『Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage』 by Haruki Murakami.
-Focusing on the Haruki’s historical awareness-
This study has analyzed the changes in historical awareness of the author through 『Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage』 by Haruki Murakami.
‘Tsukuru’ had lived while disregarding his wound from the past. After 16 years, he realized that his wound was still traumatizing and disturbed his social relationships, and he starts a journey back to his personal history. Thus, the pilgrimage of Tsukuru was started from Nagoya, then continued to Finland. Next to Tsukuru, who took an active approach towards his personal history, was ‘Sara,’ and she can be considered as the most precise spokesperson of Murakami’s historical awareness, and a person who reminds of the importance of healing of wounds from human relationships through her repetitive use of the word history.
In his pilgrimage, Tsukuru was able to recover from his wounds in Finland. The significance in setting of the novel in Finland, a country that had experienced historical responsibilities and recovery from it, can be considered as an author’s intention to deliver his thoughts on history to readers. After the pilgrimage, Tsukuru comes back to Nagoya, where the past event had took place in. Instead of searching for a new place, the place where it had all begun becomes a new place.
Yōichi Komori has criticized that Haruki Murakami shall define his position before Japan and the world as a writer and a first generation Japanese after the war. In recent, Murakami has spoken about his thoughts on history and Japane se society through interviews with various media, and has been including more and more historical/social issues in his writings through active characters.
Thus, Murakami has confronted history, which he had disregarded in his past works, in『Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage』to demonstrate healing and recovery from pains and wounds of history.