Chapter 72: Afterword – Murakami Reflects on a Forty-Year Journey
⚠️ 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
In the Afterword, Haruki Murakami explains why he normally avoids writing afterwords and why he makes an exception for this novel. He traces the work back to a 1980 novella called The City, and Its Uncertain Walls, published in the literary magazine Bungakukai. Murakami says he was never satisfied with that early story; he felt it was too raw and that he lacked the skill as a debut novelist to convey what he considered its vital core. For that reason, he never allowed the novella to be reprinted as a book, though it remained a nagging presence.
When he became a full‑time writer in 1982, he planned a complete revision of the novella but instead wrote Hard‑Booiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), a novel that alternated two parallel storylines and eventually merged them. That book was one response, but the original story still felt unfinished. Over the following decades, as he gained experience and age, the sense of an incomplete work persisted.
In early 2020, exactly 40 years after the novella appeared, Murakami felt ready to revisit it. He began writing in March of that year, as the coronavirus spread across Japan, and finished nearly three years later. He first completed Part One, let the manuscript “ferment” for half a year, then realized the story needed to continue and wrote Parts Two and Three. The pandemic, he notes, kept him mostly indoors and focused, much like the “Dream Reader” in the novel.
Murakami describes the long‑unfinished story as a fish bone lodged in his throat, and finishing the new version brought him relief. He ends by quoting Jorge Luis Borges, who said that every writer has only a limited number of stories to tell; Murakami agrees that a writer revisits those core motifs from different angles over a lifetime. He concludes that truth resides not in stillness but in ceaseless change, and that this is the essence of storytelling.
Key Events
- Murakami decides to break his usual rule and write an afterword for this novel.
- He reveals that the novel originated from a 1980 novella of the same title, printed in Bungakukai.
- The author felt the novella was raw and immature, so he never republished it.
- In 1985 he wrote Hard‑Booiled Wonderland and the End of the World as an alternative treatment of the original material.
- The unfinished story continued to bother him for decades, like a fish bone in his throat.
- In March 2020, during the early phase of the coronavirus pandemic, he began rewriting the story as a full novel.
- He completed Part One, let the manuscript rest for six months, then added Parts Two and Three.
- The novel took nearly three years to finish, a longer process than expected.
- He quotes Jorge Luis Borges on the limited number of stories a writer can tell.
Character Development
This chapter does not advance any fictional characters. Instead, it traces the author’s own development. Murakami portrays his younger self as a novice writer running a jazz bar, struggling to balance work and writing, and lacking the confidence to do justice to a story he believed in. The older Murakami, now an experienced professional, finally possesses the skill and perspective to rework the material. The afterword thus serves as a kind of character arc for the author, moving from uncertainty to resolution.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- Rewriting and Completion: The central theme is returning to an unfinished work after forty years and finally giving it the shape the author always felt it deserved.
- Time and Experience: Murakami emphasizes how aging and accumulated craft allowed him to succeed where the younger writer could not.
- Pandemic as Context: The COVID‑19 pandemic frames the writing process; the isolation and tension of 2020‑2022 mirror the strange, walled‑off atmosphere of the novel itself.
- The Fish‑Bone Motif: The original story is compared to a small fish bone stuck in the throat—a persistent, irritating presence that could not be ignored.
- Borges and the Limited Palette: The afterword invokes Borges’ idea that a writer only has a finite set of stories, which they tell in different ways over a lifetime. This validates the notion of revisiting old material.
Why This Chapter Matters
The Afterword is essential for understanding the novel’s genetic code. It reveals that The City and Its Uncertain Walls is not a spontaneous creation but a work forty years in the making, carrying the weight of an earlier failure. For readers of Murakami, it offers a window into his creative process, his self‑criticism, and his long‑term relationship with his own material. The chapter also connects the novel to the pandemic era, adding a layer of real‑world history. Finally, it explains why the novel has a tripartite structure—the initial part written in one burst, then the later parts added after fermentation—which may inform how readers interpret the book’s architecture.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why did Murakami refuse to republish the 1980 novella, and what changed in 2020?
He felt the novella was too raw—lacking the skill to convey its essential quality—so he never allowed it to appear in book form. By 2020, after forty years of experience and reflection, he believed he finally had the ability to rewrite it properly, especially given the unique isolation of the pandemic.
2. How does the afterword relate to the structure of the finished novel?
Murakami explains that he wrote Part One first, let the manuscript sit for six months, then realized the story required more. He added Parts Two and Three, which is why the novel has a three‑part structure. The long pause allowed him to assess what the narrative needed.
3. What does Murakami mean when he says “truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change and movement”?
He argues that stories, like truth, evolve over time. A writer can revisit the same core motifs in different eras and produce fresh versions. The novel itself is proof of that principle: the 2024 book is not a copy of the 1980 novella but a new work that grew through change.