MY VERDICT: A complex, layered work that invites multiple readings and interpretations, solidifying Murakami’s position as a master of contemporary literature, and as my favorite contemporary Japanese author!

Murakami is for me one of those authors I like so much that at the same time, I want to devour their books in no time, AND I want to slow down, enjoy every line, and make the delight last longer.

Entering The City and Its Uncertain Walls was also like visiting a favorite country. I found again the same Marakami’s style I like so much, with flowing dialogs and descriptions, and with these in-between places where you never know if you are in reality or not.

Plus, the story sounded so familiar it felt at first I had already read this book!
Murakami explains why in an Afterword – something he usually doesn’t include.

So Murakami did write a novella with this core idea and title forty years ago.
But he wasn’t happy with it and didn’t publish it in print.
Then he wrote Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World as a response to it in 1985. He still thought his story needed another response to it, and that’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls.
Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls marks the 21st book by this author that I’ve read (I am shocked I have read that many!), and it explores familiar Murakami themes while taking them to new depths.
The novel masterfully weaves together concepts of identity, memory, the blurring of reality and fantasy, lost love, and the nature of time and death.
So, what really happens in this book?
It’s hard to summarize a novel by Murakami without inserting spoilers. Here is my super short version:
A young man’s life is shaped by a mysterious girl and an imaginary city. As an adult, he enters this surreal city, leaving his shadow behind. After returning to reality, he becomes a librarian in a remote town.
And lots more is happening!

As usual with this author, the central theme of the book is the exploration of reality versus unreality. Murakami constantly challenges the reader’s perception, blurring the lines between what’s real and what’s not.
The novel questions whether we’re dealing with unreality or “different versions of reality mixed together” or overlapping.
The protagonist often finds himself in a state of existential uncertainty:
Murakami’s perspective on this theme is perhaps best summarized in this passage that sounds like his personal manifesto:
“What is real, and what is not? In this world is there really something like a wall separating reality from the unreal? I think there might be. No, not might – there is one. But it’s an entirely uncertain wall. Depending on circumstances and the person, its texture, its shape transforms. Like some living being.”
As this quotation illustrates, the city and its walls serve as a metaphor for this uncertain boundary. It’s a place where “everything is eternal,” where time is first said to be approximate, and then time and distance/space cease to exist.
This timelessness is symbolized by a clock without hands (cf. the book cover), described as “It wasn’t a clock that told time, but a clock that showed the meaninglessness of time”.
Sometimes, the city could be interpreted as a metaphor for death or an alternate reality, with its porous walls allowing passage between worlds.
But obviously, things and symbols are never as clearcut in Murakami. Though I believe Death is an important theme of the book, and for once in Murakami (I think), there is a “ghost”, a man who is supposed to be dead but who comes several times to speak with another character and feels very real. I’m remaining vague on purpose here!
So, how do you go into/out of that city? Or from one version of reality to another (as there are parallel things and people in and outside that city).
Through your wishes? Your heart? Your consciousness? I think all these options are considered throughout the book.
And maybe you can see under the theme of disappearance, the Japanese phenomena of the Jōhatsu (ie people who purposely vanish from their established lives without a trace), especially for the boy who thought he didn’t fit in the world he was in.
I actually would like to know if the word jōhatsu is used when Murakami talks about “total disappearance”, or of having been “spirited away.”
The City and Its Uncertain Walls delves deep into questions of identity and the true self, particularly through the concept of the shadow as another dimension of a person. The narrator often questions his own existence:
Besides, I loved all the passages on books and libraries.
Instead of books, the stacks in the library [in the city] were full of countless old dreams.
I think old dreams are like echoes of the minds left behind by real people.
But the library outside the city does have books, and it feels so cozy in there, especially when it’s so cold and snowing outside.
There is a good number of references to classics, and even a whole passage on defining magical realism and Garcia Marquez.
I think actually Murakami is doing this much more successfully than Garcia Marquez, though he may consider the Columbian author as the master and his first inspiration.
Like in several books by Murakami, there are images like wells, holes, pools in the ground, that sometimes allow you to cross borders between two worlds, or two dimensions of the same world. Maybe an image of the “deep sea of the unconscious.”
And happenings related to ears!
And obviously, you will also encounter jazz, as in all his books.

