Review: A Novel About Walls, Both Literal and Figurative
Author Haruki Murakami offers a potent reminder of the value of free movement.
(The City and Its Uncertain Walls/Knopf)
Haruki Murakami's latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, explores the shifting boundaries of identity, using surreal cityscapes to explore borders both literal and figurative. The novel unfolds as a meditation on how people transform when crossing lines—whether physical, metaphysical, psychological, or cultural.
Characters that readers of Kafka on the Shore and his other books will find familiar—a gentle loner, a melancholy girl, an odd librarian—wonder whether their environment is the key to liberating their true selves. Murakami's latest is a powerful reminder: Freedom to move is freedom to become.
