[3] The novel shares its title with an earlier short story of the same name, which was published in the September 1980 issue of Bungakukai.

Murakami expanded that short story into his 1985 novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and then returned to the material in The City and its Uncertain Walls.

[4] Murakami started writing the book in January 2020 while spending all time in his home during the covid-19 pandemic, and completed it in December 2022.

The protagonist ends up having a job interview at a private library in a secluded town deep in the mountains.

The main character takes over as the new boss of the library and continues to receive regular advice from Koyasu.

The boy with the Yellow Submarine hoodie overhears the protagonist talking about the city beyond the walls and becomes extremely fascinated by it.

Back in the city beyond the walls, the body of the protagonist (without the shadow which left) spots the boy with the Yellow Submarine hoodie arriving.

According to Book Marks, the release of the novel in English translation has received an average of positive reviews.

"[6] In a negative review in The Guardian, Alex Preston felt that "The problem with Murakami’s dreamscapes are that they are so entirely unmoored from reality that nothing seems to matter; meaning is endlessly deferred.

It feels as if his work, with its talking cats, mystical landscapes and drifting, nameless, middle-aged protagonists obsessed with their teenage years, has never moved on from a form of magical realism that was just about bearable in his short early novels.