This book had such beautiful writing—whole chapters felt like poetry, and I have to applaud the translators for capturing that so well. Murakami’s style is always a treat, and I loved spotting his usual touches throughout the story. That said, I didn’t feel as connected to this one as I’d hoped.

The plot was confusing at times, and the twists didn’t land the way I expected—they felt more like detours than revelations. The shifting perspectives, jumping between first and second person, made it hard for me to stay immersed, and the characters felt distant. I really wanted to connect with them, but they just didn’t feel fully developed.

The ending had a circular feel that was satisfying in its own way, but there were so many loose ends and unanswered questions. While I appreciate that not every story needs to wrap things up neatly, I found myself wanting a bit more resolution.

If you’re a Murakami fan, there’s still plenty to enjoy here in terms of his signature dreamlike style and beautiful prose. But if you’re new to his work, I’d suggest starting with one of his more approachable novels before tackling this one. For me, it was a mixed experience—lovely to read, but hard to fully connect with.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Murakami is an author that has intrigued me for a few years now, so I was over the moon to receive an arc of his latest work. i figure consuming murakami for the first time this way allows me to formulate my own opinions without being too shrouded by the massive response i’m sure this book will evoke.

the city and its uncertain walls is a literary fiction magical realism novel set in modern japan. told in first person, this mind bending and yet mundane work is a meandering ode to quiet life and libraries. the book was literarily interesting, with alternating timelines, poetic, beautiful prose, a subtle queer undercurrent, and the widespread use of anonymity and nameless characters and places.

The stream of consciousness aspect of this novel grounded the story, but I did find it repetitive from time to time. this is also one of those books where you just have to accept that you will be lost for a while!

I definitely struggled to organize my thoughts into a coherent review, for the reading experience was so singular.

I strongly recommend this for lovers of magical realism, interconnected timelines, libraries and the books and dreams they hold, and the complexity of shadows!!

The City and It's Uncertain Walls was my second foray into Murakami's writing. My initial trip was 1Q84 which was a flawed book full of genius that I really enjoyed and has stuck with me for years. The City was a less flawed book, that is less genius and in the end was an enjoyable read that lacked a little of the awe that 1Q84 inspired.

from the blurb "We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life. Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. "

This is a beautifully written meandering tale that vacillates between two worlds. within the narratives of our unnamed MCs we discover other stories that all brush on the border between reality and magical. All while keeping itself grounded in mostly mundane quiet daily life. This is a far more palatable read than 1Q84 and as such might be a really good entry point into Murakami. A quiet and intimate read that would make a really good slow but steady.


Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. #TheCityandItsUncertainWalls #NetGalley.

This is a long and meandering book that feels like a series of loosely connected stories - except each of the stories are told rather than shown in these long rambling scenes that are occasionally interrupted by our unnamed narrator and the town behind the walls. The lack of focus on plot, character, or momentum means that there was very little to hold my attention. Indeed, I read half the book before looking up and wondering what the point of any of it was.

If you love Murakami, I don’t see how you can leave this book with anything other than a feeling of deep satisfaction and appreciation. If this book feels familiar, that’s because it is. This book is haunted by themes, characters, and ideas from Murakami’s previous works. In the best way possible. And if you’re unfamiliar with Murakami, hello and welcome! If you love books, libraries, and magical novels about books and libraries, you’ll love The City and its Uncertain Walls.

If you favor plot-driven stories with a fast-paced narrative, this one might not be appealing, but If you enjoy character-driven novels filled with slow-moving cozy descriptions, magical realism, libraries, and creating your own reality in an attempt to deal with loneliness and grief, this one is for you!

Our narrator spends his life grieving the mysterious disappearance of his teenage love. She had spoken to him of a mysterious walled town where her real self lived; he wonders if he could find her there and somehow makes his way to this place where unicorns roam; a formidable gatekeeper controls access, and anyone entering must leave their shadow outside the wall. He finds work with the girl in a library where there are no books, only a vast array of dreams that become his task to read.

As the narrator grows older, the divisions between reality and other become more flimsy. Is he creating his surroundings in his mind; is your reality something you can choose? Is he his true self, or his shadow self?

I enjoyed so much about this book. I love weird lonely characters who are basically lost in their thoughts, and stories where you aren't quite sure what to believe.

