grasp what Haida might be thinking. Something in Haida’s brain surged forward, outpacing Tsukuru, but what sort of thing that something was, he couldn’t say. When that happened he felt confused and left behind, alone. (98-99)

This is the first instance in the novel of Tsukuru’s inability to read others being broached, which makes his scenes with Haida all the more significant in terms of the novel’s larger concerns with meaning and interpretation. As a point of comparison, consider the scene with Aka in the present day. Towards the end of their reunion, Aka, now in his mid-thirties, confesses out of the blue to Tsukuru that he is gay, a revelation that takes our protagonist completely by surprise. Of course, Tsukuru had no inkling about his old friend’s sexual orientation when they were young, which lends credence to why he didn’t even consider the possibility that Haida might be gay, either. Homosexuality is something completely outside of Tsukuru’s sheltered understanding of the world.

With that in mind, another salient detail worth considering is Tsukuru’s undeniable attraction to women. Although he spends the majority of his free time with Haida, Tsukuru desperately wants female companionship:

When he was alone, though, sometimes Tsukuru longed for a girlfriend. He wanted to hold a woman close, caress her body, inhale the scent of her skin. It was an internally natural desire for a healthy young man. […] Tsukuru Tazaki was twenty years old at this point, but had never held a woman in his arms. Or kissed a woman, or held someone’s hand, or even gone on a date. (62)

By this point, Haida has become Tsukuru’s closest confidant, a person with whom he can freely discuss any number of subjects. Having said that, it’s remarkable that the one thing they don’t ever seem to talk about is women. I, too, had a best friend in college. Like Haida and Tsukuru, we spent a lot of time together: eating meals, playing video games, and talking all night about everything from the existence of God to our favorite James Bond movie. But the one subject that was on both our minds was women, and neither of us were reticent to talk about it. The cute girl in class, the famous actresses we liked, the hopes we had for our own love lives—no subject was off limits. And yet, despite Tsukuru’s obvious desire to find a girlfriend, he never once broaches the subject with Haida. And if Tsukuru indeed never mentioned any interest in the opposite sex, is it not possible that Haida may have misinterpreted this omission as a lack of interest in women altogether? 

The nature of their friendship calls to mind Oscar Wilde’s testimony in his 1895 trial for sodomy and gross indecency. When questioned about the euphemistic phrase “the love that dare not speak its name,” which appeared in “Two Loves,” a poem by his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, the Irish writer gave the following response:

It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope, and glamor of life before him. That it should be so the world does not understand. 

Although Wilde was obviously trying to skirt the issue to avoid implicating himself, his innocent, high-minded wording perfectly encapsulates how Tsukuru and Haida separately perceived their relationship. Tsukuru, if he were as poetic as Wilde, would likely describe his friendship with Haida in the same way, albeit in an entirely literal sense. But Haida, a closeted gay man navigating a deeply homophobic world, has no choice but to read between the lines. Across from him at the breakfast table is an older, handsome man who enjoys his company and listens to his many stories and opinions for hours on end. Both are far from home and otherwise incredibly shy. Neither have girlfriends nor friends of any kind, nor express an outward desire to acquire any. Both have secrets from the past that they hold close to the chest—Tsukuru never speaks of his old friends, and Haida reveals nothing beyond the spare details of his life. Early in their friendship, Tsukuru wonders “why Haida was drawn to him, or was even interested in him” (62). It seems obvious in retrospect. Reading all the signs in front of him, Haida may have believed that he had found not just a kindred spirit in Tsukuru, but a soulmate.   