My full review is actually longer, with more quotations, and parallels to other books I have read, with similar themes

A VERY VERY murakami-ish murakami. like... this is the most murakami-ish murakami to ever murakami. NOT something you want to go into without a willingness for slow-paced, dreamlike writing, but if you do read it when prepared for it, my gosh, the story simply SINGS. probably my favorite murakami so far. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

About fifteen years ago, I took a family trip to Japan. Afterwards, I got my hands on as much Japanese literature as I could find at my library (there wasn’t a lot) which led me to 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘪𝘯𝘥-𝘜𝘱 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘥 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 by Haruki Murakami. I was hooked and immediately found every book I could that had been translated into English. His writing is different, a bit of magical realism, with another bit of ambiguity. It’s also addictive once you get into it.

Recently, I had the opportunity to read Murakami’s upcoming work, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘵𝘴 𝘜𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴, and it was another experimental, magical journey through Murakami.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱:
- Structure. This book is essentially two novellas written on top of each other in the same “universe.” It’s very unique and you have an idea of how they fit (and I promise they do fit).
- Murakami. The book feels like Murakami. You question what is real and what is not. And you’re never fully sure. Also Beatles references.
- Character. We do not learn the main character’s name, but he’s a fascinating person, hung up for his life on a high school heartbreak. Is he relatable? Maybe not. At times you want to scream at him to get over it. Is he interesting? Absolutely.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲:
- You have to know what it is. I read a synopsis of the structure beforehand, so I understood there were basically two intertwining novellas at play. However, if you don’t know that, it’s jarring and disjointed. One half of the book is fantasy and the other is more grounded in reality (albeit a Murakami reality). If you don’t know that’s what’s happening the second half of the book can seem insane.

𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁:
This book may be for fans of Murakami, which I am. I’m not entirely sure how the experimental structure will play with the unversed. I recommend it, but not as your first Haruki Murakami book. Start with 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘪𝘯𝘥-𝘜𝘱 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘥 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦.

A man pines for his high school sweetheart who disappeared without a trace and searches for her in a Town she created that may or may not be real.

In a Nutshell: A literary fiction dipped in magical realism. Explores the link between reality vs fantasy. Fans will find several recurring Murakami motifs. A good option for those who want to begin their Murakami journey.

Plot Preview:
A seventeen-year-old boy. A sixteen-year-old girl. A city with uncertain walls. In quest of this girl, the boy (now middle-aged) separates from his shadow and goes inside the city. In the real world, the protagonist shifts from his book distribution company in Tokyo to work as a head librarian in a small town, where he meets a ghost, and a woman who owns a coffee shop.
The story comes to us in the first-person perspective of the unnamed male protagonist.

I started the book with the wrong expectations. I had heard that Murakami had written this novel as a counterpart to ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ (1985), which itself was based on a novella he wrote in 1980. But it seems like even ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ left Murakami with a lingering sense of unfinished business, and hence he wrote this novel. I expected this book to be a sort of sequel, misinterpreting the word 'counterpart'. However, this book is not a sequel in any way. Though the basic framework is the same, Murakami uses different characters and plot to construct it.

The novel has three parts to it; the first part (about 25% of the book) is quite similar to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World in its structure (despite new characters and settings), so this was too repetitive for me. That said, we don't need to read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World before reading this book.

I am sure you have heard this Harry Potter quote said by Dumbledore: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” I often recollected this while reading the book, as the titular city probably existed only in the mind of the protagonist. This city, where the clock has no hand, where the boundary wall changes on its own, and where unicorns graze during the day, has strict rules for it to maintain its homeostasis. I felt like this city was a metaphor for a safe space where a person can take refuge when the going gets hard in the real world. But once they step in, the city doesn't let them get out again. And they have to enter the city alone, so alone that they even have to discard their shadow before stepping into its gates. Without uttering a single word on mental health, Murakami has thus created a very impressive theme of mental health in this novel. The City is the haven inside our mind where we escape, possibly to recharge, but sometimes to such an extent that we get lost there and don’t know how to come out into the real world again.

Let's not forget that this is a Murakami book. Nothing can be simple. In one library in this novel, we meet a ghost, and in another library, we watch a dream reader interpret ancient dreams. Somewhere in a coffee shop, a woman sells blueberry muffins. And a boy in a green parka with a Yellow Submarine picture on it reads book after book in the library. Yeah, everything is perfectly absurd and perfectly Murakami! I checked the Murakami Bingo, and this novel hits 14/25 bingo squares. Not bad, right?

All in all, I did enjoy this book, but not to the fullest. Despite everything being on point at surface level, the writing felt restrained to me, as if Murakami was holding himself back. I wanted more metaphors, more dreams. I missed the weird scenes that are so staple in most of his works. Also, compared to his earlier books, this novel offers everything on a platter to readers; we don't have to rack our brains much to understand what's going on. Unlike most Murakami novels, the book even closes well, resolving all the big knots in the plot. The final interpretation is very final and not much fluid. However, as a fan of Murakami's open endings, I would have preferred the story to go on for another 100 pages or so, and to show us a little more of what happened to some of the characters in the real world.

