Tsundoku Reader

A blog on Japanese books, mostly untranslated, that deserve a wider audience outside of Japan

Category: Murata, Sayaka

Earthlings

October 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

地球星人, 村田沙耶香, 新潮社, 2018

Earthlings, by Sayaka Murata, Shinchosha, 2018

*Since this post was written, the English translation has been published as Earthlings, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

This was a hard book to read, dealing as it does with emotional abuse, incest, pedophilia, sexual abuse, and even cannibalism (would you care for some chunks of human meat in your miso soup? or perhaps simmered with daikon leaves?).

The first half of the book tells the story of Natsuki’s childhood. She believes that she is a witch with powers given her by her stuffed animal, Pyuto. Sensing that the earth is in danger, he came from the star Pohapipinpobopia (that never got any easier to read smoothly) to train Natsuki as a witch so that she can protect the earth.

Her cousin Yu believes he is an alien come from another planet—his mother certainly tells him often enough that she doesn’t know where he could have come from. They meet every summer for the Obon holiday in Akishina, where their large extended family gathers. Natsuki’s grandparents live in a farmhouse where the family had raised silkworms for several generations. The silkworms lived on the upper floors of the farmhouse, and when they became moths, they were allowed to fly around the house. During these summer visits, Natsuki’s uncles pile up rocks to dam a small river and make a swimming hole for the cousins, they play in the rice paddies, eat watermelon, and welcome the ancestors back at the start of Obon with fire (mukae-bi) and send them off again at the end of Obon (okuri-bi). These scenes were warm and really effective in creating a sense of nostalgia, even if it is just borrowed. The warmth of her grandparents and aunts and uncles makes it that much harder to read about the emotional abuse and neglect Natsuki experiences at home.

It is perhaps this abuse and constant denigration that explains why Natsuki sees the world as a factory. In her eyes, the neighborhood she lives in is a warren of burrows for humans. The children will one day be shipped from the factory, where they will be trained so that they can bring food back to their own nests and produce children. Natsuki also sees herself as the family garbage can—when her parents’ and sister’s pent-up anger explodes, Natsuki takes the brunt of it.

Part 2 ends with a bang, when Natsuki is still a child, and quietly takes up the story again when she is 34. Instead of fantasizing about Pyuto and earthling factories, we get a string of quotidian details about the mineral water she has bought, her husband watering their house plants, and the unseasonably warm weather for November. But Murata dispelled my concern that Natsuki had just become another cog in the factory a few pages later. Both Natsuki and her husband have refused to be brainwashed, but they know they will only be allowed to stay in the factory if they pretend they are properly functioning parts. They had found each other on a site out of the public eye for people looking for partners and help with marriage, debt, and suicide. To escape their parents, they married in name only but live separate lives. Natsuki’s husband loves to hear stories about Akishina. It’s when they go together to visit and meet up with Yu again that the story really turns grotesque. Frankly, it felt like a betrayal when Murata tore down the almost idyllic picture of Natsuki’s family home by turning it into the setting for a horror show.

Due to the dark nature of this book and the difficulty in keeping my gag reflex in check, especially in the last 40 pages of this book, I had to read lighter books in tandem for relief. One of these was 偽姉妹 (Fake Sisters), the latest novel by Nao-cola Yamazaki (山崎ナオコーラ). Like Murata, Yamazaki is looking at social problems (in this case, an aging society and smaller families) and trying to find a solution to them, but she does so with a light touch. Three sisters live in a house that is essentially all roof, with impractical touches such as a spiral staircase and few doors. Masako, the middle sister, built it with lottery winnings, but when her marriage (amicably) dissolved and she had a baby, her sisters moved in.