The Moral of the Story

Admittedly, soulmate is a strong word and perhaps an interpretive leap too far. But if we accept this as a possibility, the scene that immediately precedes Tsukuru’s erotic dream makes a lot more sense. On the night of the incident, Haida tells a strange story about his father. As a young man, the elder Haida took a leave of absence from college and wandered Japan. While working as a handyman in a modest hot-springs resort, he struck up a conversation with a jazz pianist from Tokyo named Midorikawa who claimed he had only two months to live. The man revealed that he accepted a “death token” that shortened his lifespan but gave him supernatural powers in return:

At the point when you agree to take on death, you gain an extraordinary capacity. A special power, you could call it. Perceiving the colors that people emit is merely one function of that power, but the root of it all is an ability to expand your consciousness. You’re able to push open what Aldous Huxley calls “the doors of perception.” Your perception becomes pure and unadulterated. Everything around you becomes clear, like the fog lifting. You have an omniscient view of the world and see things you’ve never seen before. (79)

However, as high as the stakes are, the transaction is not irreversible; Midorikawa can escape his two-month death sentence if he can pass the token on to a willing volunteer. As it turns out, Haida’s father shares the same color aura as Midorikawa, thus making him the ideal successor. Nevertheless, Midorikawa has already made up his mind; he has no desire to pass on the token because wants to die “as soon as possible” (76).  Two days later, Midorikawa checks out of the inn, and when Haida’s father investigates, he can find no trace of a jazz pianist by that name in Tokyo—if that was even his real name. The younger Haida ends the story here, and after a short conversation with Tsukuru, the two retire to their separate rooms for the night.

In retrospect, this enigmatic story is a skeleton key that unlocks a more complete understanding of Haida’s frame of mind that fateful night. It’s important to remember that a lengthy philosophical discussion about death precedes Haida’s decision to tell the story, as the two had been talking for hours on the subject beforehand. Haida even prefaces his tale by giving Tsukuru some options on how to receive it: “You can take it as folklore, or a tale of the supernatural, I don’t mind” (64). When it’s over, Haida makes no attempt to explain the meaning behind his story; it’s left to Tsukuru to formulate his own interpretation. And yet, as bizarre and seemingly incomprehensible as Haida’s tale may be, several key moments during this scene suggest an underlying meaning—if not of the story itself, then of Haida’s reasons for telling it.

The first clue isn’t even part of the story, as it occurs midway through Haida’s attempt to recount his father’s adventure. The simple action of Haida pausing to look at a clock on the wall momentarily confuses Tsukuru, although he attempts to gather meaning in what he witnesses: 

He was, of course, Haida the son, but Haida the father had been his same age in this story, and so the two of them began to overlap in Tsukuru’s mind. It was an odd sensation, as if the two distinct temporalities had blended into one. Maybe it wasn’t the father who had experienced this, but the son. Maybe Haida was just relating it as if his father had experienced it, when in reality he was the one who had. Tsukuru couldn’t shake this illusion. (71).

The blending of temporalities in Tsukuru’s mind suggests how we might read the intention behind Haida’s story. Through the use of free indirect discourse, Murakami plants the idea in the reader’s head that the two Haidas might be one and the same—the elder Haida is merely a stand-in for his son. However, there’s one problem with that theory: that’s what Tsukuru thinks. After all, a penchant for misinterpretation is his tragic flaw. What Tsukuru doesn’t recognize is that Midorikawa is the one telling the story; the elder Haida is merely the listener. If applied to Tsukuru’s current situation, then, the younger Haida would be in Midorikawa’s place, not his father’s. 

Later on, after Haida disappears, Tsukuru thinks back to his late-night tale and sees further parallels between father and son, essentially solidifying the connection between the two in his mind—and perhaps even the reader’s:

It’s strange, Tsukuru thought at the time. Haida is repeating his father’s fate. He leaves college when he’s around twenty, and disappears, as if retracing his father’s footsteps. Or was the whole story about his father a fabrication? Had he been trying to relate something about himself, making it sound as if it had happened to his father? (113)

Again, like Holden Caulfield, Tsukuru seems to be on the verge of an epiphany. Upon closer analysis, there’s yet another flaw in Tsukuru’s interpretation: yes, Haida’s father may have dropped out for a time during his college days, but he eventually returned; his son did not. Once again, the parallel here is actually with Midorikawa, as he is the person in Haida’s tale that disappeared without a trace; the elder Haida was the one who unsuccessfully searched for him, as Tsukuru would later do in pursuit of the younger Haida.