Regardless, this was a good read, and ought to satisfy his fans as well as newbies who wish to embark on the Murakami journey and don’t know where to begin. It has been a six year long wait for his new book, and the wait has been worth it.

4.25 stars.

My thanks to Knopf for providing the DRC of “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

In this novel, the narrator speaks the narrative to the young girl he fell in love with as a teenager and lost within a year. As the story unfolds, the reader comes to realize that the city and its uncertain walls is an imaginary reality where the narrator is able to meet the other aspect of his lost love. Maybe it's a metaphor for the walls we put around our hearts, maybe it's something else. While this may sound like a difficult book to read, it's actually quite pleasant and clear reading. The tone is straightforward, not overly emotional. Looking back, if I were to identify inciting incidents and climactic events, I'd say they were more like riding a bike up gentle hills than cresting high peaks.
I found the writing lovely and placid. This is definitely not a book for people looking for action, adventure and suspense. Be prepared to put on your thinking cap -- I know I'll be thinking about this one for a good long while. Those who love magical realism and surrealist writing will appreciate this one.

Many thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor and NetGalley for access to the ARC. Opinions stated here are my own. I am not compensated for my review.

I feel that I cannot properly review this title because Murakami has been my favorite author for the better part of a decade. However, I will say that the magical realism that he is known and loved for is in full swing here. This is not a good read for someone who has never read Murakami, however. It is a bit difficult to get into for the first few chapters. After that, it's a page turner that you won't want to stop reading.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls was my first book by Murakami, although his others have been recommended to me in the past. I'm sure it won't be my last!

I was immediately intrigued by the novel's first part and the mysterious city built behind a wall. I've always been fascinated by dreams and the dream realm, and the book discusses this along with potential dimensional travel, which I've always believed the dream realm is a gateway to.

I loved the romantic underpinnings in the first part, the discussion of the shadow self, and the young apparent neurodivergent character towards the end.

Overall, this was a standout read, keeping me turning pages throughout, and one that will stick in my memory. It is worth a second read in the future, for it feels like there is a deeper meaning here. I'm sure I missed what seemed to be philosophical insights the first time around.

Our dear Unnamed Protagonist has a bit of an identity issue. He met a girl when he was 17, had a brief, unrequited love, and then she vanished. During their time together, they played a game imagining a walled city together. This stuck with our Unnamed Protagonist long after she vanished, until circumstances bring him to the very city the two of them dreamed up when they were kids. Lo and behold, the 16 year old girl is there, acting as the Unnamed Protagonist’s assistant in dream reading. Things get along swimmingly (if a bit same-y, day after day after day after day after….), until the Unnamed Protagonist helps his own shadow leave the city, never to return. Suddenly we’re back in Japan, in Fukushima, with our Unnamed Protagonist acting as a librarian in a very remote town. Where did the walled city go? What does the dead-but-not old head librarian know about the walled city and how to get back? Who is the kid with the Yellow Submarine sweatshirt? All these questions and (so many) more are yours to explore by the end.

Right off the bat I feel like this had some pacing issues in the middle. I enjoyed the young love setup in the beginning, and enjoyed the satisfying payoff as things start accelerating past the midpoint of the book, but the day-after-day sameness of the library in Fukushima felt a little thin. The detail is certainly there though, so if you love Murakami depicting everyday life (I do), you’ll get that itch scratched here. In true Murakami fashion, don’t go into this looking for definitive answers from the author, because the real answers are the ones you find (or, make up convincingly) along the way. I appreciated being able to revisit the town from Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t feel like a rehash exactly, just another story layered over the same town. And finally, while there’s no sex in this book (Murakami bingo card holders with ‘weird sex’ as a square, I’m sorry), we do get some of that patent ogling of underage girls and dated-feeling thoughts about middle aged women here. If you can’t overlook those things and enjoy the story told here, I’d give the book a pass.

Just a pleasant read from one of my favorite authors.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As a former Murakami fan who became disillusioned with his works in recent years, reading The City and its Uncertain Walls was almost like a return to the glory days, when I was enamored with his words and all he had to say. Almost.

Many of Murakami’s novels feature teenage girls, who form some relationship or have a connection with the male (usually older) protagonist. This was also the case with The City, in which the protagonist reminisces on memories of a first love who abruptly disappeared. His first love had an unusual belief that her real self was stuck in a city with high walls, and her current form was her shadow.

The protagonist never gets over his first love, coursing through life passively until one day, he gets a sign to upend his life and follow the cryptic clues laid out for him from his subconscious.

