Can we create our own reality? Murakami delves into alternative possibilities in his latest fascinating and inventive novel. The story is told by a male narrator who remains unnamed. He meets a beautiful young girl from a different city at a ceremony where each is receiving a writing award. Although they see each other only on rare occasions after that, they write long letters and fall in love. One day she tells him about a city enclosed by a high wall where her 'real' self lives. As they talk, they go on 'to create and share a special, secret world of [their] own.' Then one day the girl just vanishes and is heard from no more.

This story is so wondrous! Woven into it are dreams, shadows, ghosts, unicorns, the meaning of time and so much more. The author's flowing writing style kept me turning pages; the ending left me with much to thunk about.

In an Afterword, Murakami tell us he first published this story as a novella back in 1980 as a young writer but always felt it deserved more, and now 40 years later, he has rewritten or, as he says, 'perhaps completed,' The City and Its Uncertain Walls. I highly recommend to those who enjoy this kind of rich fantasy story that takes the reader deep into the unknown.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an arc of this new novel via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you to Knopf and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Murakami is a brilliant writer and this is beautifully written, but I couldn’t get into the plot. I read about 10% and it did not hook me. Part of me wanted to keep going because I was intrigued about what could possible be going on, but it’s such a long book and it’s hard to keep trying to enjoy a book you aren’t quite enjoying, so I DNFed for now. I may pick it back up someday when I’m more in the mood.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami is a first person-POV literary magical realism. Utilizing second person-POV, the unnamed narrator speaks to his high school sweetheart, a girl who disappeared one day to go to a town surrounded by a wall and unicorns. When the narrator arrives in the town, he starts to have conversations with his shadow.

Haruki Murakami has been on my radar for more than a decade and yet this is my first novel from him. When I saw it was available on NetGalley, I immediately picked it up to try to understand what the hype was. As promised, there are references to music and Western pop culture including multiple references to the Beatles, which seems to be a Murakami signature. The pacing is also quite slow as this fits the literary classification of spending a lot of time in a character’s thoughts instead of a constantly moving plot. The reader is meant to savor those feelings of losing a teenage love but also trying to find it, and yourself, again.

The shadow aspect is quite interesting and something I'm probably going to continue to contemplate off-and-on. One of the stipulations of the walled town is that nobody there has a shadow, forcing the narrator to cast his off in order to stay. But his shadow comes back and asks for them to leave the town and go back to the regular world. In some ways, I got the impression that this was an on-going conversation between an immigrant who is living in their new home and the part of them that still belongs to their place of origin, the part that might always want to go back. In this case, the shadow seemed to be right as there wasn't much for the narrator in this town except their job and high school sweetheart, but neither seemed to be fulfilling them, making their days a shadow of what they could be (pun intended).

There are some subtle Queer themes in here, though that will be up to each reader’s interpretation. A higher-up in a library is a man who wears skirts because it feels poetic and all of the narrator's potential love interests might be sex-repulsed Asexual women. There are other interpretations for both beyond Queerness (such as grief and certain medical conditions), but given Queerness is becoming more discussed and accepted in many parts of the world, it's hard not to think that these themes are intentionally meant to normalize different kinds of relationships and preferences. The narrator might think something is odd or draw attention to it, but there's a difference between being surprised and confused and being disgusted and what we had here was more surprise and confusion followed by acceptance.

I would recommend this to fans of literary magical realism, readers who love explorations of shadows, and those looking for a long literary read set in modern Japan

👉🏻 For my friends who enjoy mind-bending stories that leave them blinking into space and whispering, “What did I just read?”

THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS by Haruki Murakami (Philip Gabriel, Translator) Brian Nishii (Narrator)

🎧 Thanks, @PRHAudio, for the #gifted audiobook and Knopf for the advanced review copy via NetGalley. #PRHAudioPartner #sponsored (Available 26 Nov 2024)

I loved this author’s memoir (WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING), but his fiction might be beyond my comprehension. This magical realism story is told in three parts. First, a nameless boy falls in love with a mysterious, nameless girl who describes an equally mysterious town with high walls, a gatekeeper, unicorns, and shadowless people. She then disappears without a word. Next, the nameless man, now middle-aged, wakes outside the mythical city, relinquishes his shadow, and becomes a dream reader in the library where the mysterious girl (still the age when he last saw her) serves him tea. Finally, the nameless man, suddenly back in the “real world,” finds a random job as a librarian at a remote, mysterious library where he meets more unusual people.

I kept searching for the connection, the extended metaphor, or the parable behind this twisty, dreamlike tale, but came away confused.