The way Murakami writes about women and desire gives me the ick, so I basically skip over those parts. It's like he's viewing women from the point of a young boy feeling naughty at catching a glimpse, and when he describes women he has feelings for or notices, it's usually a juvenile description of their bodies or physical attributes. That wasn't a huge part of this book, but it should be mentioned.

Overall it's a highly accessible, cozy read, and a good rest for your brain if you need it!

Thank you so much to Knopf and Netgalley for this ARC!

Our main character inhabits two parallel worlds—one is the “real world,” and the other is a “dream world” reminiscent of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi: a nameless city with labyrinthine streets that feels disorienting yet mesmerizing.

The story is told in an understated and straightforward way, with little drama but plenty of pleasant imagery. Some elements felt downright cozy, though they lacked significant dramatic heft. The main character grapples with existential questions about his inner worldview and his sense of self, which are represented through the parallel worlds he experiences. Is the walled town a construct of his mind? A physical manifestation of the complex bond he shared with his first love? Who’s to say?

Murakami abandons the eponymous city for the “real world” early on, and the farther the narrative distances itself from that place, the harder it becomes—for both the main character and the reader—to return to what we once remembered. The plot clumsily attempts to weave these threads and worlds back together, but the resulting knot felt unsatisfying to me.

Many reviews have noted that Murakami has told similar stories more effectively in the past, so surely this is not the ideal book to start with as a Murakami neophyte—but here we are. I suspect I would connect better with his earlier works, as his writing and style resonated with me, but the story itself felt half-baked.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for this eARC!

I was super excited when I saw that a new novel was going to be released and this novel didn't disappoint. Murakami wrote this novel based on a short story he wrote over years ago (which I didn't know until I read the author's note at the end of the book). Like most of Murakami's writing, both non-fiction and fiction, this was a book you want to immerse yourself in. The story unfolds slowly but is well worth the time, in my opinion. This book was written during pandemic, and it discusses a lot about love, life, loneliness, and books. I highly recommend this!

I entered a dream on page one and stayed in it for the entire book. To me, this is Murakami at his best - whimsical yet dark, tense yet hopeful, and a love story I'll never forget. Bibliophiles especially will love this one.

Gorgeous, thoughtful, dreamy... Murakami's prose never fails to make me feel quiet and contemplative and his most recent book is no exception. I love that he takes his time and drags things out, which might make some readers feel impatient, but made me feel like each moment was meaningful and important. Great read!

Wow! The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a gorgeous read. The effective use of the second person narration makes for an intimate, emotional connection to the main character. The premise is intriguing (if a little convoluted), and the short chapters propel the reader with good momentum. With Haruki Murakami as the author, it is fair to expect an impressive book, and this book delivers.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami is based on a short story of the same written more than 40 years ago in 1980. The author also based his 1985 novel, Hard Boiled Wonderland and the end of the World on that same short story and you see echoes of both these stories in this novel. The is a lit fic story with magical realism. It was written during the pandemic, and it echoes the loneliness and isolation felt during that time. It's about love and discovery and books. Murakami's stories slowly unfold and are beautifully written, but require the investment of time, but they are well worth it. Thank you to #netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for my advance reader copy.

Haruki Murakami’s new novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, contains an afterword. In it, the author explains that the book has its origin in a novella he wrote in 1980, just after the publication of his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing. Though it was published in a Japanese literary magazine, Murakami was unsatisfied with the novella and has never allowed it to be republished. He continues:

"Still, from the first I felt that this work contained something vital for me. At the time, though, unfortunately I lacked the skills as a writer to adequately convey what that something was. I’d just debuted as a novelist then and didn’t have a good idea of what I was capable, and incapable, of writing. I regretted publishing the story, but figured what was done was done. Someday, when the time was right, I thought, I’d take my time to rework it, but till then would keep it on the backburner."