I enjoyed this one considerably more than his last two novels. However, I felt there were some points toward the end when the story dragged on. The structure of it also seemed a little odd to me, as I thought the most exciting and fast-paced parts were at the beginning of the book, and the pace slowed down between the middle and the end. Nonetheless, it all came together in a neat little package.

As often is the case with Murakami novels, the story feels like a dream. You never know quite what is real and what is not. And Murakami never spells it out for you, leaving it to you to make your own judgments.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.75 out of 5 stars

This is my first Haruki Murakami read. It was a fever dream. That is the description someone gave when I tried to explain what the book was about.

"There was a boy and a girl. They were young, in their teens. They fell in love, but the girl told the boy that her real self lived inside a walled-in city, and the girl he was talking to was the shadow of the girl in the walled-in city. Then she disappeared and he spent decades pining for her. Then somehow he ended up in the city with cut eyes, his shadow detached from him and withering away in a room in the gatehouse while he read reams at the library. There were golden unicorns but a lot of them died every winter when the leaves they ate weren't available. But his shadow, almost dead, convinces him to leave. The man runs with his shadow to the lake that leads back to the real world, but tells his shadow to go, that he is going to stay in the city."

Fever dream is right. First, I wondered if there was a plot. Then, I got caught up in the very large slice-of-life that I seemed to be reading. Then the boy in the Yellow Submarine parka made an appearance and the ghost of a librarian and the girl in the body armor, and I was captivated.

Then the end happened, and I am more confused than ever, and felt short-changed and like the real ending fell off a cliff mid-sentence.

I am left feeling the book DNR'd *me,* and I don't know what to do with that. I didn't...not like it. I am left with the aftertaste of a dream of a dream of a fever dream. Murakami is a treasure of a writer. I can say that. Because at no point in this book did I feel like quitting. It was captivating, for sure. Now after all of this, what do I do? Probably move some of his other books up the TBR to make a better determination.

It is probably best to state that this is my first encounter with Haruki Murakami’s writing, so the only thing I knew going into it was that he is a well known author for the quality of his work. After completing The City and Its Uncertain Walls, I can definitely understand why that is the case.

The way in which Murakami crafts his descriptions, whether they are about a landscape or a character’s thoughts, are beautiful and sensory. Sand around feet becomes soft clouds in a dream and grass on leg calves are like green punctuation marks. Everything can be seen and felt by the reader very easily.

However, it would go amiss to not also give credit to Philip Gabriel, the translator. His skill in translating Murakami’s words from Japanese must be noted due to the complexity of words and thoughts he had to convey through the language barrier.

In terms of story, I found myself most interested in the small town library setting, followed by the City setting, and last with the early parts between the main character and the girl. The small town and its characters’ relatability, while still be a setting that most readers will not have experienced, was easy to enjoy and the pace was perfect for keeping my attention. The City will grab the fantasy enthusiast in every reader and hold them captive with the desire to better understand the place and characters.

It should be noted that my least enjoyed section, the beginning of the story, is not bad per say, just not the part that stands out. It provides a great introduction to the quality of writing mentioned above, its just that the plot building and general pace is much much slower and I found it harder to stick with.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book, even to those who have not yet picked up a Murakami and I will also be looking to read more of his backlist due to this experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to enjoy The City and Its Uncertain Walls.

I’m a Murakami fan and others will recognize his signature style and many of the elements here. More than others, this novel blurs the line between real and surreal and the story that unwinds is lovely and poignant. But, there is a lot of meandering here. Would not recommend as a first read for this author. But, for fans, it’s a welcome addition to the catalog.

Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls is an intricate blend of magical realism and philosophical reflection, exploring the boundaries of memory, love, and reality. While the novel showcases Murakami's signature style—rich with surreal imagery and meditative prose—it falls short of delivering a truly cohesive and engaging experience for all readers.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a mesmerizing journey through the labyrinth of memory, love, and the surreal. This novel, a long-awaited addition to Murakami’s oeuvre, revisits themes and motifs familiar to his readers while offering fresh insights and a deeply moving narrative.

The story begins with a 17 year-old boy who falls deeply in love with a 16 year-old girl, only to lose her under mysterious circumstances. This loss propels him into a walled city that exists outside of conventional reality, a place where he becomes a reader of dreams.

As the boy grows into a middle-aged man, he leaves Tokyo for a small mountain town to become a librarian, curating real books instead of dreams.

The novel’s structure is non-linear, weaving between past and present, reality and the fantastical, creating a tapestry that is both intricate and haunting.

