Murakami’s Latest Novel The City and its Uncertain Walls: To Read or Not to Read?

Posted On October 22, 2025

Hi Readers! October has been going amazingly well reading-wise. I have officially read the most in October, with The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami being the fourth read. As usual, my mood possessed me to pick this one randomly, and so I obliged. I believe it has been over two years since I read a Murakami book, so I was very happy with the choice. Being a 400+ page book, I was keen on finishing it during the Diwali long weekend, and voila, here we are!

~~GOODREADS DESCRIPTION~~

From the bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

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. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.

~~STORY LINE~~

“Imagine turning pages in a book. The pages change but the page numbers do not. There’s no logical connection between the new page and the previous one. The scenery around us may change but we’re glued to the same spot.”

This paragraph was somewhere towards the end of the novel, and I cannot think of a better way than this to define the book. Divided into three parts, this story is of a man and his shadow who is at times in the real world and at times in the walled-up town which is another version of real world. The forever question throughout the novel is which world is real and which is the man vs the shadow.

“That entire summer the summer I was seventeen and you were sixteen every time we met, you talked enthusiastically about that town. What a wonderful summer. I was in love with you, and you were in love with me (I think). Whenever we met, we’d hold hands and, away from people’s eyes, we’d kiss, then huddle together, talking endlessly about that town.”

I enjoyed Part 1 which had an innocence to it depicting a love story between two teenagers who believed they were each other’s soul mates. It was far too cute a setting to start off the novel, however far too misleading for what was to come. From that teenage story, it then takes us to the boy being in the walled-up town and his life there.

“I was starting to have a hard time judging what was weird and what was not.”

First part ends with the man helping his shadow escape the walled-up town. But, Part 2 picks up with the man’s life out in the real world which is not the walled-up town. So, it’s a good illusion where even the readers are not aware who is leading those lives – the man or his shadow. In a typical Murakami fashion, he quits his job and moves to a small town to be the Head Librarian at the Town Library. Part 2 is the longest and mostly revolves around few more characters, including the previous head librarian Mr. Koyasu and later the Yellow Submarine boy. Both eccentric characters which jell well with the whole concept of the novel.

“What is real, and what is not? In this world is there really something like a wall separating reality from the unreal?”

Part 2 ends with a revelation where we understand where the man is and where the shadow is. And then finally, we have a very short Part 3, where we see the man’s parallel life in the walled-up town and how he finally merges with his shadow.

~~THOUGHTS~~

I read a Murakami novel after 2+ years, so naturally it took a few pages to get in that vivid mindset of the distinct worlds he creates. The City and its Uncertain Walls will have you questioning reality – whether the main character is in the real world or in another realm which is the walled-up town. Are both worlds real? In parallel, the main character has to sever himself from his shadow which can then act as an independent being. So, again the question arises. Is it the main character or the shadow and is he in the real world or the walled-up world?

Now, in these past 2 years, I have heavily consumed all types of media across books, movies & web series. A lot into fantasy, science fiction and mysteries. So, I have that mindset when I went into any new kind of content. Given the premise, my brain was running at 200 km/hr trying to understand what the story was all about.

Could it be like Stranger Things with an upside-down version of worlds but with the addition of the man and shadow? Because though both worlds seemed very different, there were a few specific commonalities. Or, could it be psychological fiction such as From or The One I Love, where both exist in both worlds with a survival of the fittest angle to it? Or, could be like a medical drama, where the man in the walled-up world is actually in a coma? And, when the shadow (symbolic for brain) leaves the walled-up town, the man also dies (because of brain death)? Or, could it be like Dark Matter, with alternate lives and repercussions of choices? And, believe me, a lot of other wildest possibilities.

But, when my brain’s tuning was changed from this signal to Murakami’s magical realism signal, everything shifted. I remembered my reading experiences with other Murakami books. I remembered how I could read them without bothering about the big reveal because there’s oftentimes never a big reveal. I remembered that his books are never about solving the puzzles, but just appreciating and enjoying their existence and beauty. No purpose, just vibes. And, when you’re in that zone, you are open to endless possibilities, which is why, I think, every reader takes some unique lessons from his books.

Having said that, after setting in into the magical realism zone, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. The start was quite cute and fast-paced. I enjoyed the story about 70% of the way. It did become tedious to read later. The concept was good enough, if way too abstract to grasp. After reading, I also realized this book was related to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which I am yet to read, but I think it worked as a standalone too. I have rated The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel at 3/5 stars!

Until next time,