Good God, that’s Murakami Haruki’s music!

街とその不確かな壁 (The City and Its Uncertain Walls/The Town and Its Uncertain Wall) launched today in Japan, and holy moly, it’s a wild one. I read the first two chapters and then rapped about it for 20 mins on the podcast in three sections: spoiler free, loose suggestions about content, and spoiler-palooza. Take a listen!

It’s the final podcast before publication of the new Murakami novel! I go over some Murakami vocabulary, predictions I have for the novel, and some comments about potential connections with Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Here are the links I mention:

• Episode 1 of this season of the podcast, in which I go over everything I know about the novella, 街と、その不確かな壁.
• My appearance on Translation Chat with Jenn O’Donnell about translation choices made in Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the Word
• Japan Times article examining Murakami’s language choices in Killing Commendatore
• Murakami vocabulary:
  • うんざり – unzari – tedious, frustrated
  • 覆う – ōu – cover
  • やれやれ – yareyare – what the hell, oh brother
  • 備わっている – sonawatte iru – gifted with, endowed with, has/have (certain abilities)
  • 惹かれる – hikareru – drawn by, pulled by
  • 引き出し・抽斗 – hikidashi – drawer
  • 流れ – nagare – flow
  • 歪む – yugamu – distort/warp
  • 歪な – ibitsu – misshapen, distorted, warped