The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

I first became aware of the Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami in early 2021 when I had come upon reviews of two of his novels, Kafka on the Shore, and Norwegian Wood. I was later able to download mobi files for the two and read the books in November and December of that year.

This year, I managed to read six more of his novels - or eight if you count 1Q84 as three books as was originally done when released in Japanese in 2009 and 2010.

The remaining five include - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, After Dark, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and now The City and Its Uncertain Walls.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls was published in Japanese in 2023 with the English translation released on November 19, 2024.The novel shares its title with an earlier short story of the same name, which was published in the September 1980 issue of a Japanese monthly literary magazine, Bungakukai. Unfortunately, Murakami has not permitted this short story to be reprinted but Murakami expanded that short story into his 1985 novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Like most of Murakami's novels, this latest one has a surreal quality. I'm not inclined to give spoilers, but like in the earlier novel, the character in The City..... spends a good deal of time in a library. This recurring library reminded me of Kafka on the Shore where a library also plays a prominent role. In my earlier blog post on Kafka on the Shore, I wrote that in an interview posted on his English-language website, Murakami says that the secret to understanding that novel lies in reading it several times. I've decided to do just that. First, I plan on rereading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (in a more modern translation than the one I've read so many times before).

I've also learned that a new translation of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World will be released sometime this month. That will probably wind up in the queue.