If you’ve ever felt like an alien, Sayaka Murata’s work will feel more like reality than fiction.. Earth seems more like home for the extraterrestrial armed with Murata’s masterful deconstruction of every ceremony, tradition, and custom. Her protagonists fear the consequences of diverging from normalcy, going to extreme lengths to either fit in or prove they are just as inhuman as they have been made to believe. The constraints of patriarchy, gender expectations, and capitalism almost win out, but the protagonist always escapes, often in disgusting or otherwise shocking ways.
“Life Ceremony,” a collection of 12 short stories translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori, takes Murata’s thematic exploration of normalcy to the next level. In many of the stories, Murata makes gruesome realities an accepted matter. Murata’s characters only debate the legitimacy of a custom when the stories center around concepts as strange as consensual posthumous cannibalism or wearing a wedding veil made of the Father of the Bride’s skin. Stories based in reality feature much less discourse, a not-so-subtle nod to how we often limit discussing the ethics of a tradition when it seems particularly foreign or unsightly.
English readers’ response to Murata’s 2018 novel, “Convenience Story Woman” puzzled the author. The novel follows Keiko, a woman in her thirties who rebels against society’s wishes for her to advance in her career, get married, and have children—instead she continues to work her beloved convenience store job. What Murata viewed as clear commentary, how capitalism forces people to prioritize respected jobs and starting a family over happiness, came across as a comedy to many.
Following the misunderstanding of her English debut, Murata’s 2020 release “Earthlings” took a much darker turn than that of the charming ‘Convenience Store Woman.’ The novel follows the deeply troubled life of Natsuki, a woman who clings to her childhood belief that she came from another planet to cope with her extreme trauma as a child. Natsuki’s lengths to separate herself from the rest of humanity reach incredibly disturbing levels.
“Life Ceremony” reflects the trend of Murata’s three published English books, Murata has to go to extreme lengths to point out the faulty logic of society’s written and unwritten rules. “Life Ceremony” transcends cultural barriers through its inventions of societal expectations, making it relevant to anyone who feels strangled by the world’s customs.
This quote from “Convenience Store Woman” sums up the purpose of Murata’s fiction, “The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of. So that’s why I need to be cured. Unless I’m cured, normal people will expurgate me.”