The novel is really an exploration of what happens when Masako decides that she’d rather live with her two friends and make them her sisters. She realized, once her sisters had moved out and her friends had moved in, that she had felt pressure to like her blood relatives and be liked in turn. She wanted to live with a family she had chosen herself. She had named her son after Yukio Mishima, but she hopes that he will feel so free in his life that he will be able to toss off his origins and choose a new meaning for his name. In the epilogue set about 40 years later, people are able to enter into family contracts with other people to share assets, help each other through sickness and grow old together.

The main characters in Earthlings seemed to descend into mental illness, in contrast to Murata’s novel, Convenience Store Woman, in which Keiko has a way of looking at the world that reflects back to us a clear, undistorted look at the social norms that most of us take for granted. The sisters in Pretend Sisters, both real and chosen, were also a welcome contrast with their frank and honest relationships and eagerness to change the parts of society they don’t like. By the end of Earthlings, there was no one for me to sympathize with, which dulled whatever message Murata was trying to get across.

To get a full idea of Sayaka Murata’s range, read this blog post on Brain on Books about her collection of short stories, 殺人出産 (Satsujin Shussan).

 

 

 

Winner of the 2018 Japanese Booksellers Award

April 10, 2018 / / 1 Comment

『かがみの孤城』(The Solitary Castle in the Mirror) by 辻村深月 (Mizuki Tsujimura) won the 2018 Japanese Booksellers Award, announced on April 10. Although it wouldn’t have been my choice, it wasn’t a surprise, given the rave reviews from other readers. And it’s always interesting to try and identify the source of a book’s appeal, even if it escapes me personally.

Mizuki Tsujimura at the award ceremony. Source: Jiji Press

I have liked several of Mizuki Tsujimura’s other novels, but at more than 500 pages, this book needed a more aggressive editor—it could have been cut by about half without losing much. I may have not have been her intended audience either, since it seemed to be directed toward young adults. This was in part because her writing seemed more simplistic than in her other novels, and any adult could unravel some of the mysteries about 100 pages before the children did. It was also hard for me to relate to Kokoro, the main character, perhaps because her over-sensitive reactions to every word and look directed at her—while no doubt an entirely accurate depiction of a young girl—became a little tiring.

The description of the book gives the impression that this is an adventure story, with seven children given a year to search in a castle for a key that will grant the finder a wish. However, the actual search for the key was carried out in a half-hearted way –and only mentioned in passing–until the last 50 pages or so. One of the mysteries is why these seven children have been gathered at the castle. All but one have stopped going to school, although they have given up on school for different reasons. None of the children characterized their experiences as “bullying,” and the range of their experiences speaks to the depth of the problem. According to the Ministry of Education’s statistics for the 2014 school year, 26,000 elementary school students and 97,000 middle school students were absent for 30 days or more, the official definition of “school refusal” (the actual figure is certainly higher since the absences of some children are attributed to “medical reasons” to save the child embarrassment and the school its reputation). Both of these figures were up by about 2,000 over the previous year. The reasons given run from bullying to lack of friends and embarrassment over academic performance. The castle gives the seven children a place to feel comfortable and at ease. This search for a sense of belonging is something to which many people, both children and adults, can relate, which probably explains why this book has resonated so much with readers.

My favorite of the books nominated this year was Kotaro Isaka’s “AX”. Kabuto (his nickname among his colleagues on the dark side) is a salesman for a stationery manufacturer by day and a professional assassin by night. He has nerves of steel when it comes to killing, but he is petrified of his wife, and this makes for much of the humor in the book. The book starts with Kabuto talking with his fellow killers-for-hire about the best food to eat when arriving home late after a job. Cup ramen would seem to be the natural choice, but there is a risk of waking up his wife with the sounds he’d make tearing off the plastic wrap, pulling back the lid, and pouring in the boiling water. No, Kabuto informs his respectful disciples, after much trial and error, the only food he has found that is both satisfying and quiet is fish sausage. Kabuto has made such a study of placating his wife that Katsumi, Kabuto’s son, later finds a notebook complete with flow charts that map out possible conversations with his wife and how to respond in a way that will not provoke her.

