Earthlings: How Sayaka Murata Makes Visceral Commentary on Gender Norms in Japan
Image by Tianshu Liu via Unsplash
By Lauren Crookston
A good author can get their point across without telling you verbatim through descriptive language and creative imagery – and it takes a special kind of author to make the journey a thoroughly uncomfortable one. Brett Easton Ellis comes to mind, as a master of this niche storytelling device - famous for using some downright grotesque imagery to bring his commentary on the wealthy ambivalence to life. Sayaka Murata’s ‘Earthlings’ left me with the same uneasiness in my skin that ‘American Psycho’ elicited, except this time it felt much more personal.
Sayaka Murata was born in 1979 in Chiba, Japan, and her writing, predominantly, is a reflection of what it feels like to grow up as an ‘unconventional’ girl within Japan’s cultural norms and expectations. ‘Convenience Store Woman’ was the first of Murata’s books that I read, and is largely based on her own experience working as a convenience store clerk. The book centres around a woman who has been considered ‘weird’ and ‘unnerving’ her entire life, but feels at home at the store in which she works as she idly observes how strange the patrons who society deems to be ‘normal’ actually are. This book serves as a great introduction to Murata’s work as the theme of societal ostracisation recurs across all of her other novels, and is tamer and friendlier to its protagonist than some of her more contemporary work.
‘Earthlings’ was released in 2018 to relatively mixed reviews, which is understandable. Although I personally enjoy the extremes to which Murata is capable of going to, it goes without saying that this style is not for everyone. With that in mind, Murata does not devalue her work by using gruesome imagery or triggering content with the sole purpose of shock value, but to make the reader sympathise with a character – who, without this context might be completely unsympathetic.
‘Earthlings’, which I finished last week, like Murata’s signature characters, is weird. It resists being confined to a singular idea or genre, it flits from past to present, and it’s main character is living in a sci-fi dystopia whilst everyone else lives perfectly mundane lives. With both insight to the protagonist’s mind, and a rational objectivity as a reader, Murata constructs an ultimately very bleak view of what it’s like to be an outsider in a culture that abhors unconventionality.
The story begins with a young girl, Natsuki, who believes that she has magical powers, a coping mechanism to deal with the neglect of her family. On her yearly trips to the grandmother’s house in the mountains, she develops a close relationship with her cousin, who himself believes that he is an alien due to his own tremulous home life. As Natsuki grows up an outsider amongst her own family, and suffers abuse at the hands of her cram-school teacher, she becomes further detached from reality and accepts that she too, must be an alien.
The detachment Natsuki creates from her family and friends culminates throughout the book to the point that she sees the ‘earthlings’ as components to a well-oiled machine. She sees herself and her husband as broken parts, unable to function in the machine the way that society wants them to. It is when the book progresses to Natsuki’s adulthood, where the commentary of society’s damnation of the childless woman really comes through. The ‘earthlings’ refuse to let Natsuki and her husband escape the reproduction machine, and go to great lengths to try and force them to conform.
The book ends on a liberation of sorts for Natsuki, her husband and her cousin. Without going in to too much detail, the three of them are able to break free from the ‘earthling’s’ oppressive systems and establish their own, slightly horrifying, one. The ending, despite how vulgar and foul it appears to the ‘earthlings’, and even to the reader, still feels victorious to Natsuki. This furthers Murata’s characterisation of ‘the other’, and really allows the reader to feel the discomfort that must come with being this character.
Japan’s gender norms and politics are far too complex for me to adequately recount (you can read a bit more about them here and here, if you’re interested), but to simplify, much of the country is still heavily submerged in the idea of traditional family values. This is why Murata’s non-conformity in both viewpoint and style is so crucial and why she is so quickly rising in popularity among young women in Japan.
‘Earthlings’, alongside the rest of Murata’s work gives a voice to these ‘unconventional’ women in Japan, and in doing so, perhaps makes them feel less unconventional. To the rest of the world, she paints a picture of how stifling and surreal it feels to be trapped in these systems that do not cater to you at best, and at worst, resent your existence.
There’s much more to be said on Sayaka Murata and her work, and I anticipate she will continue breaking the taboo and opening dialogues with her controversial tales of unconventionality. Even in the West, where these systems are more lenient, there is relatability to be found in Murata’s heroines, who feel alien in their own femininity.