If we can take these two instances as evidence that Midorikawa serves as a stand-in for young Haida in this embedded narrative, the purpose behind the story slowly comes into focus. Near the end of Haida’s late-night tale, his father asks Midorikawa the most important question of all:

Haida drew a deep breath. “Why did you tell me all this?” 

“I’ve never told anybody until now, and never planned to,” Midorikawa said, and took a drink. “I was just going to quietly vanish by myself. But when I saw you, I thought, Now here’s a man worth telling.” (81-82)

Midorikawa’s initial plan to vanish without telling anyone his story connects with the younger Haida in at least two ways. First, the idea of Haida himself vanishing is introduced early on when the character’s personality is described: “Haida was extremely shy, and when he was together with more than three people, he did his best to stay invisible” (50).  So even before he disappears for real, Haida has already demonstrated a tendency to fade into the background, especially in situations that go beyond one-on-one personal interactions. Second, just like Midorikawa, Haida did not vanish on a whim; he’s been thinking about it for quite a while, even applying in advance for a leave of absence from the university. Taking these two details together, Haida seems to be intentionally using Midorikawa in a self-allegorizing way. From that vantage point, Midorikawa’s supernatural powers of perception serve as a metaphor for Haida’s own intuition. Is it possible that Haida somehow felt, to borrow Midorikawa’s phrase, that a fog was lifting between Tsukuru and him? Was Tsukuru “a man worth telling,” to borrow Midorikawa’s phrase? Did Haida believe that he could, in a manner of speaking, clearly perceive Tsukuru’s color aura—one that he believed they shared?  And isn’t “color aura” simply a more pseudoscientific way of saying “soul”? Throughout this section, I have posited the theory that Haida had fallen for Tsukuru, believing that this similarly handsome, shy, and single young man was also gay—or, at the very least, had hoped that he was. However, I don’t believe that romantic affection or attraction was the only reason he told Tsukuru this story—there is at least one other way that Haida might have felt a connection. 

An important thing to consider from this strange tale is the distinct possibility that Haida’s planned disappearance may not simply be born from a desire to relocate. As stated earlier, Haida’s late-night story comes after a lengthy discussion on the nature of death. Haida’s tale reaches its climax when Midorikawa reveals that he’d rather die than pass his powers on to Haida’s father, a man who shares his color aura. By that logic, young Haida too must have been planning to die. After all, Midorikawa ostensibly commits suicide by keeping the death token for himself. True, Haida never speaks of killing himself, but the specter of death falls upon one aspect of his otherwise beautiful appearance, a disturbing physical detail that neither Haida nor Tsukuru openly addresses: “There was an old, deep scar, about an inch and a half long, on his neck, like he’d been cut by a knife, but the scar added a strange accent to this otherwise serene young man’s appearance” (50). What is the nature of this scar?  While it’s possible that Haida was the victim of a childhood accident or even an attack, his association with Midorikawa raises the possibility that the wound is self-inflicted, perhaps the last, fading remnant of a scar incurred from a failed hanging. If Haida is considering suicide, another unspoken connection emerges between these two friends, as Tsukuru thought of nothing more than dying in the aftermath of his friends’ rejection. Of course, it’s not something he ever reveals to Haida, but perhaps his perceptive young friend still picks up on it. Haida may be telling the story of Midorikawa in the hopes that Tsukuru might understand that it’s actually a suicide note presented in the form of an oral narrative.

If Haida told this story to hint at his subsequent disappearance and possible suicide, there is one final detail worth considering in regard to this bizarre tale—Midorikawa’s parting words to Haida’s father:

“You’ll be going back to college in Tokyo before much longer,” Midorikawa quietly stated. “And you’ll return to real life. You need to live it to the fullest. No matter how shallow and dull things might get, this life is worth living. I guarantee it. And I’m not being either ironic or paradoxical. It’s just that, for me, what’s worthwhile in life has become a burden, something I can’t shoulder anymore. Maybe I’m just not cut out for it. So, like a dying cat, I’ve crawled into a quiet, dark place, silently waiting for my time to come. It’s not so bad. But you’re different. You should be able to handle what life sends your way. You need to use the thread of logic, as best you can, to skillfully sew onto yourself everything that’s worth living for.” (82-83).

