One question I keep coming back to while reading through Murakami's myriad works is, how much of his writing is intentional, and how much is incidental? It's one thing to describe "the real world" in relation to characters and their actions within a story, and it's another to be able to create and project such surreal elements so intertwined with those characters, and subsequently the message he's trying to send.
In more fantastical genres, it often happens where the story is built for the world rather than the other way around. You'd have a castle where some drama unfolds, and there isn't a second thought to the material the walls are made out of or why the stairs lead to a basement - it just does, that's how the thing was built, go back to the vampires fighting over their goblet in the ballroom. The characters in these stories could not exist without the stage they play a part in. With Murakami, however, it often occurs to me that the opposite is true. If we weren't puzzling over Boku's mental and emotional journey in A Wild Sheep Chase, it could be that the spire-like climb was just a normal hill. No loose gravel, foreboding clouds, or stormy peak, just a leisurely path to the pastures.
While reading The City and Its Uncertain Walls, I can't help but question the purpose of everything described. Did Murakami paint a wide swathe that eventually resolved itself into the Town, wherein Boku struggles through his loneliness, or did he create bespoke areas specific to aspects of that struggle? The Wall is perhaps an obvious one, but what about the Worker's District and its deserted factories? Did Murakami meticulously plan out each and every detail, or did he simply let his writing carry him on its way?
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