The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Haruki Murakami started out as a writer back when he owned a jazz bar in Tokyo. His first two books (“Hear the Wind Sing” and “Pinball, 1973”) did win literary awards, but to me they’re noticeably weaker. The books I really love—and the ones that are actually great—begin with “A Wild Sheep Chase,” which he wrote after he’d already become a full-time writer.
But before he gave up his other jobs for writing, he published another novella — “The City and Its Uncertain Walls.” It first came out in 1980. Eventually, he decided it didn’t meet his own standards, so he pulled it from publication, and it never got translated into other languages. But as he’s said, for years he wanted to rewrite it from scratch—and he finally managed to do it, forty years later. When COVID hit and he, like the rest of us, had to spend more time at home, he took up the project. In late 2023, the new version was finally published in Japan, under the same name. Translations started coming out not long after.
Yesterday, I finished listening to the audiobook of "The City and Its Uncertain Walls". The story runs two parallel narratives about two different worlds that end up intertwining. I liked it a lot—especially how it all came together in the end, and how, as always, the book feels completely contemporary but at the same time not tied to anything current—sort of timeless.
Tags: books