Was this story intended as Haida’s final goodbye? Is he, too, a dying cat looking to slink away in the night? Could this be, almost word for word, Haida’s last piece of advice for Tsukuru, albeit given through the avatar of Midorikawa? 

Curiously, Haida’s/Midorikawa’s words are echoed by Kuro’s pep talk to Tsukuru near the end of the novel. In both scenes, there is a deeply held wish on the part of the speaker that regardless of what happens next, the listener must keep living. He is given assurance that no matter how difficult life gets, he’s more than capable of handling it. Interestingly enough, during their last conversation in Finland, Kuro not only tells Tsukuru to go after Sara with all his heart, but also disabuses him of a misguided belief he’s held for years: “Tsukuru, there’s one thing I want you to remember. You aren’t colorless. Those were just names. I know we often teased you about it, but it was just a stupid joke. Tsukuru Tazaki is a wonderful, colorful person” (277). This emphasis on Tsukuru’s “color” is not just a reversal of the title character’s entire worldview, but also serves as a remarkable echo of Midorikawa’s admission in the story that Haida’s father emits a rare color and glow. However, these connections may not be immediately apparent to the reader upon completion of the novel due to their distance from each other within the narrative. In retrospect, Haida’s bizarre tale stands revealed as a coded goodbye, one that sets the stage for the strange events that occur later that night. 

All That We See or Seem

The incident that occurs later that night at Tsukuru’s apartment unfolds in three distinct movements, each blurring the line between dream and reality. After Haida’s disappearance, Tsukuru conveniently places the entirety of the incident into the realm of dreams. However, it’s clear to me that not everything that night occurred in the dark recesses of Tsukuru’s confused mind.

In the first movement, Tsukuru awakens to the image of Haida watching him sleep. Tsukuru struggles to speak or move, which resembles the kind of real-life sleep paralysis that can occur when someone has just woken up. Despite the sinister implications of Haida’s intrusion, Tsukuru is completely unafraid and instead senses that his young friend is there for a purpose: “Haida seemed to have something he wanted to say, a message he needed to convey, but for some reason he couldn’t translate that message into words. And this made Tsukuru’s younger, intelligent friend unusually irritated” (99). Despite his incapacitated state, Tsukuru still has his wits about him, believing that he has indeed woken up because “Everything is too distinct to be a dream” (98). Although Tsukuru would later second-guess himself, I believe that his first instinct was right: Haida was indeed physically present in Tsukuru’s bedroom, as he does not behave according to some wild dream logic; in fact, the interlude does not end until he physically leaves the room. Further, if we consider the meaning of Haida’s story and his later disappearance, it seems likely that he came to confess his intentions, whether related to his feelings for Tsukuru, his fateful decision to leave, or some combination of the two. Perhaps he wasn’t so sure that the tale of Midorikawa was transparent enough for Tsukuru to understand.  Nevertheless, whatever Haida intended to say, he must have lost his nerve.

The second movement occurs later that same night, as our protagonist has a vivid erotic dream involving his former high school classmates. The narration initially describes Tsukuru as having “woke up once more in a dream,” but then muddies the waters by suggesting it is “a reality imbued with the qualities of a dream” (100). Once again, these are Tsukuru’s thoughts disguised as objective narration. In truth, there is nothing about this impromptu threesome that seems remotely real, as Tsukuru’s friendship with Shiro and Kuro had long since been severed, and the girls physically appear to be still sixteen or seventeen. Although the text gives various sensual descriptions of their bodies, one tiny throwaway detail suggests a real-world connection to this nocturnal fantasy: “The girls’ fingers were gentle, slender, and delicate” (101). Early in the novel, Haida is described as having “long fingers,” a parallel suggesting that the manual stimulation Tsukuru received from Shiro and Kuro may have been Haida’s handiwork in the real world (50). Further, the transition between the intense ménage à trois to oral sex with Haida operates less like the odd continuation of a dream and more like Tsukuru waking up from one: 

