A full length Murakami after a long time. I had been looking forward to reading this.

This hits all the spots you expect a Murakami work to hit but somehow still feels that it fell a bit short. Not any better or any worse than his average works.

This latest novel by Haruki Murakami, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” happens to be his first full-length novel in six years.

As an individual who has read most of his works, I was surprised by this work and left wanting.

This novel, like many of his past works, features a lonely male protagonist who is left unfulfilled after a brief relationship with a woman. Why? It feels hard to gauge why this one person influenced his life. Murakami spends much more time describing surroundings and inanimate objects than providing character development in this book—particularly when it comes to women.

This 3-part story (based on a 1980 short story) takes place in both the real world and a fictional one. It toggles between consciousness and unconsciousness and the various aspects of life, including the boundaries we put on ourselves.

This book, by far, is my least favorite work. It feels like it is in draft form, not fully fleshed out or assembled. I think sometimes a short story should stay a short story. Murakami fans will most likely miss his hardboiled detective takes. I enjoyed some passages, but I don’t feel like this particular story was worth the wait.

4.5-5 stars. Tender, nostalgic, and soft. It may well be the pinnacle of cozy magical realism by Murakami.

I really enjoyed this new work. It feels like Murakami cut away everything else not needed and left only the essentials at its core. Perfectly paced with masterful use of multiple perspectives.

I dare to say that this new book falls within the category of Colorless Tsukuru, South of the Border, and Yesterday - which, for reference, are my favorite Murakami works. It wouldn’t be a Murakami book without his well-known tropes making an appearance (per the Murakami bingo), but I felt that each trope was well used and not at all repetitive or overdone.

So blessed to have received an ARC of this. I will certainly be buying a hard copy when it is released.

THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS is a strange book, braiding together three distinct eras in Murakami’s oeuvre. Much like HEAR THE WIND SING or NORWEGIAN WOOD, one part deals with a young boy’s love and longing for his first girlfriend. Much like HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND, another part (set in the same universe) is more of a psychological allegory, operating at a higher level of abstraction. And yet another part resembles THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE in its attention to the everyday life of a mature man whose life is conventional but includes supernatural qualities. The result is, in some regards, uneven but, in others, delicately layered with certain metaphors and locations knotting these different threads together.

It’s hard to imagine that any Murakami fan will select this novel as their favorite, and yet it isn’t, by any means, one of his lesser works. Indeed, Murakami seems to speak more earnestly and urgently in this book than recent ones about the necessity of social trust, psychological complexity, and genuine striving to build connections.