The City and its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami’s latest novel purports to be a “love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them […] a parable for these strange times”; however, I found myself less enchanted than I was frustrated with the initial pages of this tome. Coming in at four-hundred-and-forty-six pages, The City and Its Uncertain Walls was born in the short-story form, a piece published in Bungakukai in 1980. A vast, meandering tale of a man going through grief, loss and self-discovery, one feels that Part 1 of The City and Its Uncertain Walls could have done with another round of editing, or two. However, as we move through the second part, I was surprised to find myself warming to the novel. Delving into the strange tale of a town in the mountains and a library with an eccentric owner and a strange young patron, the novel soon develops into a story of heartbreaking loss and intriguing secrets.
Conceptually, the novel has great strength, and its ideas intrigue enough to compel the reader through the initial few chapters and make it to the meat of the book. The strength of the writing really lies with the wider cast, and not with the narrator, whose narration style and general character I found lacklustre. As we learn more about the little town in the mountains and its inhabitants, the novel finds its footing; yet extended passages of uninterrupted narration make sections somewhat difficult to get through. The novel ends up being an exercise in perseverance, but Murakami’s secondary characters are so interesting that persistence is worthwhile.
While the text struggles at times to coalesce in a satisfying way, coming across at times as a scattered and fragmented, the heart that beats at the centre of the town in the mountains draws you in, leaving the reader haunted by the struggles of the people living there.
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