Chapter summaries The City and Its Uncertain Walls Haruki Murakami

Chapter 41: The Koyasu Tragedy and Transformation

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Mrs. Soeda tells the narrator the full story of Mr. Koyasu. Thirty years ago, when Mr. Koyasu was forty-five, his five-year-old son Shin was hit by a truck while riding his new red bicycle and died days later. His wife sank into profound guilt, obsessively blaming herself for not buying a dog instead, for running out of salt while cooking, and for forgetting whether she shut off the gas. Despite Mr. Koyasu’s efforts to console her, she remained unreachable. About a month and a half later, during heavy rains, she tied her legs with nylon rope, swallowed sleeping pills, and jumped into the swollen river. Her body was found a mile downstream. Mr. Koyasu never remarried. He sold the family sake brewery, began wearing a navy beret and a skirt, grew a goatee, and became noticeably more cheerful and sociable. He donated his wealth to convert the old brewery into a public library, where he spent his last decade as its silent patron. He died about a year ago, leaving the library as his legacy.

Key Events

Mrs. Soeda begins recounting Mr. Koyasu’s early happiness: a baby boy named Shin, a doting family, a stable life.
For Shin’s fifth birthday, his parents give him a red bicycle instead of the dog he wanted (due to his mother’s allergies).
One evening, as the boy rides and sings in the garden, his mother is distracted by an empty saltshaker and fails to hear him stop singing.
She hears brake screech and a thud; she finds the bicycle smashed and her son thrown twenty feet away, unconscious.
Shin dies in the hospital three days later from a blow to the back of his head.
The truck driver is not at fault; the boy apparently dashed into the road.
The mother spirals into silent grief; after a month she begins speaking in a fixed repetition: blaming the dog, the bicycle, the salt, and the gas stove.
During heavy late-June rains, she disappears one morning. Mr. Koyasu finds two scallions placed in her bed.
Her body is discovered that afternoon in the river, legs tied, with sleeping pills in her system—a suicide.
Mr. Koyasu sells the brewery, lives alone, and later adopts a beret and then a skirt, becoming rotund and cheerful.
He donates the brewery to become the town library and spends his final years as its benefactor.
He dies about a year before the narrator’s conversation with Mrs. Soeda.

Character Development

Mr. Koyasu evolves from a devoted father and husband into a man crushed by loss, then into an eccentric, open figure who channels his grief into building a library. His change in dress signals a deeper internal transformation.
Mrs. Koyasu is defined by her guilt; she shifts from a loving mother to a hollow shell consumed by self-blame, ultimately choosing death.
Mrs. Soeda shows her observant, empathetic nature as she relays the town’s history, portraying herself as a reliable witness.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Guilt and Blame: Mrs. Koyasu’s obsessive repetitions (dog, bike, salt, gas) illustrate how grief can fixate on trivial details.
Transformation Through Appearance: Mr. Koyasu’s beret and skirt are not mere eccentricities; they accompany a genuine shift in personality, suggesting that external change can reflect or enable internal healing.
The River: Transforms from a gentle stream to a deadly torrent, mirroring the sudden turn of fate. It also serves as the site of Mrs. Koyasu’s final act.
The Library as Microcosm: Mr. Koyasu’s library is a structured, peaceful world he creates to replace the family he lost—a controlled alternative to chaotic reality.
The Pied Piper Allusion: Mrs. Soeda explicitly compares Mr. Koyasu’s enchantment of children to the Pied Piper, hinting at a mysterious, almost magical quality.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter provides essential backstory for the library and its founder, explaining the origins of Mr. Koyasu’s odd behavior and the library’s personal significance. It deepens the novel’s exploration of grief, identity, and the ways people construct new worlds after loss. The story also connects the town’s physical setting—the river, the brewery—to the emotional landscape of the characters.

Study Questions

Why does Mrs. Koyasu fixate on the empty saltshaker and the dog instead of the bicycle? Answer: She needs to find a cause she can control; blaming herself for the salt and for not buying the dog gives her a sense of responsibility, even if irrational. It’s a psychological defense against the randomness of the accident.
What might the two scallions left in the bed symbolize? Answer: The scallions are an enigmatic message. They could represent a final, wordless farewell or an absurd token of her disordered mind. They disturb Mr. Koyasu because they are so out of place, emphasizing how far she has mentally gone.
In what way does Mr. Koyasu’s library function as a “microcosm” of his ideal world? Answer: The library is a quiet, orderly space filled with books, where he can control the environment and share knowledge without the unpredictability of family life. It becomes his substitute for the happiness he lost, a refuge from the chaos of fate.