A Reader’s review of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience store woman

 A Reader’s review of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience store woman 

-by Simran Sharma

When reading Japanese fiction, the issue one runs into is that nothing ever makes sense until you  accept that it's Japanese and extremely culturally esoteric. Perhaps, as with any culturally  informed and idiosyncratic novel, the reader is always aware and feels the unfamiliarity and  newness of the writing.  

Sayaka Murata’s Convenience store woman conveys a poignant feature, contravening the  fabrications of societal normality, notions of personal growth, stability and the pursuit of good  life. For Keiko Furukura, the convenience store is a sonic realm. The convenience store sound,  which is repeatedly referenced in the book, is an escalating auditory experience that probably  only Furukura can obtain in one of the busiest and most crowded places in human existence.  After eighteen years in the same position, she has mastered the art of being a store employee and  has no intention of leaving anytime soon. She appreciates the location's rules and order and has  become adept at interpreting even the smallest body language and gestures from customers and  responding appropriately to their needs. However, she has frequently encountered what appears  to be orderly, and the only sound way of life is what others perceive to be strange about her.  Dismissing her own feelings, she finds herself actively emulating others' methods of speaking,  speech, and diction to give the image of integration and being one with her environment.  Furthermore, she believes that people unknowingly have this propensity to infect others with  their habits and speech, and it is therefore simple to determine who is hanging out with whom.  The concept of normality, therefore, is an archetype, and everyone is "wearing the skin of an  imaginary animal called a normal human".  

Whether it's the most spectacular event in life or the most ideal existence, relatability and  conformity of thought is what makes us humans most likely to sympathize with one another.  Furukura frequently sees this as her sticking out as a "foreign object" in "the village," thus, like  "an anthropologist on Mars," she does her best to assimilate to their norms of normality and  blend in. However, this desire to fit in is not entirely her own; rather, it is an attribution of what  other people find problematic about her. Whether it is her lack of interest in dating or marriage or  her years of stagnant, unfulfilling work, people would rather identify with the likeness of the  situation, often ignoring the objective awfulness of the experience for her. Hence, Furukura’s  sister and those in her immediate vicinity believe it is a good thing when a parasitic, borderline  sexual offender, ostracized man begins seeing her. They would rather she be sad and normal than  comfortable and different. Instead of yearning for approval, Keiko accepts the preposterousness  of the living and occasionally pokes fun at their eccentricities. Being a store worker is very vital  to her existence and perhaps contentment with life, which often comes up in her modest pride in  detailing the work that she performs and meticulously expressing the things important to her.  Sayaka Murata's novel skillfully maintains the "fleabaginess" of the optic while narrating the tale  of a lady who lives to the beat of her own drum.