Reading Room

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Sunday, December 8th, 2024

The image pictured here is not the cover artwork on the version of the book we have (that’s not our hand either, we swiped this from a stranger’s BlueSky post.) Our version of the book has the image of a clock with roman numerals, and no hands for the hours. The interior cover however, not the protective cover, features a shadow puppet superimposed overtop of that same handless clock.

Regardless of which artwork design is chosen for any particular market, it’s the substance of this book that has us feeling like Haruki Murakami's new work of fiction is worth a mention here. While it almost seems a bit blasphemous to go so far as to try and directly interpret the meaning behind the story and its many symbols (that should be left up to you), perhaps this roundup of a few key characters in the book might be an interesting exercise to inspire some potential interest in would-be readers of this latest contribution to modern Japanese literature.

Broadly speaking, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” is somewhat of an abstract novel, touching upon the invisible architecture of societies and the limitations we impose on ourselves by blindly co-creating them. Of course, this might not be limited to only cities, but for entire “worlds” — in the metaphysical sense. One reader from our book club said she felt like she had stepped into another dimension after reading the initial chapters. But don’t some days here in reality feel like another dimension? Murakami plays with this dynamic, telling a story that’s set in two distinct worlds: an imaginary one and a so-called real one. Of course, the lines between these two begin to blur.

In the early pages of the book, Murakami’s not entirely reliable narrator maps out this fantasy town (incidentally, it’s “shaped like a kidney”) with a supposedly impenetrable wall, an eternal wall — which has always existed. It has the power to change location, shape, and even has the ability to speak. The narrator wants to go to that town to find a girl he once loved, who he believes is waiting there. It’s only later in the book that we learn that this wall may be meant to people keep out, or in, possibly because of a never-ending epidemic:

An “epidemic of the soul."

In that fantasy town protected by the shape-shifting wall, there is a clocktower with no hands for the hours, and a library with no books — where egg-shaped “Old Dreams” are read. In this library, the Old Dreams are read by a person who holds the coveted position of the Dream Reader. There is a vacancy for the role of the Dream Reader, but there are some things about the job that make its orientation a bit complicated. For one, your eyes have to be wounded (stabbed) when on-boarding for that position, a process performed by the Gatekeeper himself, who will also “remove your shadow” at the time of entering the town. You are then told you can never return to the world outside the wall. (However, this is proven untrue more than once in the book, if you “listen to your heart.”)

The Gatekeeper is one of the more curious characters set in the fantasy town, a being who performs an array of tasks in his occupation, but primarily he is responsible for the incineration of the town’s many beasts, who often pass away in the winter time. These beasts are unicorns to be precise, yet in the book they give the impression of being somewhat slovenly, mindless creatures — which The Gatekeeper ushers in and out of the town’s wall at allotted times, by blowing his unicorn-horn instrument.

Another interesting character from the book (who is set in the “real world” and appears as a ghost after his recent death) is Mr. Koyasu, the saki-empire-heir-turned-library-owner, who wears a signature “blue beret and checkered skirt.” His attire is seen as eccentric, especially for an elderly man in a small mountain town in Japan. With his saki fortune, he constructed a library (this one actually has books) and gave it to the town, though he actually runs it himself and the board of directors is a facade. He has built himself a subterranean room in the quasi-public library for his personal office, complete with a wood burning stove. Mr. Koyasu only burns the wood of apple trees in his office’s stove though, finding an affinity for the apple scent they give off. A solitary character, Mr. Koyasu (the saki-empire-heir-turned-library-owner) mourns the loss of his wife, who threw herself into the river years ago and left him a symbolic suicide note in their bed, in the form of "two long white beautiful scallions.” Even the narrator asks, why scallions? Mr. Koyasu’s late wife placed these vegetables under the covers right in the spot where she once laid beside him.

Only the Yellow Submarine Boy, a neuro-diverse savant (who is the son of a cram-school owner and paradoxically rejects institutional learning, preferring to study all day in the library) may still have to power to travel between these two worlds: the fictional world and the real world (but which is which?) To get to the town behind the wall, Yellow Submarine Boy may need the help of the narrator,  who has a history there and has even served as a Dream Reader for a period of time, since, like the Yellow Submarine Boy, he had “the qualifications.”

Yellow Submarine Boy (called that because he always wears a Beatles-movie themed parka) is a bit punk rock: he balks at table manners to provoke people he is unsure about, speaks to almost no one, and reads so voraciously he must sometimes spend days in bed to recover his mental capacity. When he does talk, it’s usually for one simple reason:

He can tell you which day of the week anyone was born, based on their birth month, date, and year — though why this talent is meaningful is sure to be lost on many.

Populated with quintessential characters like these amongst a landscape of other figures who are left intentionally nameless in the book, Murakami’s story engages the reader in a mysterious journey that is simultaneously foreign and yet shockingly familiar, almost teasing the reader to draw connections between symbols, like only the Yellow Submarine Boy might be able to. Since it just came out in English a couple weeks ago, the sad part about this book is that everyone who reads Japanese is already one year ahead of us in their digestion of its social impact.

This book isn't recommended if you aren’t familiar with Murakami’s previous work, because you probably won't read it correctly unless you have a guide. One member of our reading group stated she gave a copy of one of his earlier books to a high-powered executive (who regarded herself as a ‘wealth steward’) — shortly after consuming it, that individual reported back that she saw no value in the book, and it wasn't long before her entire family cut off relations with the gift giver. It seems books are pretty powerful things after all, one way or the other. But you never know, maybe you might have more in common with one of the characters than we give you credit for.

You may even find yourself wanting to be a cog in the wheel of something turning.

Richard Fortnum

Winter 2024