La City of uncertain walls is placed under the patronage of a classic of fantastic literature: The Curious Case of Peter Schlemihlpublished by Adelbert von Chamisso in 1822, which tells the story of how a young man sold his shadow to the devil, losing his right to love.
Love and its share of darkness, here is the heart of the new Murakami, an extended version of a short story published in 1980 which obsessed the writer “like a little bone stuck in the throat”, writes the nobel winner, author of several masterpieces. of work (The Ride of the Impossible, Kafka on the Shore…). The result is copious: 560 pages unfolding the story of characters torn between two worlds, as is often the case with Murakami – it was already the plot of 1 Q84.
At 17, his narrator falls in love with a young girl who is understood to be depressed. The adolescents take refuge, in their thoughts, in an imaginary city surrounded by immense walls, then the young girl disappears, leaving her lover incapable of loving. Alongside the story of this failure, Murakami recounts the life of his narrator, aged around forty, inside the city. Time has stopped, the inhabitants are cut off from their shadow.
Broken hearts and people who resist the norm
“It is only when we abandon our shadow that we realize that it carries a certain weight,” notes the narrator. But are we really happier without our share of darkness? In the city, the man works as a “dream reader” in company […] Read more
