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.

In The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Murakami explores the boundaries between reality and the fantastical, echoing the themes of magical realism popularized by Gabriel García Márquez. The city can be seen as a manifestation of the subconscious, full of stories and unfulfilled desires, while the interplay between physicality and shadow suggests that body and consciousness may be inseparable.

Murakami wraps gentle prose around sharp-edged philosophical questions like why imagined worlds can feel more desolate than reality. Although he doesn’t break new ground, he distills his recurring themes of loneliness, aging, and the quest for meaning into a beautifully flowing narrative evocative of Miyazaki. Ultimately, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is an ode to the coexistence of the real and the unreal, and I happily fell into the richness of its landscapes while reflecting on my own.

This was SO intriguing, and right off the bat, the 2nd person POV and writing style pulled me in. Usually, I have a hard time with this POV, but this was executed so well that I wasn't bothered by it.

Since this book is based off of some work he's done in the 1980s, the author expresses his common themes of his--memory, solitude, and the shifting line between reality and fantasy. It had the melancholic atmosphere, magical realism, and the sentiments on youth, loss, and longing.

This might not be for everyone, and I understand the problems people have with it. Overall, solid piece of fiction, but I know it requires a certain taste.

I was intrigued by the ideas, but omg this needed to be edited more tightly. It’s incredibly repetitive, describing the same things over and over and over again.

Also, I felt vindicated when I got to the afterword and found this began as a story he wrote in 1980. Because the whole way through, every time I got bored, I’d think jeez, he’s still writing the same damn story after all these decades. Well, yes and no.

You’d think after all these decades he’d find better use for his female characters.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

DNF because he would not stop talkijg about boobs. I have to review every book I get or my ratio won't hit 100%. Sorry.

An introspective Murakami for the fans, while melancholy has always been a signature element in Haruki Murakami's stories, its dominance in The City and Its Uncertain Walls is unlike anything I've read from him thus far; while it's nothing suffocating or oppressive, it lacks the levity and outright 'weirdness' of his more popular titles.

The whole thing can also be interpreted as a meta retrospective of the author's body of work, considering it is partially based off the same short story that has already been 'remade' once as Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, as well as appearances of some of his iconic themes (romantic yearning during youth / middle age), and elements (literature, music, spaghetti, etc.). The magical realism flavor is still present, but takes a backseat with the story's more muted tone and quiet pacing.

I wouldn't recommend newcomers starting with this as their first foray into Haruki Murakami's universe, as the self-referential aspect will be difficult to grasp / appreciate, its leisurely pacing can be testing even for experienced readers (the story can easily be told under 350 pages), and the overall structure a little fragmented and under-told. But for vibes, I sink into The City and Its Uncertain Walls like a cozy, familiar sweater, and I'm left feeling bittersweet as this presents itself like some sort of closure.

Lovely book, deftly told. A fascinating exploration into a fascinating mind. I adore Haruki Murakami and admire his process of creativity.

I've seen a lot of praise for this book, and I've enjoyed the Murakami I've read before so I was hopeful, especially given the premise. There were a lot of parts that were interesting and engaging, and several passages that were so beautifully written I went back and read them again. Ultimately, however, I don't think I enjoyed this book. It felt very disjointed, and while I'm aware more of that was on purpose it just didn't work for me. It felt like in a battle for whimsical magical realism vs pretentiousness, the latter won. I was so engaged with the story of the library and his life with the coffee shop woman that I didn't care at all for the town. I found myself frustrated at the choices the main character made, particularly about the young boy. It was a worthwhile read overall, but I don't think I'd recommend it to just anyone.

I'd also like to take a moment to note that the way he describes and writes about women and their bodies made me extremely uncomfortable, to the point that I almost DNF'd it in Part One.

I really enjoyed this book immensely. I am a fan of Murakami, though I haven't read all his works. When I saw that this was book was "a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times," I couldn't wait to read it because all of these descriptors appeal to me.
It was better than I had even hoped! Not only is it a book I am excited to hand to the avid readers who visit my library and (constantly) ask me what I have read lately that is good, I also think this will be an excellent selection for our book clubs as well.

Thank you to the publisher and to netgalley, I am lucky to be able to read this arc. This is a love letter to magical realism and fantasy. What I recently learned is the story is an expansion of another Murakami short story of the same name, which was published in a 1980 Japanese literary magazine. The City and Its Uncertain Walls is set in a place where there are magical animals and people do not have shadows beginning with two teenage characters. I found the premise so interesting but the plot never materialized. It is a quieter novel with fantastic world building though at times I found myself getting bored. The novel ponders reality and the subconscious using incredible imagery at a slower pace and given it was written during the pandemic I can feel the comfort this novel could bring some readers. Themes of childhood loss, grief and of course loneliness. 3.5* rounded up!

The book is a bit slow going and ended up being a head scratched at the end. I did not feel there was any resolution to the book which made it seem rather pointless.

In similar manner to 1Q84, Murakami bends and twists the lines between past, present, and future. He brought in the idea of parallel universes where one's flesh and bones body and shadow body living different lives. As most of his work, reader needs to walk into this story with an open mind and expect to question his/herself multiple times on which is the real self. As the title suggests, there are metaphysically uncertain walls here and you cannot tell which side you are walking on.

"Standing there alone, I always felt sad, a deep sadness I'd felt before, long, long ago. I remembered that sadness very well. A sadness that can't be explained, that doesn't melt away over time, that quietly leaves invisible wounds, in a place you cannot see. And how can you deal with something you can't see?"

""So you're saying we've left the tree and are in empty space? Where there's nothing to hold on to?" The boy gave a short, hard nod. "Exactly. We're floating in empty space. There's nothing we can grab onto. But we haven't fallen yet. In order to start falling, you need the flow of time. If time is stopped, then we keep on floating there in empty space forever." "And time doesn't exist here in this town." The boy shook his head. "Time exists here. It just has no meaning. Which in the end amounts to the same thing.""