Well, I hung in there for all 17 hours of audio and 464 pages... flipping back and forth between audiobook and ebook... and I have no idea what I just read. Every time I considered DNFing something kept me hanging on. I was so confident that this meandering, dreamlike storyline would somehow reach a eureka moment at the end- and it never happened, or if it did I'm wasn't smart enough to catch it. Two stars for all the bits and bobs related to libraries.

This was such a unique and captivating read—classic Murakami with its mix of surrealism and introspection. I loved the way the story had two parallel threads featuring the same characters; it kept me hooked and guessing. The world-building and the emotional depth really stood out, and it was easy to get lost in the dreamy, otherworldly vibe.

That said, the momentum fizzled a bit toward the end, and I found myself losing steam. It didn’t quite stick the landing for me, but overall, it was a compelling and memorable book. Definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of Murakami or just enjoy thought-provoking, slightly surreal stories!

3.5 stars rounded up!

The City and Its Uncertain Walls was one of my most anticipated books of 2024. Despite some of the more problematic aspects of his books, especially the way that women are portrayed, his books are also part of what got me back into reading after college. So his writing holds a special place in my heart. While The City and its Uncertain Walls wasn't my favorite of all the books I've read by him, I enjoyed my time with it.

The storyline of The City is one that Murakami has been playing with for many years. It started out as a short story, then became Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. But, he was not satisfied with how the story unfolded, so The City is his way to modify and expand upon it. In The City, our narrator is haunted by his first love. As an adult, he finds himself in the mysterious city that they had imagined together. He becomes the town's dream reader, working closely with the woman who used to be his love. This part of the story will sound familiar to those who have read Hard-Boiled Wonderland. The plot shifts, however, when the narrator returns to Tokyo and continues on to a new life in a remote village. This felt the most like a typical Murakami story, with the magical intermingled within the mundane.

There is a lot to love in this book, especially if you like stories about libraries or any touch of magical realism. Murakami has toned down some of the things that critics have found objectionable in his previous books, including his portrayal of women, but still included many of the tropes I've come to expect in a Murakami novel. For some, this might be a bit repetitive, but I find a bit of comfort in this repetition. I had to chuckle at the extended mention of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, someone to whom Murakami is often compared; it felt like an inside joke.

As I said, this was not my favorite Murakami. But I really appreciated the opportunity to dive into another of his worlds. If anything, it made me eager to dive into his older work again. I think this could be a good introduction to Murakami, if you are a fan of slower-paced stories that tend towards the philosophical.

Slow moving and thought provoking. Read if you are a fan of his other works, and want to be absorbed by a story consumed by introspection.

Dear The City and Its Uncertain Walls,
You were so compelling and different for me. I loved how you felt. You were part fairy tale, part allegory and just a completely unique story. You were written with beauty in mind. Your jumps between The City and the other world as the main character struggled to discover himself and who he is in each of the worlds was so fascinating to me. You were so wonderfully crafted, and forced me to think outside of typical story structure and characterizations. You were thought provoking and one of a kind.

The City And It's Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
#magicalrealism

4⭐ for the writing
Actually a DNF but since I need to leave a rating
3⭐ for the book as a total package

I've been thinking of reading one of HM's books for a while. I have only ever seen great things about his books. Then I saw this book available on NetGalley and though, "oh perfect!" so I ran to hit the request button. I started reading this book well over a month ago. I just could not get through it.

The book was very well told. I loved how smoothly the translation of the original author's words were stated. I have read some translations where you can tell something was definitely missing in its translation from the original piece of work. This one was almost peotic, as some reviewers say. I was loving the book until all of a sudden, I just could no longer get through it.

The story begins with 2 teens in love in Japan. Then it switches to the MMC as a single middle aged man going to this mysterious walled city and living there a while so he can spend time with his love who is still the teen he knew. All of this happens in the first 30% of the book. Those parts of the book moved along well enough.

Then once he left the walled city is when it started to drag. The story got very philosophical. He kept asking why was he here? What does this have to do with my life? How is my life going to continue? I tried to chat online with someone who had pre-ordered this translation of the book. He never reached back out to me. Finally, I found someone else who had recommended this book under the genre of magical realism. I asked her if it continues to be so philosophical. She said, the themes pretty much stay the same throughout the rest of the book. 🤦 OK. Nope. I'm done. I cannot continue.

#knopfpantheonvintageandanchor
#netgalley

This novel is for those who want to ponder what is real and fiction, what is truth and illusion, and what we truly want in life and what is fulfilling.

When I read a book from Murakami, I’m expecting certain attributes, and this book definitely delivered on those. In particular, Murakami’s exhaustive descriptions of the most quotidian of activities mixed with the surreal and both types treated nearly the same by the characters are present here in abundance. The main character says this himself, in fact: “I no longer possessed a set standard with which to determine what was real.”

While I enjoy his work most when I give up on finding meaning or plot and just enjoy it in an outworldly slice-of-life sort of way, I am rather disappointed that there’s little resolution at the end. It’s a bit like starting with a nice warm bubble bath and then having the water slowly drain to an empty tub. I can accept that a book is all about the journey, but we get so little info about the journey it’s hard to say if the juice is worth the squeeze– or, as The Guardian put in in their review, “this protracted, foggy and self-referential novel feels ultimately scant in its rewards.”

