The City and Its Uncertain Walls

A Novel

De: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator

Narrado por: Brian Nishii

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

"Haruki Murakami invented 21st-century fiction." —The New York Times • "More than any author since Kafka, Murakami appreciates the genuine strangeness of our real world." —San Francisco Chronicle • "Murakami is masterful." —Los Angeles Times

When a young man’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he is heartbroken – and determined to find the imaginary town where he suspects she has taken up residence. Thus begins a lifelong search that takes the man into middle age, to a job in a remote library with mysteries of its own, and on a journey between the real world and this otherworld: a shadowless city where unicorns roam and willow trees grow.

There he finds his beloved working in a different library – a dream library. But she has no memory of their life together and, as the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he must decide what he is willing to lose.

A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a parable for these strange times– and singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.

"Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change/movement. Isn't this the quintessential core of what stories are all about?” —Haruki Murakami, from the afterword

©2024 Haruki Murakami (P)2024 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“It is with unabashed joy that I am here to report: The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Murakami’s first novel in six years, is also one of his best. It feels at once sweeping and intimate, grand and tender, quiet and charged with feeling. The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a paean to books, reading, and libraries, an investigation into the relationship between romance and realism, and a timely fable about how relationships, societies, and communities both protect themselves against threats and foster beauty and truth.”—Priscilla Gilman, Boston Globe

“Spellbinding. . . . [An] oddly irresistible fable. . . . [The] eerie landscape of snows, forests and torrents is beautifully evoked as Mr. Murakami the seasoned storyteller of loss, loneliness and passing time takes charge. The action dawdles, then leaps, with a trademark blend of soap opera and sublimity. In deadpan, slow-burn, quietly hypnotic prose, delicately conveyed in Mr. Gabriel’s translation, our narrator settles into a becalmed life as guardian of the small-town library stacks. . . . Mr. Murakami understands these parallel territories of the mind not simply as escapism but as a precious refuge for those who ‘had never put down roots in this world.’ He conjures the charm, and also the harm, of all-consuming obsessions. In the perfect walled town, no cats prowl, because ‘nothing unneeded’ can exist there.”—Boyd Tonkin, The Wall Street Journal

“[Murakami’s] imagination is one of a kind, and his blend of pop culture, postmodernism and Japanese mythology is a wholly unique contribution to literature.”—Jonathan Russell Clark, The Washington Post

outstanding, his best

I really feel like this is a culmination of Murakami's entire career as a writer. A masterpiece.

An interesting revisit of old ideas!

I disliked the first third of the novel because of how much ground it retread from Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. But by the second part of the novel I was compelled and found there to be many beautiful and successful passages. I think it's one of his most straight forward books from a symbolism perspective. I really like how it employs a dangling conversation throughout. And I thought the end was cool.

A bone in the throat, but still...

This story, the author says, stuck like a bone in his throat for a few years. It's like eating mackerel. Lots of bones. That said, it is still Murakami. I think many of his most annoying traits on view here: pseudo-innocent discussions of teen sex, commenting on the weirdness we should feel, over simplicity of language, reference to other writers. The concept itself redeems. Western writers don't really want to address the complexity of composite selves and he does, and perhaps since that could be an overly sophisticated theme, a commitment to simple language must be appreciated. His name dropping of other artists doesn't always feel like it should, like a tribute. Sometimes it feels like name dropping. The story still a little messy and disjointed. He has a lot of confidence in his readers. I think I would have given him a little more self doubt in his early writings and that relentless organic growth of voluminous narrative could have come together even more neatly (as it does in K by the Shore, and Commendetore, and a couple others.) I still like this about him, there is a genuine sense uf the uncanniness of life and many more skilled novelists don't have that nor know it. Somehow BN is the perfect narrator for him.

Beautifuly read and written.

Murakami has a sound and a feel that will either resonate deeply with you or not. It is worth everyone's time to find the art that makes them feel something in addition to admiration and for me this story did that.

Extraordinary Writing

While this novel evolved over 40 years from a short novella, I read it as a fan of Murakami for the past 35 years. The story unfolds,with its iconic jazz references, continually emphasizing time, memory, and the contemporary notion of awareness. Undoubtedly there’s much to be said about this novel. But having just finished it, I believe this is a book that speaks to many dimensions of experience and existence, Classic Murakami but also a literary master pushing his craft beyond his own literary history. Extraordinary.

Desperately needs editing

I love Murakami but found this book so disappointing. Part I was good, but it was also the 3rd time he had written it in a different form. It got progressively worse from there, horribly repetitive with no purpose, and ended without a point. He should have just stuck with revisions to the original story; this triptych lessens the quality and impact of the first portion of the book. Such a shame.

Murakami Strikes Again!

Excellent read. Part 1 is almost a recap of Wonderland. Part 2 and 3 continue the story. If you’re a Murakami fan, you will enjoy.

Story and Narrator

The story is not up to the author’s usual sophistication or interconnection of elements. I was a little awash at first.

Also, it was distracting when, much of the time, the word “library”, which was a central element of the story, was mispronounced as “liberry” over and over.

Always nice to hear Murakami.

Hearing the story read to you really helps to follow the story and the ideas.

The City and its Uncertain Walls

The reader’s voice was pleasant and not overly dramatic. Clearly intelligent, as well.
Still leaves room to read this book for oneself.