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| comment | | "parent_author":"",<br>"parent_permlink":"books",<br>"author":"noelthorne",<br>"permlink":"convenience-store-woman-review",<br>"title":"Convenience Store Woman Review",<br>"body":"![40778245.jpg (https:\/\/cdn.steemitimages.com\/DQme7MphKQYEwuQtC7wQTFN8XSPLZjb4oxuk8hRkffAFVLu\/40778245.jpg)\n\nKeiko has worked at the convenience store her entire adult life. But as she nears 40,<br> the pressure to find a \u201creal\u201d job or get married is mounting \u2013 what sort of life awaits Keiko outside the comfort zone of the store and will she step out to meet it? \n\nI feel like there\u2019s a good novel somewhere in Convenience Store Woman but Sayaka Murata didn\u2019t realise it. Her commentary on conformist society and the individual is inane and unoriginal though far worse is her muddled placement of the main character within that commentary. \n\nIt\u2019s never explicitly stated but Keiko is obviously autistic. She doesn\u2019t understand human behaviour,<br> talks repeatedly about the mask\/disguise she wears and takes her cues from her peers,<br> mimicking their body language,<br> speech patterns and dress to pass as \u201cnormal\u201d \u2013 not that she cares all that much about being \u201cnormal\u201d but she feels life is easier if that\u2019s how people perceive her. She comes off as robotic and unemotional. She has no interest in sex or relationships in general. She works,<br> thinks and lives mechanically. She even has her sister come up with lines for her to repeat in social situations to seem like a \u201cnormal\u201d person. \n\nShe\u2019s practical to a fault. An anecdote from her childhood (which also shows that her behaviour is not the result of working in a convenience store): two boys are fighting in the schoolyard,<br> someone calls to break them up,<br> so Keiko grabs a shovel and smacks one of the boys on the head,<br> nearly killing him. She doesn\u2019t understand \u2013 she broke up the fight didn\u2019t she? Later on,<br> her sister\u2019s baby is crying and she briefly thinks that she knows a way to permanently stop it making noise and stressing her sister out. There\u2019s no malice behind the thought of killing a baby,<br> she\u2019s just thinking practically without understanding appropriate social behaviour (though she knows enough not to act on it). \n\nSo I would definitely say that Keiko\u2019s autistic,<br> or at the very least somewhere on the spectrum. Not that anything\u2019s wrong with that of course - but then what\u2019s the novel\u2019s point? Murata seems to be critical of a conformist society where certain jobs relegate people to cogs within a machine \u2013 dehumanised,<br> essentially \u2013 in a society with far too rigidly-defined roles with no room for individual expression,<br> leading to unsatisfied lives. \n\nExcept Keiko is happy to be a cog in a machine because of the way her brain is wired. And it wasn\u2019t society that did this to her,<br> she was simply born this way. She fully embraces the role of convenience store worker,<br> as it\u2019s clearly defined and therefore understandable. She could do without societal rules with its grounding in complex human behaviour,<br> which she\u2019s never understood. \n\nHer character arc is non-existent. She knows her place in the world and she\u2019s satisfied with it. She starts and ends as a convenience store worker. Something happens \u2013 which was completely arbitrary and never explained - along the way that takes her out of that setting but it only confirms her contentment with her lot in life and puts her back where she started. Is the point then that society should accept that some people are fine with\/don\u2019t care about \u201clow\u201d status? Or that the rules should be different for someone who\u2019s autistic\/on the spectrum,<br> who clearly can\u2019t handle\/doesn\u2019t want the complexities that come with more traditional ideas of success \u2013 high paying jobs,<br> lots of material possessions,<br> families,<br> etc.? \n\nI found Convenience Store Woman underwhelming as its ultimate message \u2013 you\u2019ve got one life to live,<br> it\u2019s yours,<br> don\u2019t waste any time worrying about what other people think and live it the way you want \u2013 isn\u2019t just a mundane,<br> obvious observation but is something I took to heart years ago and I think is how most people live anyway. At least that\u2019s what I took the meaning to be seeing as Keiko affirms her place in the world,<br> regardless of what people think,<br> and is more than ok with it. Unless it\u2019s meant to be tragic as she tried and failed to \u201cclimb the social ladder\u201d by getting a new job? But if she\u2019s autistic,<br> then she probably wouldn\u2019t be able to handle anything else so isn\u2019t she already doing the best that she can? \n\nAnd that\u2019s why I don\u2019t think the conformity critique \u2013 if that was what Murata was going for \u2013 works well alongside an autistic character. Because conformity,<br> regularity,<br> mindless,<br> repetitive labour,<br> etc. actually fits an autistic person who can\u2019t handle change. Maybe that message would\u2019ve been more effective if Keiko had started out as a girl with hopes and dreams for a fulfilling career,<br> a nice house,<br> a husband and kids,<br> and ended up a single convenience store worker. Except the novel is actually about how someone found their place in life right out of high school and has continued to be happy with it; it\u2019s everyone else who has a problem with that. \n\nSo the novel is about a character who doesn\u2019t change,<br> a society that doesn\u2019t change,<br> and how both have found comfort in conformity,<br> and the author\u2019s conclusion to all this is\u2026 who knows? At any rate it doesn\u2019t add up to much! \n\nPeople seem to really dig autistic fictional characters these days \u2013 like the gay professor in that wildly successful yet desperately unfunny sitcom,<br> and Don Tillman in Graeme Simsion\u2019s bestselling The Rosie Project \u2013 so I can see why this would be popular. And Japanese convenience stores really are incredible. Their food culture is light years ahead of what we have in the west. Convenience store food is delicious and the selections are many and mind-bending \u2013 if you ever visit,<br> you\u2019ll be blown away with the treasures inside these ubiquitous shops.\n\nStill,<br> it\u2019s generally a well-written book that\u2019s easy to read and,<br> for a novel mostly set in somewhere as ordinary as a convenience store and its day-to-day machinations,<br> it\u2019s never boring so credit to Sayaka Murata for that. Maybe it\u2019s messaging is more relevant to close-buttoned Japanese society but I wasn\u2019t impressed with it and found it left a confused impression. If it had been clearer and more focused,<br> this would be a decent novel; as it is,<br> it\u2019s a jumbled mess.",<br>"json_metadata":" \"tags\":[\"books\",<br>\"review\",<br>\"fiction\",<br>\"novel\",<br>\"literature\" ,<br>\"image\":[\"https:\/\/cdn.steemitimages.com\/DQme7MphKQYEwuQtC7wQTFN8XSPLZjb4oxuk8hRkffAFVLu\/40778245.jpg\" ,<br>\"app\":\"steemit\/0.1\",<br>\"format\":\"markdown\" " |
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