Unsettling. I can wrap up the review for Sayaka Murata’s “The Convenience Store Woman” in that one word. But first, a big thank you to NetGalley and publisher Grove Atlantic for this ARC.
The convenience store woman of the title is Keiko Furukura, a slightly eccentric woman in her mid-30s, who has been working at the Smile Mart for over 16 years. She is diligent and focused and seems to love her job at the store. As the book progresses, we see how she gets into a pact of convenience with Shiraha, who works at the store for a brief while, and allows him to live with her for mutual benefits. The rest of the story is about how that pans out for both of them.
The first thing you know by this point is that Keiko is not a “normal” woman. She holds the same job for an inordinately long time, and in a convenience store of all places, which is unheard of. She is single and shows no intention of even going on a date and she displays very Asperger’s Syndrome-like behaviour. These and other quirks are more than enough to classify her as “abnormal” by everyone including her parents who are always trying to “cure” her. Keiko struggles to understand why things like hitting a boy in the head or even thinking of taking a knife to a child to keep him quiet is a matter of consternation to people.
“When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why. I found that arrogant and infuriating, not to mention a pain in the neck. Sometimes I even wanted to hit them with a shovel to shut them up, like I did that time in elementary school.”
Obviously, Keiko is someone we never warm up to but we do understand her problem of being an outcast in society. Not just because she has odd tendencies like beating up people to keep them quiet but simply because she stands out in the homogenized mass of married people. Shiraha is Keiko’s male counterpart, an oddball and a deeply distressed one at that. His one wish is to get away from all the people who question him and pressurize him for answers.
To me, Keiko and Shiraha are the symbols of the growing class of people who are making conscious choices to stay away from the otherwise deadening regularity of life. They are highly individualistic people who seem alien because they stay on the fringes of society and are happy to do so. Keiko is genuinely puzzled when she is endlessly questioned on her lack of a “proper job” and a husband.
“I can’t go on like this? You mean I shouldn’t be living the way I am now? Why do you say that?”
And she reasons it out to herself
“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.”
Sayaka Murata brilliantly captures the angst of these misfits and also provides an overview of Japanese society, which has been riddled with problems of celibacy and disinterest in having children in recent years. Although, not everyone can empathize with the slightly extreme proclivities that Keiko and Shiraha have, we can certainly identify with their feeling of frustration at being questioned repeatedly over their choices and of desperately trying to keep themselves from being subsumed by the heaving mass of a monochromatic society.
The characterization in this book is highly masterful in that you alternate between sympathy, empathy, disgust and other emotions for both protagonists. This swirl of feelings and the soul of the novel is entirely retained by Ginny Tapley Takemori’s beautiful translation. So effectively that it left me unsettled even as I turned the last page.
Verdict: A very real and chilling read
Rating: 4.2/5
Image credit: Grove Atlantic
