Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage

Beautiful Story. Odd dialogue narration

It Is hard for me to believe that Murakami is not aware of the odd dialogue in Bruce Locke's performance. I have listen to nearly 300 books and most of Murukami's material. The use of the Japanese accent is inconsistent with all of his other books. Why do it here? The depth and tone of the story could have been extraordinary if the dialogue had been performed normally. The book is definitely worth a listen. But really should be redone with the accented English removed. When Locke simply narrates the story the results are dark and moving.

Very unfortunate narration...

What did you love best about Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage?

A big fan of Muruakami - so I love it all.

How could the performance have been better?

The accents used in the narration our horrible. Sorry, but no other word to use. I'm having a hard time finishing the book, which I'm sure I would have loved otherwise.

Any additional comments?

Please do not use those voice accents ever again. Thank you.

Had to give up

I love Murakami, so I'll assume this is a good book. But the performer's reading of dialogue is appalling. The characters become swollen-tongued boobs, lumping from one disconnected statement to another.

I had to return this very disappointing version, and will get one with a different narrator.

subtly lovely and compassionate story

If you could sum up Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage in three words, what would they be?

subtle, emotional, engrossing

What three words best describe Bruce Locke’s performance?

Generally I liked Bruce Locke's performance, when he is narrating in his own voice. He seemed to have the right point of view and voice. HOWEVER, as did many other reviewers, I really struggled with his choice of narration style for the dialogue. In real life, when two Japanese people speak to each other in Japan, they are not trying to speak in a foreign language, so they don't have accents that derive from trying to pronounce words (English words), that are not natural for them. So I spent much time wondering WHY Bruce Locke would choose to make them sound like they were trying to speak English to each other. I was often distracted by the dialogue, as it is quite strange to hear this ridiculous dialect where it didn't belong. If the story involved some American people, in America, having a conversation with a Japanese person, it would make sense (perhaps) to have the Japanese person sound like that. But Japanese people don't have accents when speaking to each other, as far as I know, because they are not pronouncing English words to each other.

Any additional comments?

this was a really engaging and engrossing book... I'm really in love with Murakami's writing!

Seriously? Japanese accent really necessary?

I don't understand why the publishers of Murakami's "Colorless Tsukuru..." decided that it was a good idea to have the actor speak in a heavy Japanese accent for all the dialogues in the audible book. Seriously effing annoying and maybe racist. I don't know if I can continue listening.

Charlie Chan

The narrator has the worst fake Japanese accent. Sounds more like the old racist Charlie Chan movies. It was astoundingly bad. There was absolutely no need for that fake accent. It was as though the narraration was making fun of Murakami being Japanese. I stopped listening because it was so distracting to the story. Why didn't anyone else notice ? Amazing. As a Japanese I felt insulted.

Good, brooding book, terrible reading

The dialogue was read with this incredibly grating Japanese accent. It's in translation, it's not about Japanese speakers try to speak broken, stilted English. I mean, FFS, it's not like Japanese speakers sound like they have accents when they're speaking to each other in their native language, this came off as a stupid affectation.

Poor narration

Unfortunate that the narrator chose to use Japanese accents for the main characters. It made them sound stiff and wooden and fer chrissakes, I KNOW they're Japanese, thanks. The Japanese accent sounded inauthentic too, sometimes veering into what sounded like German.

Otherwise narration was great. He even did a good Finnish accent.

Interesting Story - but unsatisfying

First - the narration was done by a native English speaker faking a Japanese accent, which really messed up the experience for me. You get the awkward feeling that you are listening to people speaking in a mutual 2nd language that is awkward for them. I don't know why the narrator and director made this choice.

Second - the story is nice, but I found it somewhat unsatisfying compared to his other books. I would recommend it, though, if you are a Murakami fan. If you are not an established reader of Murakami, read Hardboiled Wonderland first, as this book will might turn you away from his other great works.

Overall - read it - but don't waste a credit on the audiobook.

We're all victims of our youth

A brilliant reminder of how each stage of our lives sets us up for the next one, I found this Murakami as challenging and ultimately satisfying as all the rest: which is to say, when it's over you find yourself saying this can't be the end. This book is in desperate need of a book club so you can talk through what the small tangent tales say about the main story line.

This is a great introduction of a brilliant author - - despite the off-putting accent the narrator adopts when the characters are speaking. I haven't a CLUE why this was done, but it feels uncomfortable at best and racist as worse. If you can get past that, the story itself is almost like a young adult book reminding us of how it feels to be young, vulnerable, and so at the mercy of the friends who you adopt as family.

But, if you don't enjoy tangents, the occasional mystical thread, or if you need a beginning, middle, and end to be happy, this is probably not the book for you. But, if you want to let go, think hard, and are willing to get on board the fantasy train, you'll enjoy this one a lot.