Having read just about everything he’s written, it’s fair to say that I’m a huge fan of Haruki Murakami. On that basis, I started reading “The City and its Uncertain Walls” with a degree of relish.
However, whilst in many respects “City” is typical Murakami, there are a couple of things that bother me about it. The first is that I think it is too long; and the second – a clear contributor to the length – is that there seems to me to be too much repetition in it, detail we’re given again and again (though whether that’s in the original or a reflection on the translation I’ve no way of knowing).
It also bothers me that I don’t think ‘uncertain’ is the correct adjective to describe the walls in the story. They seem far from that. Flexible, yes; malleable, maybe; organic even. But ‘uncertain’? Certainly not.
In the ‘Afterword’ (a departure for Murakami) he describes the genesis of the novel – essentially a novella written over 40 years ago (and regrettably published) which he always felt ‘unfinished’, and which he finally got around to doing something with during the Covid years. Perhaps that creative journey partially explains the length and the repetition…
I would never put off anyone reading Murakami – but I wouldn’t start with this. “Kafka on the Shore” perhaps, or “Norwegian Wood”, or “The Hard-boiled Wonderland at the End of the World”…
Ian Gouge - Writer 