Now, though, he wasn’t coming inside Shiro, but in Haida. The girls had suddenly disappeared, and Haida had taken their place. Just as Tsukuru came, Haida had quickly bent over, taken Tsukuru’s penis in his mouth, and—careful not to get the sheets dirty—taken all the gushing semen inside his mouth. (102)

In the moment, Tsukuru concludes that Haida “seemed used to it,” as if performing oral sex on a man was something he had done before (102). Afterwards, Haida promptly walks to the bathroom and washes out his mouth in the sink. Alongside his apparent concern over dirtying the sheets, the image of Haida casually washing out his mouth seems like the kind of mundane, utterly realistic detail that would seem out of place in what was essentially a pornographic fantasy to that point, especially for a person as sexually inexperienced as Tsukuru. 

No stranger to wet dreams, Tsukuru checks his underwear the next morning to see if there is any semen, “but there was no trace of it” (103). This moment brings to mind a famous passage from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1890 novel The Sign of Four, in which Sherlock Holmes asks Dr. Watson, “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” (93). If there is no semen in Tsukuru’s underwear despite this happening before, isn’t the most logical conclusion that their sexual encounter was not a dream at all? It seems so elementary, but Tsukuru doesn’t seriously consider this as a possibility—and it’s largely because of how he misreads Haida’s behavior the following morning.

The Mourning After

Like most people, I have had dreams that felt incredibly real. I’ve also had dreams in which the people in my life behaved in unexpected, often surprising ways: in one dream, my parents might be furious with me, violently kicking me out of the house; in another, my worst enemy is somehow my new best friend. One recurring dream I’ve had throughout my life involves me suddenly finding myself in a relationship with someone I’ve never thought of romantically. In each case, I would wake up the next morning looking for evidence that there was some truth to the dream. As a child, I often wondered if they were somehow prophetic. As a young man, I worried that my subconscious was trying to tell me something. Now, I just wonder what I ate the night before. 

The morning after Tsukuru’s “dream,” he warily leaves his bedroom in search of answers, only to find a fully dressed Haida reading on the sofa: 

He was lost in his thick book, off in another world, but as soon as Tsukuru appeared, he shut the book, smiled brightly, and went to the kitchen to make coffee, omelets, and toast. The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day. They sat across the table from each other and ate breakfast while listening to music, set low. […] Haida explained, excitedly, about the new coffee beans he’d discovered, and the quality of the roast, but after that, he was silently thoughtful. Probably contemplating the book he’d been reading. (103-104)

As before, Tsukuru carefully observes his friend, attempting to read Haida’s thoughts. Eventually, he comes to believe that everything that occurred that night was all in his head, concluding that “Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was a typical Sunday morning” (104). Of course, Haida’s behavior—happy to see Tsukuru, quick to prepare a meal for him, excitable when speaking, and then suddenly pensive—seems like fairly normal behavior the morning after a first night of intimacy with someone. However, Tsukuru is trying so hard to read Haida for clues that he doesn’t seem to consider the possibility that Haida himself is also attempting to read him. Tsukuru, after all, is completely in his own head and behaving rather awkwardly. Perhaps Haida was cautiously waiting for Tsukuru to acknowledge what happened that night. Unfortunately, a deeply embarrassed Tsukuru never broaches the subject.

