The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami Summary

The City and Its Uncertain Walls follows an unnamed narrator who falls in love with a teenage girl who tells him about a walled town where her "real" self lives. Years later, in his mid-forties, he enters this mysterious town, becomes the Dream Reader in its library, and reunites with the girl—who remains sixteen and doesn't recognize him. The three-part novel explores lost love, longing, and the blurred boundaries between reality and fantasy as the protagonist searches for connection across parallel worlds.

Haruki Murakami is a renowned Japanese novelist born in Kyoto on January 12, 1949, whose deeply imaginative works have become international bestsellers translated into over fifty languages. Known for blending magical realism, surrealism, and existential themes, Murakami has won prestigious awards including the Tanizaki Prize and Jerusalem Prize. His famous works include Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, making him one of the most internationally recognized contemporary Japanese writers.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is ideal for readers who appreciate surreal, dreamlike narratives exploring themes of memory, lost love, and existential searching. Fans of Haruki Murakami's signature style—blending magical realism with emotional depth—will find familiar territory here. The novel appeals to those comfortable with ambiguous endings, parallel realities, and introspective protagonists who spend decades unable to move on from the past. Readers drawn to philosophical fiction about longing and identity will particularly connect with this work.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls offers Haruki Murakami fans a return to familiar themes of parallel worlds, lost love, and surreal towns, making it worthwhile for devoted readers of his work. The novel's three-part structure provides a contemplative, dreamlike experience exploring emotional longing across decades. However, readers seeking fresh territory may find it treads "rather familiar ground" compared to Murakami's earlier novels. The book rewards patience with its meditative exploration of love, loss, and the boundaries between reality and imagination.

The walled town in The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a mysterious, surreal place "surrounded by a high wall" where the narrator's teenage girlfriend claims her "real" self lives. To enter, visitors must relinquish their shadows at the gate and undergo eye alterations to become Dream Readers in the town's library. Time operates differently inside—the girlfriend remains perpetually sixteen while the narrator ages normally. The town symbolizes an idealized realm of memory and longing, representing the protagonist's inability to escape his past.

The shadow in The City and Its Uncertain Walls represents the protagonist's connection to reality, identity, and the external world. To enter the walled town, the narrator must have his shadow severed, symbolizing the loss of worldly attachments and conscious identity. His shadow eventually fades and chooses to return to the real world alone, while the protagonist initially decides to stay. The shadow's separation and potential death reflects the psychological cost of retreating into fantasy and refusing to move forward from past trauma.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls shares thematic DNA with Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, both featuring parallel worlds and walled towns. Like Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun, it explores romantic longing and the inability to move on from lost love. The novel's dreamlike atmosphere and surreal elements echo Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. However, some reviewers note it treads "familiar territory" for Murakami readers, offering fewer surprises than his earlier groundbreaking works.

The Dream Reader in The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a position in the walled town's library where the protagonist reads old dreams stored in animal skulls. After entering the town and having his eyes altered, the narrator becomes the Dream Reader, working alongside his teenage girlfriend who doesn't recognize him. The role symbolizes the act of processing memories and unconscious desires. Though the protagonist "is not great at reading dreams," the position allows him to remain close to his lost love while existing in this liminal space between reality and fantasy.

Mr. Koyasu is the ghostly former director of the library where the protagonist works after returning to the real world. He appears regularly but has no shadow, revealing he died a year before hiring the protagonist. Mr. Koyasu founded the library after losing his five-year-old son in an accident and his wife to suicide. He chose the protagonist as his replacement because he recognized someone else who understands what it means to lose a shadow. His character represents grief, transformation, and the lingering presence of unresolved trauma.

M** is a teenage boy who visits the library and becomes obsessed with the walled town after hearing the protagonist's story. He creates a map of the town and eventually disappears during the night, with his fate remaining ambiguous. The protagonist and M**'s family cannot determine whether the boy actually reached the walled town or met another fate. M**'s disappearance mirrors the narrator's own teenage girlfriend's vanishing and explores how stories and obsessions can consume vulnerable individuals seeking escape from reality.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls explores:

• Lost love and inability to move on, with the protagonist spending decades pining for his teenage girlfriend.
• Parallel realities and the boundary between fantasy and reality, as the narrator navigates between the real world and the walled town.
• Grief, memory, and shadow selves appear throughout, symbolized by the protagonist's severed shadow and Mr. Koyasu's loss.
• Additional themes include loneliness, alienation, and the search for meaning, characteristic of Haruki Murakami's existential explorations.

The narrator's return to the real world in The City and Its Uncertain Walls remains deliberately ambiguous and unexplained. After deciding to stay in the walled town with his teenage love, allowing his shadow to return alone, the protagonist mysteriously "wakes in the real world, unsure of how he has returned." This puzzling reversal suggests forces beyond his control—possibly Mr. Koyasu's belief that "the protagonist's heart brought him back." The ambiguous return reflects Murakami's exploration of how reality and desire conflict, ultimately pulling us back from fantasy despite our wishes.