“AX” is a series of interrelated stories from the time Katsumi is in high school until he is an adult with a son of his own. Kabuto’s attempts to convince the “doctor” who assigns him jobs to let him leave this work, without putting his wife and son at risk, underlie all of these episodes. He is a lonely man, despite his deep love for his family, and almost pathetically grateful for the few friends he makes during the course of this book. However, his profession always gets in the way of these friendships. He makes a friend at a bouldering gym, of all places (they share tips on how to appease their wives), but when they are attacked by a thief on their way to a bar one night, Kabuto is forced to deal with the situation in a way that gives away the fact that he is not just a stationery salesman. This is not exactly a thriller, nor do we get many details about the people he kills and why—his profession is simply a vehicle through which Isaka explores fatherhood and loyalty and sacrifice, with a lot of humor to leaven any heaviness.

I attempted to read 『たゆたえども沈まず』(Fluctuat nec mergitur) by 原田マハ (Maha Harada), but it seemed too formulaic and I gave up after plodding through about 75 pages. I also tried 『百貨の魔法』(The Department Store’s Magic) by 村山早紀 (Saki Murayama), but it was like being trapped in a heavily perfumed room and forced to listen to Muzak versions of classical music.

I quite enjoyed 『キラキラ共和国』 (The Sparkling Republic) by 小川糸 (Ito Ogawa), which sees Hatoko start a new stage in her life with her husband and step-daughter. This is a good one to read in the bath or before bed—nothing prize-worthy here, but a solid comfort read, and there’s always a place for books in that category.

The Booksellers Award has apparently come under criticism for not living up to its original purpose of turning more obscure titles into bestsellers, particularly last year, when Riku Onda won both the Booksellers Award and the Naoki Prize for 蜜蜂と遠雷 (Honey Bees and Distant Thunder). This year they seem to be trying to make up for that with their winner in the translated novel category, Stephanie Garber’s Caraval, translated by Kaoru Nishimoto. The Japanese translation has only sold 9,000 copies in Japan so far, but this award will likely change that.

 

 

Convenience Store People

December 12, 2016 / / 12 Comments

コンビニ人間

村田沙耶香

文藝春秋、２０１６

Convenience Store People

Sayaka Murata

Bungeishunju, 2016 [English translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori was published by Grove Atlantic in 2018]

コンビニ人間 (Convenience Store People) won the 155th Akutagawa Prize in July. I usually pass over the Akutagawa Prize winners as they tend to be “serious literary works” that leave me depressed. However, many of the comments on bookmeter about コンビニ人間 ran along the lines of “This book may have won the Akutagawa Prize, but it was interesting,” so I thought it was worth a try.

I was also drawn in by the Japan Time’s description of Sayaka Murata as a “convenience store worker who moonlights as an author.” Murata plans to continue her part-time work at a convenience store because the job provides her with both book ideas and a routine.

(If you’re imagining the typical American convenience stores with their grungy floors, stale food and oversized drinks, think again. You can read about what convenience stores in Japan are all about here.)

The novel starts when Keiko is in her late 30s or, more importantly in her mind, 19 years after she was “born as a convenience store worker.” Although her memories of the period before this rebirth are vague, Keiko does know that she was born into an “ordinary home and raised lovingly in the ordinary way.” Nevertheless, she has always been strange and felt out of place.

When she was in kindergarten, she found a dead bird in the park. The other children cried over the bird, but Keiko grabbed it up and took it to her mother, suggesting that they grill it for her father since he likes grilled chicken. Her mother tries to redirect her by acting out a burial with the other children, but Keiko can only think of how wasteful this is, and how hypocritical it is to cry over a dead bird and then “murder” flowers to put on the grave.