However, the narrator of the audiobook was exceptional. I could have listened to his lovely voice for 17 hours and 27 minutes without understanding a speck of the story. Which, in fact, I did.

This is a deeply muddled and uncertain book that I wouldn’t recommend for the classroom or anyone beyond a staunch Murakami enthusiast. Even then, it feels like a good Murakami book took a weird dream - all the facets of the odd and mystical are emphasized, and the real and internal/relatable are either diminished or wholly absent. The book is also far too long and feels more like a novella that got out of hand.

If appreciating Murakami's books is an acquired taste, something you develop by exploring his work book by book rather than something that can happen with any of his books, then it was a mistake for me to request this. I was interested in the premise and I've never read a book by the author, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to start, but maybe I was wrong.

I like magical realism and absurdity, I do, but not when it's meandering and doesn't seem to have a point. And if I have to drag myself through the rest of this book to understand the point of all this nonsense, like it's a chore, then I'm not interested.

There are many things in life that I do simply because I have to, even if they're unpleasant, but I refuse to let reading become one of those things. That's why I DNF as soon as thinking about reading a book makes my eyes roll, and that's what happened with this one. Maybe I'll give any other of his books a try at some other point in life, but this was not it for me.

Book Review: The City, and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, Translated by Philip Gabriel
Published by Knopf, November 19, 2024

★★★★★ (4.5 Stars rounded up!)

"The City, and Its Uncertain Walls" (English version, 2024) by Haruki Murakami, was first published as a 150-page novella in a Japanese literary magazine in 1980, when the author was still running a jazz bar in Tokyo. It was just about that time when Murakami decided to close up shop and be a full-time writer. He remains an aficionado as evidenced by the jazz influence which pleasantly bleeds into his prose.

The rewritten "City" now a 464-page novel crafted by an older and wiser 75-year-old Murakami 45 years after the novella, took three years to write, protracted due to the coronavirus pandemic. He takes the original story from his 1980 "City" novella and fuses in seamlessly the plot of his 1985 novel, "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", as the "Dream Reader", Narrator and enigmatic protagonist of "Hard-Boiled", carries the torch through a Kafkaesque maelstrom to the finale of the rewritten "City" novel.

Simply breathtaking!

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// "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" (1985) //

An experiment in the subconscious mind.
The Narrator, a nameless protagonist, is presented as a "human data processor" and rides an elevator underground through the depths of the Tokyo subway to the secret lab of an eccentric old scientist. Eventually, the protagonist receives a special gift from the old scientist.

The skull of a unicorn.

Unicorns. And a town with high walls.
Which leads to a desolate town with a high wall around it, a library without books, a watchtower with a clock without hands, three bridges spanning its lone river, and communal housing. The woods around the town have but one denizen species: unicorns, many of whom die in long winters.

The Dream Reader. His Shadow. And his Love.
It is here where our protagonist morphs into the "Dream Reader", the only position open in the town, where he meets his long-lost teenager girlfriend, the "Librarian", still the 17-year-old she was then. The town is guarded by the "Gatekeeper", and people who are allowed to enter are separated from their own "Shadow". That's right, the "Shadow" is a living, breathing character in these environs, and, severed, becomes a separate but identical person. The Dream Reader's only function is to read old dreams. These are the only items on the shelves of the library without books. It is a world of the protagonist's imagination where "...you'd have to wish your way in". Or fall in through a hole, or climb a river upstream, as it turns out.

The End of the World.
Which leads to that part of the novel which leaves Murakami readers perplexed. The Dream Reader's brain, shuts down, slowly in degrees, locked in his own subconscious. As he parts ways with his own Shadow at the edge of an isolated pool, he meets his own metaphorical end...

-------------------

// "The City, and Its Uncertain Walls" (English version, 2024) by Haruki Murakami //

/// "Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change /movement.
Isn't this the quintessential core of what stories are all about?”
—Haruki Murakami, 2024, from the book's afterword. ///

Part 1.
The first part of the novel is a reprise of "Hard-Boiled Wonderland", with further elaboration on the multi-dimensional romantic relationship between two Tokyo high school kids, coming of age, who find themselves transported through the ether by their own consciousness into a city with walls, a product of their own creation, where they emerged as the "Dream Reader" and his "Shadow", and the "Librarian". Part 1 goes all through that final pool scene when the Narrator meets his metaphorical end, as he parts ways with his Shadow.

