Editors Reads Verdict
Murakami's most recent novel — a late meditation on the walled city he first imagined in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, now seen as a place of genuine peace rather than erasure.
What We Loved
- The most serene and accepting of his novels — a late-career change of tone
- The library setting is beautifully realised
- Rewarding for readers who know Hard-Boiled Wonderland
Minor Drawbacks
- The least narratively urgent of his major works
- The second section (the Japanese library) is less compelling than the walled city
- Some repetition of earlier Murakami motifs
Key Takeaways
- → The walled city as final destination rather than loss — Murakami's changing relationship to his own mythology
- → The library as refuge and threshold
- → A late novel's peace with its own recurring obsessions
| Author | Haruki Murakami |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Knopf |
| Pages | 464 |
| Published | January 1, 2023 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Magical Realism |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Committed Murakami readers, especially those who know Hard-Boiled Wonderland |
Murakami first wrote about the walled city in a 1980 short story that became the ‘End of the World’ sections of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Forty years later, he returned to it — more fully, with more time, and with a different understanding of what it means.
The novel’s first movement follows a young man and a girl through a correspondence and then into a walled town surrounded by a golden forest, where shadows are detached at the gate and the Dream Reader works in the library reading dreams stored in the skulls of long-dead unicorns. The girl disappears; the young man tries to find her; the town reveals itself as something other than a place of loss.
Decades pass. The same narrator, now middle-aged, takes a job as head of a small public library in a town in the Fukushima mountains. A boy arrives who reads nothing but The Arabian Nights in a corner of the library. The walled city, somehow, is present again.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls is the most serene of Murakami’s novels — a late-career work that revisits his foundational mythology and finds in it a kind of peace. For readers who know Hard-Boiled Wonderland, it is essential; for those who don’t, it is the longer, more meditative version of the same world.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "The City and Its Uncertain Walls" about?
A young man follows a girl he loves into a walled city surrounded by a golden forest, where shadows are detached at the gate and a Dream Reader works in a library reading the dreams stored in unicorn skulls. Decades later, the same man takes a job in a small library in a mountain town in Japan — and the walled city returns. An expanded and deepened return to the world of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
Who should read "The City and Its Uncertain Walls"?
Committed Murakami readers, especially those who know Hard-Boiled Wonderland
What are the key takeaways from "The City and Its Uncertain Walls"?
The walled city as final destination rather than loss — Murakami's changing relationship to his own mythology The library as refuge and threshold A late novel's peace with its own recurring obsessions
Is "The City and Its Uncertain Walls" worth reading?
Murakami's most recent novel — a late meditation on the walled city he first imagined in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, now seen as a place of genuine peace rather than erasure.
Ready to Read The City and Its Uncertain Walls?
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