In first grade, Keiko intervenes in a fight between two boys by grabbing a shovel and hitting one of the boys over the head until he couldn’t move anymore. She explains to her shocked teachers that the other children were yelling for someone to stop the fight, and her approach was the fastest way. After several similar episodes, she realizes that she is just worrying her parents and always ends up having to apologize for things she is not sorry for, so she decides to talk as little as possible outside of her home and either imitate others or wait for instructions. This seems to relieve everyone concerned.

Working in the convenience store, where everything has its proper place and a manual standardizes every movement, gives her a kind of contentment. Keiko learns how to greet customers and make the right facial expressions by studying a store poster showing smiling faces. She models her behavior, her clothes and her mannerisms on her co-workers, looking in their lockers to check the tags on their coats and labels on their shoes and then buying the same. This strategy lets her pass in “normal” society, but doesn’t allay the concerns of her high-school friends and sister over her unmarried state.

A poster for convenience store employees telling them how to dress for their job. Nail polish and fake nails are out, and nails must be cut short enough so that they are not visible when holding your hand out palm up. I particularly like the instruction to smile “with your whole face,” including your eyes. (Source: Wikipedia)

Rows of onigiri (rice balls) at a convenience store in Japan (Source: Wikipedia)

When Shiraha, a sullen and awkward young man, joins the convenience store staff, he upsets the store’s equilibrium. Keiko tries her best to train him, but when she teaches him how to neatly arrange products on the shelves, he protests that men are not suited to this kind of work: “Ever since the Jomon period [14,000 – 300 BCE], men have gone out to hunt and women have protected the home and gone out to collect berries and wild grass. Women’s brain structure makes them suited for this kind of work.” Keiko doesn’t take this personally and, true to form, just tells him that “Convenience store employees are not men or women, but just store employees.”

Needless to say, Shiraha does not last long in this line of work, but Keiko decides that a paper marriage with Shiraha would satisfy social norms, reassure her family and friends, and give Shiraha a refuge at the same time. We know from the beginning that there is no way this will end well. Keiko and Shiraha respond to their sense of isolation in opposing ways: Keiko by mirroring those around her and Shiraha by ostracizing everyone around him with his inflated sense of self-importance so that, when he is inevitably isolated, he can blame others for it.

He is an unabashed misogynist, and yet even when he calls Keiko a dried-up, middle-aged virgin, his insults just bounce off of her. This is exactly what makes the book so interesting. Murata’s use of a first person narrative together with a narrator who has little self-awareness creates a sense of dislocation—we watch Keiko from a distance rather than with the sense of intimacy that a first-person narrator usually creates. We cannot quite relate to her, and yet the “normal” people in the story seem like horrific caricatures as they push her to conform to standards that seem arbitrary as seen from Keiko’s perspective. I was aghast at Shiraha’s views of the world, but gradually found that my disgust was tempered by an inability to relate to Keiko’s co-workers and friends, the supposed exemplars of normal society.

One of Shiraha’s pet theories is that the modern world is still stuck in the Jomon period:

I read history books to try and figure out when the world went wrong. You look back at the Meiji period, Edo period, Heian period, no matter how far you go back, the world is just on the wrong track—even if you go all the way back to the Jomon period! … And then I realized: the world is no different than it was during the Jomon period! People who are no use to the village are eliminated, both men who don’t go out hunting and women who don’t have babies. We keep talking about modern society and individualism but all along, people who don’t try to fit in are interfered with, forced into shape and ultimately pushed out of the village.

Keiko claims that “Unlike Shiraha, I just don’t care about most things. I don’t really have my own will, so I don’t mind just following along with village principles.” Even this modest ambition seemed to be beyond her reach, and in the end I couldn’t help but sympathize with Shiraha’s assertion that “This world does not recognize foreign objects. I’ve been forced to suffer from this for my whole life.” This novel serves as a condemnation of a society in which there is no place for people like Keiko and Shiraha.

So as not to end on too somber of a note (and there’s plenty of humor in this book), have a listen to the Konbini Store song!

Copyright

© 2016 Erika Tsugawa All rights reserved. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.

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