/// "The real me lives there, in that town surrounded by a wall..." ///

Parts 2 & 3.
The Narrator finds himself as a salaryman back in Tokyo, now forty-five-years-old. He resigns from his job as a traveling book distributor and moves from Tokyo to Fukushima (site of Japan's post-tsunami nuclear disaster). His becomes the head librarian in a small town. There he meets and becomes close friends with Mr. Koyasu, the library's colorful former head, a man without a shadow. Who as it turns out, passed away long before the arrival of the narrator. Koyasu, too, knows of the city with uncertain walls. He has a romantic encounter with the lonely owner of a Coffee Shop endlessly playing jazz music, just the right interlude for a Murakami exhibition of fancy jazz tidbits.

It is in the library where he meets a mysterious boy he christens the "Yellow Submarine Boy". A boy who draws for the Narrator a map of the city with uncertain walls, and proceeds to tell him their purpose.
"To prevent an epidemic. A never-ending epidemic", says the Yellow Submarine Boy.

The boy vanishes, "spirited away" in classic Japanese anime fashion. He had wished, with all his heart, to go the city with uncertain walls.

The Narrator follows a river upstream — and gets reunited with the Librarian, still at her 17-year-old self, in the city with uncertain walls. And over the distance, on a bridge, he sees a boy. It is none other than the Yellow Submarine Boy, who now wishes to be the Dream Reader. Their conversation is a soliloquy.

/// "Did you know that? The two of us are nothing more than someone else's shadow.
Yes, that's right. It might sound outlandish, but it isn't.
You and I joined together. Since I am, from the start, you, and you are from the start me.
So you're saying it's no big deal which is the real person and which is the shadow...." ///

Even as the Dream Reader's Shadow, in a most unexpected form, recaptures his own consciousness, as the Narrator, in a single breath, blows his own candle out...

/// "Darkness descended. A darkness deeper than anything, a darkness ever so soft." ///
—Haruki Murakami, 2024, from the book's finale. ///

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Magnificent prose, maudlin at times with overextended expressions of puppy love.
In many parts, repetitive. — And yet unputdownable!

Review based on an advanced reading copy courtesy of Knopf and NetGalley.

A quiet, gentle, mysterious story in which it is hard to differentiate between what is reality and what is illusory. In essence, it's classic Murakami. By the time I was 75% through the book I was certainly intrigued with how it would resolve at the end but I also didn't really care because it was so enjoyable to read that I was just happy to be in this story, along for the ride. Compelling characters, interesting questions, relatable experiences of grief and heartache, sure it's magical realism (complete with a nod to Marquez) but it's also about human experience. I very much enjoyed the journey.

I found this novel more enjoyable than I thought I would, given the lack luster reviews that have been posted so far. It is a tale of magical realism...a tale of young love and the pursuit of lost love. It deftly explores the boundaries of reality and unreality in the way only Murakami can, seamlessly flitting from one world to another without leaving the reader behind. The worldbuilding is masterful and intricate, as is the character building. The plot development is leisurely and unhurried, in keeping with the novel's dreamy atmosphere. "It is a fantastical kind of fiction. And probably classify me as some starry-eyed dreamer. That's all." -Murakami. iykyk.

4.5 rounded up.

My appreciation to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC.

A strange tale about a Japanese man that's told in three different locations/time periods. The book interweaves a shadow world/fantasy/magical realism with plausible worlds. I liked each individual story/location but did not like how they overlapped

This book was a little different for me and I could not finish. Probably just bad timing on my part. Too much magical woo-woo for right now.

This is my third Murakami this year and also my third ARC completed before the publication date! Thanks again to Knopf and NetGalley for the opportunity to read it before its release. I enjoyed this story almost equally to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, though it lacked the mystery embedded in my read of the latter since I already knew the premise of the world coming into it. Regardless, returning to this heady world was delightful as eerie as it seems. The seemingly separate narratives weave together at the end neatly. An ideal early winter read.

The story behind the book is almost more interesting than the story within it. As Murakami himself notes in the Afterword, <i>The City and Its Uncertain Walls</i> exists in parallel with HBW and is not meant to serve as a sequel. I found it fascinating that the premise of both books originates from a very early concept, and this particular novel is a rework of that original story from the 80s.

Murakami is one of the singular most important voices in modern literary fiction. This latest offering is filled with themes and winks we've come to expect from this talented writer--and the weird, strange, and haunting visionary tales we cannot get enough of. This one is both haunting, harrowing, and sorrowful. There is magic, there is intrigue, there is wonder.
This will probably hit the bestseller lists and it should. This is a book you'll want to keep going--and one I will be returning to again in the future.

My thanks for the ARC goes to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor. I'm voluntarily leaving a review.

