The City and Its Uncertain Walls

The City and Its Uncertain Walls, by Haruki Murakami, was originally published in Japanese in 2023 by Shinchosha Publishing Co. On November 19, 2024, an English translation by Philip Gabriel was published by Alfred A. Knopf. The novel is based on a novella Murakami published in a magazine early in his career, titled The City, and Its Uncertain Walls, and is a companion novel to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Both novels use the same premise of a fantastical town hidden in the protagonist’s subconscious as a setting, though the stories they tell are different.

In The City and Its Uncertain Walls, the unnamed protagonist searches for the love of his life, his teenage girlfriend, in the walled town she once told him about. As he maneuvers through his own reality and that of the town, he learns about the nature of time and reality, as well as his own heart. The novel contains many classic themes of Murakami’s work, such as elements of magical realism, questions about the nature of reality, and the mysteries of the human mind. The City and Its Uncertain Walls features themes such as The Interdependence of Time, Memory, and Identity, The Intersection of Reality and Imagination, and Heartbreak as a Source of Lasting Transformation.

This guide references the 2024 hardcover first edition translated by Philip Gabriel.

Content Warning: This novel contains mentions of child death and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

When he is 17 years old, the protagonist of The City and Its Uncertain Walls spends a summer with his girlfriend talking about the “walled-in town,” a seemingly imaginary town the girl makes up and shares with the protagonist. A high brick wall surrounds it, and unicorns come in and out of its gate every day. There is a library where dreams are read. No one in the town is allowed to have a shadow, and whenever a newcomer walks through the gate, their shadow is confiscated. The girl tells the protagonist that he has the qualifications to be the town’s Dream Reader. She claims that she was born in the town, and at an early age, her shadow was ripped away and banished. The protagonist’s girlfriend believes that she, in the real world, is that shadow, and that he can find her real self in the town.

Before she tells him of the walled-in town, the protagonist’s girlfriend reveals that she sometimes feels that her heart freezes, and at such times, she struggles to do anything. She then explains the walled-in town, and it becomes all they talk about. The protagonist draws a map and keeps detailed notes of their conversation. Over time, his girlfriend claims she is fading, and her letters to him come infrequently before stopping altogether. He cannot find her. The pain of losing her leaves him isolated and lonely. He cannot find new romance and feels less meaning in life. He hopes to one day find his girlfriend’s real self in the walled-in town.

One day, in his mid-forties, the protagonist falls into a hole and wakes up in the walled-in town. He relinquishes his shadow at the gate and has his eyes altered to become the Dream Reader. He goes to the library and finds his teenage girlfriend, but she is still 16 and does not know him. She shows him how to read dreams and lets him walk her home every night. The protagonist is not great at reading dreams but tries. He visits his shadow, who is fading, and contemplates leaving the town.

The shadow will die if it does not leave, but the protagonist refuses to leave the girl. Eventually, the shadow convinces the protagonist to escape by jumping into the pool by the southern gate. The protagonist takes his shadow to the pool, but before reuniting and jumping in, he decides to stay in the town. The shadow jumps in, returning to the real world.

The protagonist wakes in the real world, unsure of how he has returned, having decided to stay in the town. After this experience, he quits his job, feeling as though he needs a new direction. After a prophetic dream, he works with an old coworker to secure a job at a private library in a town near Fukushima. He moves his entire life to the town to take over as director from the recently retired Mr. Koyasu. Mr. Koyasu helps him learn the job, along with another librarian, Mrs. Soeda.

Winter arrives, and Mr. Koyasu visits the protagonist frequently, though always in his office. The protagonist finds this strange. One night, Mr. Koyasu calls the protagonist at 10:00 pm and asks him to meet at the library. When the protagonist arrives, Mr. Koyasu reveals that he has no shadow. He died a year before the protagonist was hired and chose the protagonist to replace him because he believes the protagonist knows what it is like to lose a shadow.

The next day, the protagonist confronts Mrs. Soeda, who reveals she also sees Mr. Koyasu’s ghost. She explains that Mr. Koyasu founded the library. He and his wife lost their five-year-old son in a horrible accident. Mr. Koyasu’s wife died by suicide soon after. For a long time afterward, Mr. Koyasu was not the same, until he set up the library and began wearing a skirt, marking a stark difference in his behavior. One night soon after, the protagonist is drawn back to the library and meets Mr. Koyasu again. He explains his time in the walled-in town, and how he lost his shadow. Mr. Koyasu believes the protagonist’s heart brought him back.

