Disturbing, raw, devilishly enjoyable. These are some adjectives I would use to describe Sayaka Murata’s 2022 collection of short stories, Life Ceremony. It is the Japanese author’s first collection of short stories to be published in English and doesn’t disappoint the reader who is already familiar with her work. I discovered Murata about three years ago when I found her novel Convenience Store Woman in a Kentish Waterstones, placed among other top titles of Japanese literature. What convinced me to buy the book on the spot was the insights the book promised to give into the life of a konbini ningen, a person working in a Japanese convenience store. What is the reason someone would get this kind of job? How are they as a person, and how do they interact with other members of society in this position? The book answered these questions in its very unique way, I might say.
the short of it
The stories in Life Ceremony revisit some of the themes of Sayaka Murata’s previous novel and turn up the dial of their inbuilt weirdness and straightforwardness. Keiko Furukura, the main character of Convenience Store Woman, has no interest in sexual relationships and models her personality depending on the social context. ‘A Clean Marriage’ tells the story of a married couple who despite their decision to lead an asexual life, wishes to have a baby. Haruka, the main character of ‘Hatchling’ has several personalities, also depending on the social context, and a problem arises when she is to be married. In comparison to Furukura’s happy-ending, as one might see it, the future of the characters in the stories of Life Ceremony is rather uncertain. In addition to the unconventional ways to function in society Sayaka Murata approaches, her sharp, precise and unforgiving writing renders her new book unsuitable for the faint-hearted. But if the reader can stomach cannibalism, humiliation, violence and self-denigration, they are rewarded with a glimpse of hope for what might look like a society which, in a way, thrives on uninhibited freedom.
Murata is fearless. In her stories she suggests that a parallel world exists, where people lead their lives by rules unknown to our conventional society. By implication, change would be possible in our own parallel world. We tend to live in the present and believe that just because things run in a certain way, they have always run that way and will always run that way. Some stories don’t make it clear how radical changes came about, while others clearly suggest that there was a time when things were different. ‘A First-Rate Material’ tells of a society where it’s common to use dead body parts to make furniture and clothing. Everyone believes this is luxury and it’s only Naoki, the fiancée of the main character, Nana, who has no taste for it. ‘Life Ceremony’, the title story, describes a world where it’s common for people to eat their dead to show love of life. Everyone lives in and enjoys this questionably moral practice except for Maho, apparently the only one who remembers a time when things were different. These are inverted worlds which force the reader to question her ingrained beliefs and their stability.
minimalistic character development
The social aspect of the stories comes across very strongly. But one thing which is sacrificed on the altar of abstract ideas is the character. Short stories are generally rather minimalistic about character development, but the characters in Life Ceremony seem to really have nothing going on by their own. They are pure vehicles for social critique and alternate ways of living and being in society. The dialogue is sparse, practical and on point and Murata wastes no time with adjectives, descriptions and backstory. I mentioned earlier that Maho of ‘Life Ceremony’ remembers a time when the dead would be left to lie, but that doesn’t say anything about her as a real person to whom the reader might find a connection. For Murata, story comes first. Character not at all.
Or just second, because ‘Eating the City’ feels different. Inspired by childhood memories and repulsed by the artificiality of supermarket vegetables, Rina decides to change her life completely and nourish herself with whatever food the green patches of the city offer her: dandelions growing through weeds in front of her door, fleabane from a not-so-well-cared-for playground. Rina tries to recreate the life she remembers from her countryside childhood with the modern methods she has at her disposal, and she does this for her own benefit. Maybe it’s a personal predisposition, but for me Rina is the most relatable and realistic character in all the stories.
did I like it?
As far as liking such a unique and mind-bending collection of stories goes, I think I did like it. Like Furukura of Convenience Store Woman, the characters in Life Ceremony question what it means being “normal” in a world where everyone has their own quirks and idiosyncrasies. They give me the power to imagine a world where measurement and comparison are given up in favour of acceptance of open-mindedness. And if I have to deal with cannibalism for that, maybe that’s just a plus somehow. Am I just being weird?
your thoughts?