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Description
Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. HTML: The long-awaited first short story-collection by the author of the cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, tales of weird love, heartfelt friendships, and the unsettling nature of human existence With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness. In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror to portray both the loners and outcasts as well as turning the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. Whether the stories take place in modern-day Japan, the future, or an alternate reality is left to the reader's interpretation, as the characters often seem strange in their normality in a frighteningly abnormal world. In "A First-Rate Material," Nana and Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can't stand the conventional use of deceased people's bodies for clothing, accessories, and furniture, and a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. "Lovers on the Breeze" is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child's bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. "Eating the City" explores the strange norms around food and foraging, while "Hatchling" closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in. In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks above all what it means to be a human in our world and offers answers that surprise and linger..… (more)
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User reviews
Some of the stories left a deeper impact on me than others. Among them the one that also provided the title for the short story collection, “Life Ceremony”. The idea of eating human flesh was beyond my imagination even though I liked how the protagonist was drawn and her emotions transmitted.
Food in general seems to be a topic in Japanese literature, after recently having read “Butter” by Asako Yuzuki, I already had the impression that the sensual aspect is something that plays an important role, maybe because a highly controlled society does not grant itself the luxury of such feelings.
Relationships, types of families also are touched upon several times, can two women qualify as family and can a couple experience love without ever having intercourse? The stories invite you to ponder about many questions and to scrutinize your position and attitude when it comes to the deviation of the common.
A wide range of short insights into lives that move unnoticed among people even though they are at the fringe if their nerves.
“Life Ceremony ” by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori) is a collection of twelve wildly imaginative, bizarre and unique short stories.
The first story ,“A First-Rate Material”, (4/5 for the unique concept but this one did make me a bit queasy) is set
Most of the stories revolve around female characters and touch upon themes of family, identity, relationships, individuality and belongingness. The stories vary in tone and setting – from darkly funny and futuristic, bold and feminist to dystopian yet awkwardly sentimental. I had thoroughly enjoyed Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata in the past and therefore was eager to read this collection. Though some stories are a bit disturbing the collection is addictive and engaging and Murata pushes her imagination (and the readers') to extreme limits- blurring the distinction between normal and abnormal.
“I mean, normal is a type of madness, isn’t it? I think it’s just that the only madness society allows is called normal."
(from the titular stories Life Ceremony)
While I admire the writing and the creativity of the author and I did like the intention and messages the author sought to convey, I was not blown away by this collection as many other readers have been.