For more reviews and bookish posts visit: https://www.ManOfLaBook.com

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami is a magical-realism novel about a young couple trying to find themselves between worlds that might or might not, exist. Mr. Murakami is a best-selling Japanese author and translator.

After meeting at an essay writing contest, a 17-year-old boy falls in love with a 16-year-old girl. The girl, however, tells him she only exists in a city beyond a wall. The boy writes down, in detail, the description of the city and then the girl disappears.

The boy, now a man, arrives in the city imagined by the girl, but now he has to separate himself from his shadow. He started working in a library, reading dreams with his assistant, the girl he fell in love with years ago, but she is still 16.

The man managed to escape the city and is working in a small library in a small Japanese town. There he meets a ghost, a teenage boy who can memorize books, and even a girlfriend. The boy knows about the city beyond the wall and makes a deal with the boy.

In the afterward, the author mentions that this book started as a short story about 40 years ago, but he was never happy with it. I’ve never read the short story, but like many good books, this one is relevant no matter when, or at what age you’re reading it.

It took me a bit to get into The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami (translated by Philip Gabriel) since at certain parts I had no idea who was telling the story. I don’t speak Japanese so I don’t know if it’s a gender-neutral language or not, but in English, it was difficult to discern. It took me about one-third of the book to get a handle on it. The stories which take place between the two worlds, however, were not confusing at all.

The whole story has a dreamlike feeling, I was never sure what’s real and what’s not, or if everything is real or not. The book reminded me of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, two realities, one possible fictional where time stands still, a magical world, clocks, shadows with their own, and magical creatures.

The book has an intriguing concept, I don’t think it is too original but once you get into it the narrative starts making sense. Mr. Murakami taps Gabriel García Márquez as the master of fictional realism whose separation between reality and the fantastical is clouded. The book blurs consciousness, subconscious, and our imagination showing us the power of them to create our reality.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls...A case of "It's not you, it's me?" Parts of this are written in second person, seemingly addressed to the forever youthful girl of the narrator's dreams. It's very dreamy, in fact, full of unicorns and a clock without hands. I did not enjoy this read, unfortunately. It is my first Murakami novel, and there was something about it that I found unsettling. Perhaps it is the very young, looks the same as the prime of their youthful relationship girl and the much older by the time he finds the city narrator. Perhaps it is the narrative itself, switching between describing the setting, the past, dreams, and the narrator's present. Perhaps it's just impossible for me to wrap my brain around the metaphysics at play here. Anyway, I didn't "get" this at all, unfortunately, though I did try.
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for this ARC!

I've tried this a few times and just can't get into it. It hardly needs my support to sell. We have already started a book club kit of this title.

Murakami is one of those authors where if I see his name, I expect to experience some literary excellence. While I did enjoy this book, I wouldn't recommend this as starting point for new Murakami readers. Otherwise, I enjoyed this book and got lost in the world. I also wouldn't consider this one of Murakami's best work, but still good nonetheless!

I think it is important to note that this was my first Haruki Murakami novel. It's proven itself to be just as whimsical and weird as his reputation dictates.

The City and its Uncertain Walls is a love story of many things. A love story to others, the mundane lives we lead, and to stories themselves. Told from the perspective of a man who goes unnamed, readers get a glimpse of life as he falls in love and then another look at his life after said love is lost. It's a story about how and where we find refuge and the people who can make us whole.

I fell as though this is a story that could be reread over one's lifetime, with the takeaways being varied and vast spending on the season one is currently in. I look forward to reading Murakami's backlist!

Murakami is an author I have found fascinating for many years. Though I don't always fully grasp the worlds and stories he creates, the words are lyrically beautiful and well painted in the mind's eye.

In this book, our narrator is unnamed and yet there is so much emotion behind the stories he tells and the lives he lives, both inside and outside of the walled city. In the world outside the city, the narrator meets and falls in love with a girl. They meet at a poetry competition and continues as they get older. One day she tell him that her real self lives within the walled city and if he were to ever join her in the city, since her real self cannot leave, she will not remember him but she encourages him to come and seek work as a dream librarian.

One day she disappears from the outside world and the narrator must decide when it is the right time to enter the city. When he enters, and gives up his shadow as payment to enter, he soon realizes time has passed for him outside the walls, but the girl he loves is still as young as when they were teens.

There are so many points I wondered what was real and what was a dream; which parts were the real world and which was the shadowless world where dreams fill a library with beautiful stories. You never know where this story will take you and what emotions may arise, but I enjoyed it and am glad I picked up this book.

While one could easily play Murakami bingo with jazz, the Beatles, Unicorns, libraries and a fantastical setting, for newcomers to his writing, The City and Its Uncertain Walls offers dual narratives about two young lovers separated by unknown reasons and a mysterious depressed town where no one has a shadow and they cannot leave beyond the walls.