He goes on to describe coming back to the story multiple times over the decades, expanding and revising, and characterizes other books of his as responses to this unknown project. Finally, in 2020 when the pandemic shut everything down, he returned to the story again to produce a final version, forty years after its initial conception.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls (out in English tomorrow) begins with its unnamed narrator recounting a relationship he had when he was 17. As he and his girlfriend, also left nameless, sit on a riverbank at dusk, she tells him that the body he has his arm around isn’t the real her. The real her is somewhere far away, sequestered in a town behind a high wall. Soon this town behind the wall becomes their chief topic of conversation, he writing down every detail she provides. Alternating with this relationship history, the narrator tells us that ultimately he found this town and entered it. To pass the Gatekeeper who guards the only passage through the high wall, the narrator had to give up his shadow and have his eyes mutilated to prepare him for his new job as Dream Reader at the town’s library. He does these things willingly, so intent is he on finding the girl’s true self, who works as his aide at the library. She doesn’t know him, however, having no knowledge of his past with that other girl he knew. The town is also home to a herd of unicorns.

As I understand it, that was the extent of the original novella. Here it constitutes only about the first quarter of the story. My familiarity with Murakami is far from complete and certainly this first section was reworked when he came back to the project, but it does feel like the work of a less mature artist than the Murakami I know. It’s intriguing, certainly, and disorienting when the narrator claims to have physically gone to a place created in the imagination, but there’s a hard to articulate so what to the proceedings. We have these various fantastic elements—the dream reading, and separable shadows, and the unicorns—but they remain mere oddities observed by our blank-slate narrator. They jump off the page as obvious signifiers of something but on closer inspection don’t contain much signification.

Eventually, through circumstances that even he doesn’t understand, he finds himself returned to his apartment in Tokyo. It’s at this point we learn that decades passed between his teenage relationship with the girl and his finding his way to the town surrounded by high walls. He’s in his forties, unmarried, with a job in book distribution. Though he’s dated a few women, he remains haunted by the girl of his youth. He’s unhappy that he’s returned to the real world and is consumed by “the visceral sense that this reality isn’t a reality for [him].” If he can’t be the Dream Reader in the library in that town, he must be a librarian in this world, preferably in some small, isolated community. Well, circumstances align and he soon moves to the small town of Z**, walled in by high mountains in the Fukushima province.

Thus begins Part II of the novel, which, while still strange and explicitly supernatural, is much more grounded and satisfying than Part I. Murakami’s gifts lie in the depiction of life lived, of how ideas and experiences grow through the routine and repetition of our daily lives. That skill is on full display throughout the rest of the book. The narrator settles into his job and slowly gets to know the previous library director, Mr. Koyasu, who offers him guidance. He starts going to a coffeeshop and over a series of scenes develops enough rapport with the owner to ask her on a date. The seasons change. The library cat has kittens. While the narrator’s life is quite repetitive, the book is not boring and watching him live out his routine is not tedious. The way his rote actions begin to accrue meaning over time is quite powerful.

One might wonder if the two sections fit together into a complete work. Ultimately I think they do. They are very different and reflect very different perspectives to take in the scope of Murakami’s artistic development. The youth dreams of escaping and making their fantasies real. The man knows that fulfillment must be found in this world, and knows it can be done.

This read like a very stereotypical Murakami book. There were moments of this book that I really enjoyed and others that I felt dragged on a bit. However, I know that its going to be a book that I think back on and continue to put pieces back together.

I love the settings of a Murakami book, but still haven’t gotten used to the pacing. There are parts that feel painfully slow, and those where the narrator seems to explain a point quickly so as not to waste time on showing the reader what is happening. I was totally invested in yellow submarine kid and his understanding of the shadows and switching.

If you love Marakami, you will enjoy this book (especially if you liked the Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - in a true Murakami-est twist, that book was inspired by the early novella that is now become The City and Its Uncertain Walls - the two novels can be read as companion books.)
If you have never before read his books and don't enjoy (very) slow-burn character-driven novels - beware.
There is some deeper meaning behind this long and convoluted yet very simple story, but it is hard to care a lot about it when we take such meandering ways to get to it.
Not to knock the style - this is a true Murakami book written in his unique way with plenty of easter eggs for the committed readers - but to me, the language, in general, was repetitive, as were the situations and dialogues.
I finished it, and I can't say the ending was not satisfying - it was, in a way, a merger of two parts of the person after a long life of doubts and separation. The poetry behind "believing the other part of you is there to catch you" is beautiful, but at that point, I was just happy it was all over.

Thank you, NetGalley and Knopf, for providing an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review. The book is out on November 19.

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.