After breakfast, the two young men swim together at the college pool before parting ways at the library. Haida is not seen again for ten days. Viewed in this new light, a host of probable reasons for his disappearance suddenly emerge. Could it be that Haida initially left out of confusion, regret, or even shame? Haida may have thought that what happened that night was consensual, but later realized that he might have unintentionally taken advantage of his dreaming friend. Attempting to read between the lines, Haida may have viewed Tsukuru’s lack of acknowledgement as a signal that he wanted to pretend the whole thing never happened. Maybe Haida—just like Tsukuru—began to wonder whether it had all been a dream. If we can assume that Haida is already planning to disappear or even go so far as to commit suicide, what happened that night between them might be causing him to rethink his plans. Tsukuru may even be a good reason to stay—and, ultimately, to live.

Ten days later, Haida returns, claiming that he had to take care of a family matter in Akita. Tsukuru accepts his explanation without further question, and the two resume their previous routine: 

Haida continued to act the same as always toward Tsukuru. They talked and ate together. They’d sit on the sofa, listening to the classical CDs Haida borrowed from the library, discussing music, and books they’d read. Or else they’d simply be together, sharing an amiable silence. On the weekends Haida came to his apartment, they’d talk until late, and Haida would stay over on the sofa. Never again did Haida (or his alter ego) visit Tsukuru’s bedroom and gaze at him in the dark—assuming, of course, that this had actually happened the first time. Tsukuru had many more sexual dreams involving Shiro and Kuro, but Haida never appeared. (108)

It’s notable that Tsukuru never dreamed of his friend again, which makes a lot of sense if he never actually dreamed of Haida to begin with. Despite this blissful return to normalcy, Haida exits Tsukuru’s life during winter break. One has to wonder whether the resumption of their friendship impacted his decision. Could it be that Haida could not bear a return to the status quo because business as usual was no longer satisfying, perhaps even painful for him? Or maybe he couldn’t bear to see a person he had fallen in love with treat him as if nothing had happened between them? Either way, it’s possible that Tsukuru’s perceived indifference prompts Haida to carry on with his plans to disappear. As made clear in Kuro’s confession of love in the novel’s later chapters, Tsukuru’s obliviousness is his Achilles heel. 

And yet, there is still another possibility. Perhaps Haida cherished the status quo. If this was all that he would get from Tsukuru, then so be it. If platonic friendship was what made Tsukuru happy, then he would fulfill that role for as long as he could. If Haida truly intended to kill himself, then better to spend those last moments with Tsukuru as friends than reveal the truth and risk outright rejection. This, too, is why Kuro never shared her true feelings with Tsukuru, believing that he would reject her because he only had eyes for Shiro. In truth, she was half-right. Yes, Tsukuru was physically attracted to Shiro, but he would have been delighted to have Kuro as his girlfriend if she had told him the truth. One wonders what would have happened if Haida had confessed his feelings.

Although the reader does not have access to Haida’s private thoughts, the character does reveal some clues to his mindset through dialogue. One such moment occurs early in their friendship, when Haida begins cooking meals for the two of them and Tsukuru praises his culinary skills, half-jokingly telling Haida that he should consider opening a restaurant. In response, Haida says, “That sounds good. But I don’t like to be tied down in one place. I want to be free—to go where I want, when I want, and be able to think about whatever I want” (58). He goes on to say that if he were stuck somewhere—in this case, a kitchen—he’d “end up hating somebody” (58). Tsukuru prods him for more information, and Haida explains further: “People whose freedom is taken away always end up hating somebody. Right? I know I don’t want to live like that” (58). Perhaps Haida worried that he had become too tied down to Tsukuru, the handsome friend who would never return his affections. Perhaps he feared that he would grow to hate Tsukuru if he stayed any longer. If we view his late-night story as a kind of self-allegory, then Haida believed that he possessed the same powers of pure, unadulterated perception as Midorikawa. But in reality, he committed the same grave error as Tsukuru: the sin of misinterpretation, seeing signs where they did not exist. 