Murakami’s prose is as enchanting as ever, blending the mundane with the magical in a way that feels both effortless and profound. His descriptions of the walled city and its inhabitants are vivid and evocative, drawing readers into an eerie and beautiful world. The narrative is imbued with a sense of melancholy and longing, capturing the essence of lost love and the search for meaning.

The protagonist’s journey from a lovestruck teenager to a contemplative librarian is portrayed with great sensitivity and depth. Murakami excels at creating characters who are introspective and complex, each grappling with their own existential dilemmas. The supporting characters, including a neurodivergent teen known as Yellow Submarine Boy and a ghostly figure, add layers of intrigue and poignancy.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls explores themes of memory, identity, and the passage of time. Murakami delves into the nature of reality and the ways in which our perceptions shape our experiences. The novel reflects on the power of love and the enduring impact of those we have lost. These themes are woven seamlessly into the narrative, creating a rich and thought-provoking tapestry.

Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a masterful blend of magical realism, noir mystery, and philosophical reflection. It is a testament to Murakami’s ability to craft stories that are deeply personal and universally resonant. Fans of his work will find much to love in this novel, while newcomers will be drawn into its enigmatic and captivating world.

Really interesting read. If you like his other works you will like this. Might not be the best for anyone who hasn’t read his stuff before.

What is real, and what is not? In this world is there really something like a wall separating reality from the unreal? from The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami wrote The City and its Uncertain walls as a novela, published in 1980. He was unsatisfied with the story and regretted publishing it for he knew “something vital” was in it. He wanted to rewrite it and during the Covid-19 pandemic, rarely leaving his home, he finally tackled it. “For so long this work had felt like a small fish bone caught in my throat, something that bothered me,” he writes in the Afterword.

It is a strange and wonderful book, original and unique. The protagonist flows between two realities, the world he was born into, and the world imagined by the girl he loved as a teen, a city where people leave their shadows behind to live in a timeless world with clocks without hands. In this world he works as a Dream Reader in a library.

Which is the real world? In which world could fulfillment be found?

There was a fierce split between the conscious and the unconscious, and I had to choose where I should belong. from The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

The narrator touches on what he enjoys– jazz music, libraries and books, blueberry muffins. He never forgets his lost teenage love and struggles to connect with others. He leaves one reality for another, still seeking the girl. It is a lonely life in each world he inhabits. His friends are the librarian’s ghost and a strange boy who can’t connect to the world he is in.

“The real self and the shadow are essentially two sides of the same coin,” the ghost of a librarian tells him.

Should you read this? What did I think?

I will quote the narrator, talking about the Bible: “It’s an intriguing book, and I’ve learned and felt many things from reading it.” And he quotes, “People are like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow.” That is truth.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami - eBook ARC from NetGalley

It’s been quite a wait for a new Murakami novel, and The City and Its Uncertain Walls unfolds quietly and elegantly, like snow falling in a library full of forgotten books. The story is a beautiful love letter, wrapped in the author’s signature mix of surreal quests and tender melancholy. There’s something indescribably still about this book—maybe it’s the pacing, the prose, or the fact that I’m not quite sure if I’m smart enough to keep up with its depth.

Murakami’s narrative style is as intriguing as ever, creating a world that is both unique and familiar, like returning to a dream you’ve had before. It’s reflective, meditative, and in some ways, a still pool of thought. Yet, while I admired its craft and artistry, I found myself left wanting more. Perhaps it’s the way art is inherently subjective—what resonates deeply with one person might drift like snowflakes past another.

There’s no denying Murakami’s brilliance. This novel is undoubtedly a lovely work of art, but for me, this particular journey ended up being more about observing from a distance than getting completely lost within its walls. An average reading experience with extraordinary glimpses—exactly what you might expect when wandering through the uncertain terrain of a master storyteller.

IT’S ANOTHER MURAKAMI, OF COURSE I WOULD LOVE IT AND GIVE IT FIVE STARS!!!! i am an absolute murakami fan, as you can see on @chroniqled —and i honestly cannot wait for it to come out!! may i ask if it would perhaps be possible to request for a physical copy to feature and promote on my account? it would be such a privilege 🥹♥️

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the invitation to read this book early. First, I want to preface this by saying these are only my opinions and I don't expect anyone to read too deeply into this review. I have never read anything by the author before so I had no idea what I was getting into. This book was something else, I wasn't expecting any of it. It was a confusing character driven story that didn't feel like it went anywhere or had a satisfactory resolution. I will say it was beautifully written if confusing. From reading this book, I probably won't be reading anything else by this author and this author isn't for me, but I commend those who enjoy the author's work.