To what ends of the earth would you wander for a love worth waiting for❓❓
Name of Book: The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Bryant
Publication Date: 30 April 2025
No. of Pages: 464
Format: Paperback
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.
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul.
My Opinion
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami is a fantasy romance that follows a young man's search for love. While the premise initially intrigued me, the book ultimately turned out to be a disappointment. The first half held promise with its mysterious and imaginative world-building, but as the story progressed, it began to feel painfully stretched. The second half introduced several unnecessary events that lacked direction and emotional impact. Despite being a devoted Murakami reader, I found it difficult to stay invested and eventually had to DNF the book. The characters were overwhelmingly gloomy and distant, making it hard to connect with them or feel their struggles. The narrative, which started strong, lost its core purpose midway. Although the setting had potential, the lack of emotional depth and clarity in storytelling left me unsatisfied. Unfortunately, this one didn’t live up to the magic I usually expect from Murakami. The book deserves 3 stars.
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