Like many people, I’ve consistently preferred Murakami’s short stories to his novels. His novels often, when closely approached, appear as if sparsely pixelated; they are less noun-y, less particular, more dream filled and ruminative. I used to think of this as a fault. Colorless Tukuru Tazaki may be Murakami’s least vivid novel of all, and yet it has changed my thinking on how his novels airiness can work. I now understand better what at times irritated me about the books I found myself hopelessly reading, on after the other.

–– Rivka Golchen “The Monkey Did It: the facts in the case of Haruki Murakami” [review of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage] Harper’s Magazine October 2014, pp. 88-89