Perchance to Dream

Haida’s love for Tsukuru may have been unrequited, but could it actually have been mutual? The answer is yes, in a manner of speaking. While Tsukuru always saw their connection through the lens of friendship, Haida’s disappearance forces him to recognize that he has strong feelings for his young friend. However, he does not categorize his affections as romantic, not even in his most private thoughts:

Either way, after his friend disappeared, he realized anew how important Haida was to him, how Haida had transformed his daily life into something much richer and more colorful. He missed their conversations, and Haida’s light, distinctive laugh. The music he liked, the books he sometimes read aloud from, his take on current events, his unique sense of humor, his spot-on quotations, the food he prepared, the coffee he brewed. Haida’s absence left behind blank spaces throughout his life. (106-107)

After Haida returns, the chapter ends with the declaration that “Tsukuru Tazaki still needed this younger friend. More than anything” (109). In Tsukuru’s estimation, Haida may rank as highly as his former friend group, but, unlike the situation involving his Nagoya schoolmates, he never achieves any semblance of closure about Haida’s disappearance. Tsukuru’s pilgrimage does not include an investigation into Haida’s current whereabouts or even a bold detour to Akita. Yes, Tsukuru thinks of Haida on occasion during his adult years, but not enough to grapple with what happened between them, where his friend went, or what it all really means. 

While it’s indeed true that Haida never reappears in the novel, there is a moment in which he seemingly reenters Tsukuru’s life in the present day. While swimming laps in a Tokyo gym, Tsukuru contemplates his overwhelming attraction to Sara and how “It was unusual for him to feel such a strong, raw emotion” (198). Immediately thereafter, he sees Haida—or at least believes that he does:

He suddenly noticed that he recognized the soles of the swimmer sharing the same lane. They were exactly the same as Haida’s. He gulped, his rhythm thrown off, and inhaled water through his nose. His heart was pounding in his rib cage, and it took a while for his breathing to settle down. (199)

The man in the pool is not Haida, but the very possibility that he had returned deeply affects Tsukuru. Upon exiting the pool, Tsukuru sits on a plastic chair and continues to watch the man swim. After showering and returning to his apartment to eat breakfast, Tsukuru has a sudden realization: “Haida is also one of the things that’s blocking me inside” (200). It’s a remarkable moment, a potential catalyst for action. But once again, like Holden Caulfield, Tsukuru only walks out to the edge of this epiphany, never gazing deeply at what it signifies. In fact, he takes no action at all. Why does he not seek the same kind of answers about Haida as he does from his former friends? And, more provocatively, why does he see Haida when all he thinks about is how much he wants Sara?

As it turns out, Sara is another person in Tsukuru’s life who may be in danger of disappearing. In the scene that follows, a few days before his trip to Finland, Tsukuru spots her walking hand-in-hand with a man in his early fifties. Although Tsukuru is stunned by what seems like an intimate relationship, what truly shocks him is not any perceived infidelity but rather the joyous look on Sara’s face: “More than anything else, that’s what tore, unbearably, at his heart” (207). When Tsukuru returns to his apartment to prepare for his trip, thoughts of Haida begin to flood his mind:

Once he finished packing, he took out Liszt’s Years of Pilgrimage for the first time in ages. The three-record set performed by Lazar Berman, the set Haida had left behind fifteen years before. He still kept an old-style record player for the sole purpose of playing this record. He placed the first LP on the turntable, B side up, and lowered the needle. (207)

This beloved memento, which Tsukuru believes Haida left behind intentionally, has a connection to Shiro as well, as she would play a song from it—“Le mal du pays” (“Homesickness”)—on the piano during her high school days. Whenever Tsukuru listened to the album, he felt connected to both of them: “At times it even felt like they were right beside him, quietly breathing” (208). Although the music allows him to symbolically reconnect with both of them, one wonders if Tsukuru sees how they connect to each other in his mind: Shiro, the woman of his dreams, embodies his purely carnal desires, whereas Haida, a man whom he perhaps never even dreamed of at all, represents his more spiritual and intellectual needs. 

