Review by jayisreading - The City and Its Uncertain Walls

jayisreading 's review for:

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

3.0

mysterious reflective slow-paced

I want to say that I’ve read most of Murakami’s novels since my first encounter with his works over a decade ago. These days, I have somewhat lukewarm, ambivalent feelings about his works, especially his more recent books, and it’s absolutely the case that I remain feeling this way after reading The City and Its Uncertain Walls. In fact, I actually thought this was one of his weakest novels, despite it checking off the quintessential things one would find in a Murakami novel, such as references to music (particularly jazz), characters slipping into liminal/otherworldly spaces, the intimacy of food, cats galore, and mysterious women who are weirdly written (though, for once, I would say the portrayal of women in this novel wasn’t nearly as ridiculous as it usually gets in his other works). All this to say that you should pull out that Murakami bingo card, because you’ll most definitely get a few rows.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get out of this book, if I’m being honest, and that’s even after reading the afterword (which is not something Murakami does). I do feel that he tends to write more for the mood and atmosphere than he does for plot and characters, but even most of his previous novels had something happening to keep things moving that didn’t quite exist in The City and Its Uncertain Walls. Yet, as directionless as this novel felt to me, I also found it oddly comforting, almost as though I ran into an old friend from the past. Perhaps this is a result of not having read his works in a while that the elements of a Murakami novel presented itself in a fashion that was reassuring and familiar, which would make sense, given that the foundation of this book is from decades ago—

All this to say that I can see how this novel would appeal to longtime fans of Murakami, but I would definitely not recommend it to anyone who is a casual or new reader of his works.

Content Warnings