Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki was enjoyable but admittedly somewhat stale. This book is somewhere between “I liked it” and “it was ok,” so 2-2.5 stars I guess. Its similarities to [b:Norwegian Wood 11297 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924361s/11297.jpg 2956680] and [b:South of the Border, West of the Sun 17799 South of the Border, West of the Sun Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1443685506s/17799.jpg 1739145] factor into the enjoyment of the book if you make reading Murakami a habit(which I have), so I imagine it's a better experience if it's your first time with him. If it's not, I do feel that this book is pretty much worth the quick read despite its issues and ironic empty/flat feeling.Colorless is good in that Murakami weaves a web of themes and symbols and emotions that are easy to identify with in it(at least personally)–loneliness, torrid yet fickle human relationships, insecurity, the experience of reality and time. However, Murakami kind of pushes the envelope with the indecipherable happenings and the circular, somewhat useless path of Tsukuru in Colorless. Some parts of the “web,” unfortunately, simply seem meaningless when I think they're supposed to be another “ball of mysterious symbolism.”Let me explain more of the similarities between Colorless, [b:Norwegian Wood 11297 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924361s/11297.jpg 2956680] and [b:South of the Border, West of the Sun 17799 South of the Border, West of the Sun Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1443685506s/17799.jpg 1739145]. Spoiler alert? I tried to be vague. I don't know how much similarity to other works should count against a book, but here are some major ones that I noticed. If I went into the protagonists themselves, there'd be a lot more. (NW = Norwegian Wood, SBWS = South of the Border, West of the Sun, CTT = Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki)- NW: ambiguous ending involving a phone call from a girl that the protagonist desires a relationship(to the end of marriage, presumably) with.- NW/SBWS: music ‘theme' song that is ridiculously present in the novel - NW/SBWS: “special person” strongly linked to “special song” (“Norwegian Wood” in NW; “South of the Border” and “The Star-Crossed Lovers” in SBWS; “Le Mal du Pays” in CTT)- NW: older protagonist flashbacks to life as a lonely student in Tokyo with like one friend- NW: loss of friend circle due to traumatic event- NW/SBWS: protagonist seems to connect with women on an especially deep level, even if he has close male friends. Tsukuru mentions this himself. - NW: freaky story from friends, involving piano(mysterious piano player in CTT, lesbian pedophilic incident in NW)- NW: mentally unstable piano teachers- NW: remote retreat-like location- NW: sexual, sleep-interrupting, night ‘apparition' from close friend- NW: friend that protagonist is living with disappearsBonus: I just picked up [b:The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 11275 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327872639s/11275.jpg 2531376] and I swear, I've seen this one line in every novel I've read so far: “I lifted my cup and took a sip of my now lukewarm coffee”.