The protagonist notices a strange boy who comes to the library every day. He learns from Mrs. Soeda that the boy does not attend school, being a “savant” who reads voraciously but cannot apply his knowledge. He wears a Yellow Submarine parka every day and was very close with Mr. Koyasu. The protagonist begins visiting Mr. Koyasu’s grave, explaining more about the town. One day, he notices the boy, named M**, watching him. A week later, M** finds the protagonist and gives him a map of the walled-in town. It is nearly perfect and shocks the protagonist.

M** tells the protagonist that he wants to go to the town to be a Dream Reader. He wants the protagonist’s help to get there. The protagonist questions the ethics of helping a teenager go to the town where his shadow will wither away and he will be trapped. Mrs. Soeda tells the protagonist that no one in the town accepts M** and that his family is not the most caring. He wonders about how the boys’ incessant reading will be useful in the town while he sits in the local coffee shop. While there, he asks the woman who owns it to dinner, and she agrees.

That night, she comes over, and the protagonist cooks her dinner. They connect, and the protagonist feels a slight change in his heart. He walks her home, and on his walk back, finds himself at the library. He waits in his office until nearly midnight before Mr. Koyasu arrives. He tells the protagonist that this is the last time they will see each other but assures him that he need not feel responsible for M**’s fate with the walled-in town. The boy will make his own decisions, and the protagonist need only be there to support him. Mr. Koyasu reminds the protagonist that it is a personal journey to the walled-in town, so he could not help M** if he wanted to.

M** does not come to the library for days, and soon disappears during the night. The boy’s father visits the protagonist, having heard M** liked him. He knows about the map, and the protagonist tells the father about the town, but neither can say what happened for sure. The protagonist sees the coffee shop woman again, and she tells him that she has no interest in sex. He tells her that this is fine, and that he can wait until she is comfortable with him. M**’s brothers meet with him as well in his office, and though they believe M**’s obsession with the walled-in town catalyzed his disappearance, they do not think it is possible he is actually there.

The protagonist has a dream that he is walking through a forest and finds an abandoned house. In the house, he finds a large doll of M**. When the doll whispers to him and he leans in close, the doll bites his ear. The protagonist wakes and feels pain. The coffee shop woman looks at it, and though she sees no mark, her touch makes it feel better. He finds that he really likes this woman, though he is unsure if he can call it love, with part of his heart still reserved for his teenage girlfriend. That night, he dreams he walks up a river, and as he does, he grows younger. He finds his teenage girlfriend on a sandbank and sits with her. She tells him they are both just shadows.

In the walled-in town, the protagonist continues as the Dream Reader. One day, he notices a boy with a Yellow Submarine parka. The boy watches him, though no one else seems to notice him. The girl at the library notices that one of the protagonist’s ears looks as though something bit it, and the protagonist can feel its pain. One night, Yellow Submarine Boy visits the protagonist in a dream and asks to join as one with him. Yellow Submarine Boy explains that he came to the town to be a Dream Reader, and if they join together, they will both be their best selves. Yellow Submarine Boy explains that he bit the protagonist’s real-world counterpart’s ear to start the transformation. The protagonist agrees to join, and Yellow Submarine Boy bites his other ear, completing their union.

Now joined, the protagonist and Yellow Submarine Boy can only meet in the depths of the protagonist’s consciousness while he sleeps. The protagonist cannot hear the boy during the day, but now, when he reads dreams, he feels Yellow Submarine Boy reading them. In his consciousness, they meet in a small, dark room with a table and small candle. The protagonist begins to feel different, as though he does not belong in the town, and Yellow Submarine Boy tells him it is because his heart wants to reunite with his shadow in the real world. Yellow Submarine Boy knows the protagonist’s shadow and assures him it stands in well for him. He also tells the protagonist that they are two parts of a whole, and that to reunite with his shadow would be to become one again. The protagonist decides to return to the real world. Yellow Submarine Boy explains that he can carry on as Dream Reader and that the protagonist only need to blow out the candle in his subconsciousness. The protagonist does so, and darkness falls.