Synopsis & Review | The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, Shinchosha, 2023 | Jean-Michel Serres, Composer-pianist (Apfel Café Music): Website

Summary Synopsis

When I was 17 years, I came across a girl of 16 years and we made correspondence. I dated with her once or twice a month, and we talked the City of which her true substance lived. I entered the City of her dream world…

In the City, that is enclosed by the tall and very strong wall, my job was only to do dream-reading. I went to the library, the spirit of the girl worked at, and read three old dreams everyday. The winter had came, the shadow of mine demanded me to go out from the City within a week…

After returning from the City, when I was middle forties, I resigned my job to think about job. And I got a job of the chief librarian of the Z Town Library, in a rural town in the mountains of Tohoku. But the job is unusual, unreal and lonely like the job of dream-reader. Then I knew the former chief librarian Koyasu had lived in the City, and he was ghost. And I got to know a mysterious 16 years old boy went the library everyday, M who only to read so many books at there, and memorized them completely. After a while the boy drew a map of the City and brought it me, and he told me that he wanted to…

Book Review

Haruki Murakami’s the 14th novel published at 10 April 2023 in Japan. The title is same as his novel “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” which released in 1980 on a Japanese Magazine “Bungakukai”. But he rejected it, and part(s) of the motif and the story of the rejected novel was adopted in “The End of the World” of “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”. A a new novel for the first time in six years of which he published, from “Killing Commendatore” (2016).

Three chaptered long novel of 661 paged novel, is formed by 70 short sections.

The same titled middle scale novel of 150 manuscripts, published in 1980. Then Murakami rejected it, the novel was unfinished and not mature. So he wrote his one of masterpieces Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World which based on the rejected novel. But he had decided to aide and rewrite the one recently and he started write this novel from the begging of 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic begun to spread all over the world.

Because of the pandemic of Covid-19, he shut himself in his house and was only to wrote during about 3 years. Murakami wrote in the afterword, the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic affected the story or not, Murakami doesn’t know, can’t know. But there would be a kind of meaning or something.

On this novel, there are 4 polots. A is the adolescence with the girl in the this real world and they talked about the City in which she said she had lived. (chapter 1) B is the time in the City. The narrator’s duty is only dream-reading in the library of the City. He read three old dreams almost everyday. (chapter 1) C is Middle age years after returning from the City. The narrator worked as the chief librarian of the Z Town Library. And he met and saw the chief librarian, Tatsuya Koyasu, the librarian Soeda and mysterious 16 years old boy, M. (chapter 2) D is the content of the chapter 3…

The story about the City and dream-reading in the chapter 1 is almost same as the “End fo the World”. And Murakami wrote the chapter 1 is the rewrite of same titled middle scaled novel published in 1980.

There are many Murakmai’s unique elements and motifs such as fragments-style, dual-world-story, alter world, separation between mind and body, books, reading, library, dream, loneliness, strange and awkward but sweet love with a girl, cooking, taking a long walk, coffee (and tea), fashion, ghost (or being like ghost), lost of persons or objects, and strange experiences.

This novel is a combination of Murakami’s odd romance stories (for example Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart) and his unique urban adventure stories (Wild Sheep Chase, The Wind-bird Chronicle, 1Q84 and Killing Commendatore). This is based on the same titled middle scale novel published in 1980 then was rejected and the End of the World of Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. (Also this novel is the alter version of Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Murakami wrote.) And there many elements and episodes resembles Hear the Wind Sing, Norwegian Wood, Sputnik Sweetheart, Killing Commendatore and Kafka on the Shore. I think it must be a big fruit and one of consequences of his writing carrier.

Also another feature of this novel is the theme treats reading, library, books, writing, story and their meanings. This novel is a story of to read, to treat, to cope with and to create a story or stories. The first job of the narrator was a book agent and the second was the chief librarian of a small library, in the City his duty was to read old dreams. The City is created by the story made by the girl and the people have no shadow. And the Z Town Library is a dreaming place of Mr Koyasu who loved books and had wanted to be a novelist. And there was an ideal place of reading for the narrator and M. And the story develops about the libraries, books and stories. A story is people’s each own idea and world or micro-cosmos, also the story is the world, the universe or the nation. A big question and a main theme of this novel is connection and meaning between them.

To read a book or a story is a way of mental treatment and keeping sanity, a method of living in the world and of communicate with lost people. This motif is the same as Kafka on the Shore. Almost characters of this novel loved books and reading, so they wanted to spend time by only reading. Reading is the way to escape from the world, also is the method to solve the problem of this real world, however to dive into reading or a story is a happy but dangerous act.

I think Murakami’s message of this novel is “how we deal with the reality and stories, the connections among them?”. Almost of character in this novel and their activities and jobs are only very practical or only very unreal. Living people must live in a story or stories including ordinary, empty or superficial stories made by television, cinema, magazines and so on. People forced to trace ordinary stories such as “One must continue to work a big and stable company”, “One must marry till the middle age” or “One must live in this real world (and its story or the grand narrative of a nation)”. Some people shut in their dreamy stories or own micro-cosmos. It’s also the question and the problem to Murakami himself as a novelist. The conclusion and the consequence of this novel is that he made end or shut out…

The matters about the Covid-19 pandemic made clear, there were divides between a grand narrative of a nation and individual realities, administrators and practitioners, rules and practices, students and adults, and patients and non-patients. So Murakami mentioned the Covid-19 pandemin in the afterword and this novel must be affected by the matters.

Incidents in Japan, for example the 2008 Akihabara Massacre, the Kyoto Animation Arson Attack and Studio, the Assassination of Shinzo Abe, they should be caused by the problem of story. There were many causes of many complex things, but the problem of story is huge one. I think these criminals can’t cope with their stories, the stories they followed, they forced to follow or they want to believe. And connections between the reality with a story or stories are wrong, so each one committed a crime. They can’t correctly cope with a story that was made by themselves or other(s), and reasons of commit murder are unreal, trivial and inconsistent.

The wall of the City should be a shell of collective minds of people. And the people in the City have no shell of mind but there were no flowing and progression of time and no complex social duties and responsibilities. They did only simple own duties. They look like residents in the Heaven, but also look like prisoner. However, a life in a prison might be the most great, regular, stable, clean and happy way of life in the Earth… ?

This novel is one of the most favourite Murakami’s novel of mine equal to The Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Dance, Dance, Dance and the part of Kafka Tamura in Kafka on the Shore. I read a great novel which newly published, for the time in a long time. It’s a masterpiece of the 21th century and philosophical fantastic grand narrative owns common sense, the meaning of life, love and its compassion and a truth, that I wanted to read. Are there’s Murakami’s full of love for library, books, reading, writing, stories and literature.

By this novel Murakami splendidly successes to create and set up his ideal place and world, or two eternal utopias like the heaven. So sweet, precious and pure… But the narrator…