Curiously, in this moment, Tsukuru does see an additional link between Shiro and Haida, one that he only recently began to consider:

At a certain point the two of them had vanished from his life. Suddenly, without warning. No—it was less that they had left than that they had deliberately cut him off, abandoned him. Of course that had hurt Tsukuru deeply, and that wound remained to this day. But in the end, wasn’t it the two of them—Shiro and Haida—who had, in a real sense of the term, been wounded or injured? Recently, that view had taken hold of his mind. (209)

At this point in the narrative, it makes perfect sense that Tsukuru would categorize Shiro—a traumatized rape victim—in such a  way, but this is really the first time Tsukuru has explored the possibility that Haida had somehow been wounded or injured in a very real sense. Although the view may have taken hold in his mind, Tsukuru doesn’t spend any time contemplating its implications. Once again, Tsukuru is on the verge of a major realization, but Murakami denies the reader any further exploration of the topic. The plot immediately

shifts to Tsukuru’s trip abroad to see Kuro, the final stop on his epic pilgrimage. By then, Haida has once again become a distant memory. 

For Tsukuru, the climactic journey to Finland is revelatory. Finding both a measure of closure and a newfound sense of self thanks to Kuro’s parting words, Tsukuru returns to Tokyo a more confident person, someone willing to risk everything for love, no matter the personal cost. Over the phone, he declares his love for Sara, and although she responds positively, she needs three days to think things over. We don’t know if Sara will return his affections in full, but the novel ends in a hopeful place. Tsukuru has retired to bed the night before his big date with Sara, resolving to propose to her if she’ll have him. In the end, he takes Kuro’s advice to heart: “Never let fear and stupid pride make you lose someone who’s precious to you” (277-278). By journey’s end, Tsukuru has taken the road less traveled by, and it has made all the difference. In many ways, his journey has only just begun.

But what of Haida? Is he alive or dead? Will Tsukuru ever know the reasons why Haida left? Will he ever gain a better understanding of their relationship in the way that he did with his high school friends? Unless Murakami decides to write a sequel someday, I suppose the answers will remain forever elusive. For fans of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage who were left curious about Haida’s final fate, perhaps this essay can serve as an epilogue of sorts. 

Curiously, Haida is not mentioned at all in the final chapter of the novel. It begins at JR Shinjuku Station with Tsukuru indulging in his favorite pastime: sitting on a bench and admiring the view of passing trains and commuters. For a brief moment, he considers hopping the express train to a place he has never been, but thinks better of it, considering that he plans to meet Sara the following night. His thoughts turn inward, and after a short period of reflection, he realizes that “He had no one he could call a close friend” (302). One might suspect that Tsukuru’s thoughts would lead directly to Haida here, but, as is his pattern, his mind quickly turns to a different subject—in this case, his past girlfriends. However, the proximity of these two seemingly unrelated thoughts—an impulsive trip to parts unknown and the recognition that he lacks a close friend—suggest that, in another world, perhaps, he might someday make a trip to find his dear friend Haida, the first and only man he truly loved.

Works Cited

Central Criminal Court of England and Wales. Regina v. Wilde. Reference no. t18950422-397, April 22, 1895. 

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Sign of Four. London, Spencer Blackett, 1890.

Lawson, Mark. “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami – review.” The Guardian, 6 Aug. 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/06/colorless-tsukuru-tazaki-years-pilgimage-haruki-murakami-review.

Maslin, Janet. “A Pilgrim’s Progress, or Lack Thereof,” 13 Aug. 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/books/haruki-murakamis-colorless-tsukuru-tazaki-and-his-years-of-pilgrimage.html.

Murakami, Haruki. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. 2014. Vintage, 2014.

– – -. “Cream.” First Person Singular. Knopf, 2021, pp. 3-26.

Smith, Patti.“Deep Chords: Haruki Murakami’s ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.”’ The New York Times, 10 Aug. 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/books/review/haruki-murakamis-colorless-tsukuru-tazaki-and-his-years-of-pilgrimage.html.

Strecher, Matthew Carl. The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami. University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

“Testimony of Oscar Wilde.” Douglas O. Linder, ed. University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/wilde/Crimwilde.html