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A review by extravagantly
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
5.0
at a book store in ikebukuro, about 6 pm i picked up this book. i heard mentions of its praise from friends and media alike, so i thought i’d check it out. finding repose in a simple wooden chair, the book was finished by 8 pm.
it is currently 8:36 pm, and i’ve spent the last half hour reading some other reviews of this short novel. being an english translation, i assume that most readers are thus reading from a western and mainly american perspective. through no fault of their own, they’re missing crucial details.
the convenience store, or conbini, is genuinely so integral to japanese society. i cant think of any equivalent, at least in america. family marts, 7/11s, lawsons, the like are obviously places to shop, but often are social places. keiko worked the day shift, so only brief mentions of groups of people coming in chatting are mentioned. but during the night, especially in places like shibuya and shinjuku, groups of younger and older people alike can often be found drinking around these conbini and enjoying themselves.
all of this to further develop the idea that conbinis truly represent the idea of the machine that keiko so truly feels she belongs.
another thing about japanese society maybe lost on westerners, is the work and social culture. if you’ve ever felt burnt out or depressed working your 9-5, i pray you never work for japanese kaisha. that being said, the expectation to devote yourself to one of these “real jobs” seeps in from every aspect of life. school, your current part time job, family, and, of course, friends.
i’ve found friendships in japan to rarely be truly deep and intense. much different from my friendships back home or with other foreigners i’ve made friends with here. as keiko experiences, it’s much more common just to tell people what they want to hear and build a connection based on the normality of things. for a japanese person, the nail the sticks out is the one that is hammered down. it’s easy to see how one can fear being vulnerable with another person when the repercussions could be socially devastating.
what was the point of this minor rant…?
oh yes keiko and her life
i’ve seen a few reviews say keiko has no character her arc, she starts and ends the same way. “living life how you want to live, not for others.” i think that’s a pretty surface level way of thinking of things, though. i’ll probably come back to this review (not that any one will read it) when my thoughts are more than 45 minutes developed. to me, this snapshot of keiko’s life isn’t really meant to mean anything in particular? not that the book is meaningless in any way. it’s some woman’s life, a clearly autistic woman who finds contentment in the routine she’s set up for herself. maybe it could be interpreted as a ‘fuck you’ to japanese society, but keiko never intends it to be that. she’s not doing anything for some higher purpose, she’s simply a convenience store employee and that’s where she desires to be.
…yeah i’m definitely coming back to this paragraph when i’ve thought about it more.
besides the general story, i very much enjoy this novella because of keiko herself. i am also an autistic person, i also happened to have worked jobs that had the same routine day after day.
what i find so fascinating is how we have the same exact thought process, yet our desires couldn’t be more different. in the ink on the page, i see myself reflected back like a mirror, yet somehow keiko ends up content at a conbini when the thought of it sends me spiraling.
i think reading this book for a semblance of plot is the wrong way to go about it. to me, it was clearly a character study. there’s barely enough real societal commentary to call it a criticism. (i don’t imagine most of what shiraha was meant to be taken seriously besides furthering keiko’s own perception of self— only coincidentally through society’s perspective).
at the end of the day, if there is any message to be had in this one sixty something pages book it is not “live life doing what you want to do in society” it is “why should i not be content with what i’m already doing, in spite of society?”
it’s hard to express my words in such a way, considering i haven’t written this much english since high school lit essays; yet if someone has read this far, please go out and buy this book or read a pdf or something, it is well worth the 2 hours taken to read it.
it is currently 8:36 pm, and i’ve spent the last half hour reading some other reviews of this short novel. being an english translation, i assume that most readers are thus reading from a western and mainly american perspective. through no fault of their own, they’re missing crucial details.
the convenience store, or conbini, is genuinely so integral to japanese society. i cant think of any equivalent, at least in america. family marts, 7/11s, lawsons, the like are obviously places to shop, but often are social places. keiko worked the day shift, so only brief mentions of groups of people coming in chatting are mentioned. but during the night, especially in places like shibuya and shinjuku, groups of younger and older people alike can often be found drinking around these conbini and enjoying themselves.
all of this to further develop the idea that conbinis truly represent the idea of the machine that keiko so truly feels she belongs.
another thing about japanese society maybe lost on westerners, is the work and social culture. if you’ve ever felt burnt out or depressed working your 9-5, i pray you never work for japanese kaisha. that being said, the expectation to devote yourself to one of these “real jobs” seeps in from every aspect of life. school, your current part time job, family, and, of course, friends.
i’ve found friendships in japan to rarely be truly deep and intense. much different from my friendships back home or with other foreigners i’ve made friends with here. as keiko experiences, it’s much more common just to tell people what they want to hear and build a connection based on the normality of things. for a japanese person, the nail the sticks out is the one that is hammered down. it’s easy to see how one can fear being vulnerable with another person when the repercussions could be socially devastating.
what was the point of this minor rant…?
oh yes keiko and her life
i’ve seen a few reviews say keiko has no character her arc, she starts and ends the same way. “living life how you want to live, not for others.” i think that’s a pretty surface level way of thinking of things, though. i’ll probably come back to this review (not that any one will read it) when my thoughts are more than 45 minutes developed. to me, this snapshot of keiko’s life isn’t really meant to mean anything in particular? not that the book is meaningless in any way. it’s some woman’s life, a clearly autistic woman who finds contentment in the routine she’s set up for herself. maybe it could be interpreted as a ‘fuck you’ to japanese society, but keiko never intends it to be that. she’s not doing anything for some higher purpose, she’s simply a convenience store employee and that’s where she desires to be.
…yeah i’m definitely coming back to this paragraph when i’ve thought about it more.
besides the general story, i very much enjoy this novella because of keiko herself. i am also an autistic person, i also happened to have worked jobs that had the same routine day after day.
what i find so fascinating is how we have the same exact thought process, yet our desires couldn’t be more different. in the ink on the page, i see myself reflected back like a mirror, yet somehow keiko ends up content at a conbini when the thought of it sends me spiraling.
i think reading this book for a semblance of plot is the wrong way to go about it. to me, it was clearly a character study. there’s barely enough real societal commentary to call it a criticism. (i don’t imagine most of what shiraha was meant to be taken seriously besides furthering keiko’s own perception of self— only coincidentally through society’s perspective).
at the end of the day, if there is any message to be had in this one sixty something pages book it is not “live life doing what you want to do in society” it is “why should i not be content with what i’m already doing, in spite of society?”
it’s hard to express my words in such a way, considering i haven’t written this much english since high school lit essays; yet if someone has read this far, please go out and buy this book or read a pdf or something, it is well worth the 2 hours taken to read it.