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A review by cressanthemum
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
“I don’t think anyone likes solitude. Anywhere, I think…everyone’s looking for something, for someone. The way they do, though, is a little different.”
‘The City and Its Uncertain Walls’ unfolds like a one-person play on a stage lit by a single bulb. It doesn’t feel very lived in, but it keeps your attention when you’re there. It was rinsed in the gentle but profound sadness of loss, the loss of a love that burns away part of you. It was also reminiscent of other classic Japanese tales of people escaping their corporate life to go work at a bookstore/library/cafe in the countryside. And of course, adorning all this was earlobe-biting, slightly unsettling physical descriptions of women, and a dizzying amount of magical realism—classic Murakami. There are references to jazz throughout the book (plus he owned a jazz bar), and I can’t help but compare his writing to jazz—never truly conclusive but full of similar rhythms and experimentation and deeply personal to the creator. Anyway time stretches around strangely in the novel but I overall enjoyed my time reading it (rushed though it may have been at the end)
‘The City and Its Uncertain Walls’ unfolds like a one-person play on a stage lit by a single bulb. It doesn’t feel very lived in, but it keeps your attention when you’re there. It was rinsed in the gentle but profound sadness of loss, the loss of a love that burns away part of you. It was also reminiscent of other classic Japanese tales of people escaping their corporate life to go work at a bookstore/library/cafe in the countryside. And of course, adorning all this was earlobe-biting, slightly unsettling physical descriptions of women, and a dizzying amount of magical realism—classic Murakami. There are references to jazz throughout the book (plus he owned a jazz bar), and I can’t help but compare his writing to jazz—never truly conclusive but full of similar rhythms and experimentation and deeply personal to the creator. Anyway time stretches around strangely in the novel but I overall enjoyed my time reading it (rushed though it may have been at the end)