Our couple, is the narrator, a 17 year boy who is in the throws of young love with his 16 year old girl friend. They met as both received prizes for their writing, and in an unusual fit of courage, the boy trades contact information and the couple begins to meet in parks. During their conversations where they share bits of their pasts, they together invent a walled in city that only lets certain people in. The boy becomes a reader of dreams, the girl their keeper.

Something happens to the girl, and she no longer arrives at their shared places. Hurt by the disappearance and unable to find her the boy never really moves on, first just merely existing before trying his best to move, never truly able to forget the girl. In his middle ages he suddenly quits his job and changes careers, finding some place quieter that puts him in the trust of a ghost but despite the possibilities, he may be just in time to help others.

Dreamy and fantastical, Murakami's latest an expanded rewriting or one of his early works, The City... is an exploration of love and meaningful relationships and how they two are not always the same.

Recommended to readers of fantastical fiction, fables, or readers of stories within stories.

I should have put more time between this book and book one in the series. What I found in the first book seemed over-written in the second. I no longer expected any clarification and I didn't find any. Still interesting but not fulfilling.

I'm a huge fan of Haruki Murakami and have read every book he's written that was translated to English. His lastest is a novel about love and loss. It's a back and forth novel that has the trademarks of a great Murakami novel. From the first page you know that you ar entering a world unlike any other novelist writing today. It's a book about a man named I who tells the story of his first love and the tragedy that transpired. He leik is past love have so mcuh in common that they have power that othr don't have that only people woth it can recognize. You hear sweet stories of how they met and the fears that they have. It breaks out into the fear that humans have for thing unknown. Unlike our world today. We like to stay safe in our own bubble and not deal with things we have no idea about. What the charcter realizes is that he must break down the walls in order for him to find himself and see the world as it really is and not what he wants it to be. I know this review is a bit esoteric but you really need to experience it in order to try to capture the brilliance of the what the author is trying to do. Murakami is not a young man and as I was reading it it was almost like he was contemplating his own life in this novel. He realizes his own mortality as well as what his works left behind will mean to people if anything (though I can't imagine people not reading him in a 100 years time!) Thank you to #knopf and #netgalley for this remarkable read. .

I will write out some more thorough thoughts at a later date but for now I’ll just say that I think this is really really good and one of his best. The man still has the juice and I’m really glad that he’s still writing at this age. I had written out a review on here already, but I messed up and it got deleted so this is just me regurgitating the thoughts I wrote down like five minutes ago, so forgive me for the brevity.

Murakami is clearly working through a lot of feelings that he has as a writer and as someone who’s been doing this for the past 40 years. It was really fascinating. Seeing those ideas worked out in the form of novel and metaphor. I don’t think you have to be a 70-year-old man who spent 40 years of his life writing novels to relate to the stuff that he talks about in this book. There’s romance there’s fantasy and there’s all the usual Murakami isms that you’ll know and recognize if you’ve read any of his other books. Spaghetti, cats, ears. The whole shebang.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me in advanced copy. Truly, the coolest thing that has ever come for me yapping about Murakami on YouTube. I have a lot more to say about this and I’ll do a video about it, but I really just want to let this one sit for a while. I really really like this and I think on second read or really just after I’ve let it sit for a while. This might bump up from four stars to five stars regardless I think this is definitely in the upper echelon of his writing and it’s kind of a huge relief to feel that way.

In 2024 we have a lot of creative minds that are making really great work in their later years. Scorcese. Spielberg. Murakami. This could very well be his last book if he wants it to be, but I hope he keeps writing until he can’t anymore.

Thank You NetGalley for giving me an opportunity to read and review The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami.

Wow, my first Murakami and I am still processing the story. First, for me this was a very slow read. I was engaged with the story but constantly thinking about the characters and plot. Am I seeing the whole picture? Do I need to think more about this part of the story? What should I be learning from this passage? This book has me contemplating "Is it just a story or is it more?" I am not a big consumer of books that straddle genres: literary fiction and magical realism. In fact, magical realism is a genre I want to explore a bit more broadly.

I think this book is for the reader who likes magical realism, a slowly spun tale, a story that teases the brain to unlock it's riddle long after "The End", and those who love Murakami. This book started out as a short story and was built into a book over many years. For myself, I am eager to read one of his other best sellers and compare everything.

I enjoyed this read, and hope you do too. 3.75⭐️ for me is you need that sort of thing.

What to say about The City and Its Uncertain Walls now, when I've just finished the book.....

It seems almost a cliche to compare Murakami and David Lynch at this point. But, still, there's a dreamy quality to both men's work that hits me the same way. Like everything almost exactly fits together, but not quite. I'll think I've grasped something and then it will slide away and I'll see something different.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is broken up into three parts. The first introduces the narrator, explains his teenage love with an unnamed girl, and reintroduces the city from both the novella The City and Its Uncertain Walls and the novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The second part involves the narrator taking a job at a library in a small town. The third part...well, that would be giving things away, wouldn't it?

Murakami has come back to this world three times, and there are parts of this novel that feel like a retread. But there are parts of this novel that are also wonderfully written vignettes of characters' lives. Throughout there's a dreamy surrealism that permeates the story.

Is this Murakami's best book? No, not really. But it's a very interesting book and I'm glad I spent time with it.