Genre: Weird Fiction, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Asian Literature

I strongly believe in reading books outside of my norm just to see what else is being created. *THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS* is in that category for me. I've read a lot of Japanese fiction, and so I thought it might be a good fit. The story wandered a bit in a lyrical way, fighting its way through to define what is real and what is not. In the first quarter of the book, the characters were as etherial as a shadow.

It was interesting and different. I think this book has a niche audience.

I dnfed this book sadly. I found that it didn't have much of a plot and just meandered through the story. I don't know if I needed to read this author's other works to understand what was happening, but overall, this just wasn't for me.

It's difficult to describe this book. It started off with a young love story between a boy and a girl, and introduced us to this small city surrounded by walls. And we follow the main character and his shadows into the city, and out of the city to a remote library.
There wasn't a lot that happened in terms of plot lines. We gradually learned the secrets of the city, and lives of the main characters. There was still a lot of unexplained things in the world. But I think the main thing isn't the story, but the overall atmosphere and vibes from the world.
I still enjoyed it, but found that it wasn't as memorable as some of Murakami's other works.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC!

This title is getting a lot of buzz and despite like Murakami's previous books, I just could not get through this one.

DNF. I actually thought magic realism as a genre had stopped working for me for a moment there. I didn't feel connected to the setting, the protagonist, or the dream-like prose. This is the type of book to get lost into, but only if the author can set it up, which didn't happen since the story was disjointed and we are thrown into it. I will be trying this again when I shake off the feeling of unoriginality that has lately been accompanying Murakami reads.

This novel was my first of Haruki Murakami’s work, and it certainly won’t be my last. I can definitely see how his writing may be divisive, but personally I’m the type of reader to thoroughly enjoy the weirdness of the dreamlike worlds he created in this story, and I look forward to reading more from him!

As one may imagine with Murakami, it's a little difficult to succinctly summarize the plot, but I'll try my best - the story opens with our nameless main character as a 17-year-old boy who has just fallen in love with a 16-year-old girl. The girl tells him stories about a magical land on the other side of the wall where her "true self" lives, but then mysteriously disappears leaving our main character heartbroken for years to come. We then flash forward to our main character as a middle-aged man who somehow finds his way into the mysterious world beyond the wall, where he finds his past love still as a 16-year-old girl, but she doesn't remember him. Throughout the rest of the pages, we meet some more unique characters, enjoy lots of bookish delightfulness as our main character becomes a small-town librarian, and go back and forth from the world on one side of the wall to the world on the other, to the point that we're almost left wondering which one of those is the "real" world. There are unicorns, libraries of books, libraries of dreams, blueberry muffins, shadows, clocks with no hands, and so much more sprinkled throughout the pages, but trust me - it all just works.

Although I'm usually a reader that needs to completely understand every plot point and every piece of a magic system, I was strangely ok with just going with the flow with this one, just accepting the story as it came to me rather than dwelling on trying to figure out the details. My reading experience felt like how I’d imagine wandering through a cloud might feel - you sort of see where you’re going, but there’s nothing to hold onto as you’re floating along the way. It is a long book and honestly quite a bit quieter and gentler than I was anticipating based on a plot summary with so much magical realism, so there were some times that the pacing felt a little off and things seemed to drag a bit. But overall, I really enjoyed this mystical journey into Murakami's head and loved the vivid world-building that made me feel like I was right in the middle of it.

All in all, I had a wonderful time with The City and Its Uncertain Walls, with all of its eccentricities. It’s about so much, but it felt to me that it ultimately came down to what we think of as “reality”, and how “reality is something you have to choose by yourself, out of several possible alternatives.” Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Haruki Murakami's The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a novel that captivates with its beautiful language and intriguing concept. Murakami's prose is often poetic, with many passages that are a joy to read. The author's unique style and imaginative ideas shine through, making the book a compelling experience on many levels.

However, while the language and concept are strong points, the story's flow left something to be desired. At times, the narrative felt disjointed, with certain sections becoming repetitive. This disrupted the pacing and made it challenging to stay fully engaged. Additionally, the world-building in some parts of the book felt underdeveloped.

Another aspect that stood out was the portrayal of female characters. Unfortunately, I found the way Murakami writes his female characters to be lacking in depth and nuance. This detracted from the overall experience and left me wanting more well-rounded and realistic portrayals.

In summary, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a novel with beautiful language and a fascinating concept, but it struggles with pacing and world-building. Murakami's portrayal of female characters also leaves room for improvement. Despite these flaws, fans of Murakami's writing style may still find much to appreciate in this book.