spoilers ahead...

"What is real, and what is not? In this world is there really something like a wall separating reality from the unreal? I think there might be.... But it's an entirely uncertain wall. Depending on the circumstances and the person, its texture, its shape transforms. Like some living being."

The City starts marvelously, contains an outstanding middle portion, and then completely botches the final part. Yet I wouldn't be surprised if Murakami himself was very pleased with this novel; it seems to satisfy something he had been scratching at for decades. The theme of an alternate world, one that is separate but simultaneously a part of the reality we all experience, is ubiquitous in Murakami's novels, but was never more concrete than in Hardboiled Wonderland, in which two distinct worlds actually did exist and mirrored each other. That novel, which has its own cult following, was a low point for me because it delved a little too much in fantasy/science-fiction and was written during Murakami's formative years as a professional. He had not seemed to develop his style adequately at this point, and some of the dialogue and scenarios contained echoes of the writing in his very early/juvenile work (Wind/Pinball). Or maybe it was just the Birnbaum translation I read. Regardless, decades later, Murakami has revisited the world in Hardboiled -- which had admittedly given me some pause before reading -- but notably, he has connected it to the "real world" in a much more meaningful way. 

For starters, in a subversion of Murakami's usual shtick, the main character starts the novel in the fantasy world and returns to reality for the majority of the book. It's an interesting twist for Murakami's readers, who expect the story's characters to get sucked into weirder and weirder places/scenarios (although there is still plenty of progressive weirdness, non-sequiturs, etc.). I think Murakami succeeded a bit with the creation of the world (it's interesting and vivid in its existence), its juxtaposition with the real world (it runs parallel to it in a mysterious way that I find rich with interpretive possibilities), and the flow of the plot (I enjoyed leaving the City to return to reality and discover how the narrator "heals" and makes sense from this experience). 80% of the story was actually a great pleasure to read. Murakami is immensely talented at writing in his formulaic way. There is something inexplicably pleasurable about reading Murakami's typical protagonist going about his daily life -- purchasing some muffins at the cafe, walking and noticing the sky and the weather, ironing clothes, etc. -- that will never get old for me. I enjoy his humor, his wacky idiosyncrasies (ears and the Beatles are back big in this novel), and his genuine knack for blending serious literary ambitions with mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy. Murakami is unbound in a sense; he continues to write his "same book." The plot and themes are both very familiar, unlike most writers who have favored themes that are explored through different stories, Murakami tends to replicate both his themes and plots. Yet it works every time for his cult following, which I suspect can largely be attributed to his prose style and authentic interest in and display of his subject matter. 

As far as the book's major symbol, the uncertain wall is the blurry distinction between reality and unreality. This is Murakami’s way of suggesting the magic in his books exists/can exist. The city symbolizes the infinite imaginative power of magic — ostensibly distinct from our world, but in actuality connected in ambiguous but meaningful ways. This powerful idea seems to be the culmination of what Murakami had been trying to convey over and over again. I feel that, with this understanding achieved, he may finally be freed of the need to rewrite this type of story again. Other than this theme, books (and libraries) are a 3rd sort of element where magic exists in the “real world.” Books are magical in the sense that they evoke feelings in a person that only they can evoke and they contain stories and ideas unrestricted by imagination. In our physical world, libraries, containing within near-infinite words and pages, are the closest thing we have to a magic portal. Where else but than in a book/library can a person escape from reality and exist so personally as someone else? Murakami references magical realism a little bit as well, which I found surprisingly relevant and self-aware. 

Now for my two major gripes - Part 3 is incredibly rushed. I have much less of a problem with the direction the story took than how it was written. It seems like Murakami had written an outline for part 3 and instead of fleshing it out just jumped from event to event to event. We needed at least 100 more pages of exposition. For example, the merging of the boy and the main character really had no justifiable meaning. The events pass so quickly in this act and lead to a boring conclusion - that the narrator has to ambiguously “disappear.” I get that the narrator “heals” as a result of his multidimensional journey as he and the girl finally disappear, but once again, other than a short dream sequence, the love interest of the narrator (whose obsession with her ruins his life for decades) is not fleshed out at all beyond the first part. Their relationship is introduced beautifully on the first page, too. What a shame that a meaningful connection could not have been made at the end of the story (she is also completely neglected in part 2, although the narrator's "hook-up" during this sequence could hold some weight as a stand-in/symbol for her -- there's some mystery surrounding this for me). But Murakami does deserve some criticism for how he wrote this love interest character, truly this time she is a vessel for the narrator's journey, something I normally had never agreed much with in the past.