Reading The City and Its Uncertain Walls

In 2024, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Han Kang of South Korea, which likely means that writers from East Asia will be overlooked for the next ten to twenty years. Haruki Murakami, born in 1949, will be nearing ninety if he manages to hold on that long. Whether he will live to see that day is uncertain—and even if he does, the prize may still elude him.

Nonetheless, Murakami remains a widely read author, and in my view, it is precisely his overwhelming popularity that has become an obstacle to the Nobel. His work is so omnipresent that he has become the embodiment of literary cliché. The crux of the matter, perhaps, is that Murakami does not fully conform to the expectations of “pure literature”; he has always drifted between the realms of popular fiction and high literary art.

"Every book he borrowed, I had to examine beforehand. If it contained anything potentially problematic, I would confiscate it. For instance, overly explicit scenes of sex or violence… that was more or less the standard." This statement may carry a self-deprecating tone, as much of the “vinegar” in Murakami’s works would certainly fall under content deemed excessive—and thus subject to confiscation.

Now, to the heart of the matter—what is the wall? To me, it is the wall of the soul, an 'A.T. Field' that isolates the heart from the world, shielding it from intrusion—not only from others, but even from one’s own present self seeking to peer into the recesses of the past. It speaks to the afflictions of the modern psyche. In such a wounded state, the kindest form of care is often non-intervention—a distant, muted concern—because even the lightest touch may provoke irreparable damage.

When the soul is sealed away, the self that walks the world becomes merely a shadow, a projection of the inner being, assuming its place in life’s theatre, while the true self hides behind the wall, immersed in its wounds, indifferent to the external world.

I believe a large portion of emotional trauma is shaped by imagination. Trauma becomes memory, and memory is inherently unreliable—we tend to embellish or distort our recollections. A telling sign is how we often view ourselves from an omniscient perspective in memories, seeing ourselves from the outside rather than recalling through our own eyes. This betrays the mind’s intervention.

Another point: when trying to recall uncertain passwords, much of what comes to mind is incorrect, yet in that moment we believe it with absolute certainty. I once read an example in Cognitive Manipulation, which described how suggestion led a daughter to believe her father had assaulted her in childhood. In essence, psychological trauma may carry an element of illusion—especially in the murky, unclear places—like a password misremembered yet clung to with conviction.

The part I found most striking lies between Mr. Ziyi’s confession and the Yellow Submarine Boy’s vanishing. Especially when Mr. Ziyi lays bare his situation—without spoiling the details—I felt my heart skip a beat.

In this novel, every character has lost something: “I” lost a lover; Mr. Ziyi lost himself, his wife, and his child; the Yellow Submarine Boy lost his place in society; the café owner lost her marriage and sexual vitality; the Cat Mother lost her feline children.