Sayaka Murata knows intimately the ins and outs of a convenience store workers lifestyle, before taking up writing full time, she worked as one. Its there in all the small incidental details of daily stock promotions and the formulaic prescription of its customer service inserted into the narrative or the observations of customer's behaviour that her character Keiko makes. Here is a seemingly soulless job that somehow Keiko has found great meaning and purpose in. For her this job is not a dead end
Keiko is the quirky outsider, yet also quite a lovably human character. As a child Keiko was prone to behaving really oddly, in a socially unacceptable manner. Its never really clear what mental status she has, is it some type of autism, or does she simply not fit into some standard behavioural profile? Her family have signed off, resigned to her being constantly an embarrassment, they quietly despair she'll make anything of her life that they understand as being normal.
Fast forward to Keiko as an adult, now in her mid thirties, she's found it useful to adopt a number of coping strategies simply to get by without any revealing or disruptive incident. She's chosen to work in a convenience store, a regimented tightly structured work style, one she can easily understand and comply with, to do whatever is expected of her. After eighteen years working in a convenience store she's become the ideal worker. It also gives her opportunities to see other staff members manner of talking, behaving and dressing and adopts aspects of these into her own. In this way she can disguise herself, it eases her relations with others, ensuring her behaviour is socially correct, because left to her own devices she knows her own judgement is unreliable, and she'll be exposed for who she really is, maybe even cast out.
Keiko is the classic misfit character, but one we all can find a way of relating to. Murata's first person narrative cleverly utilises an emotionally neutered deadpan humour, Keiko's world view can seem quite rational. But is she the classic unreliable narrator? We only ever see the world through Keiko's perceptions, so we hear only how she thinks other people are seeing her. But its clear from what she reports that she is quite clearly seen as odd, its just no one says it to her face. She isn't hiding in plain sight. There is a universality to her as a character, we all pretend to some extent simply in order to get by, to get on with others. We conform to stave off criticism, to negate the pressure of having to make your own decisions. These pressures to fulfil societies and her families expectations for her, are recognisable.
Convenience Store Woman is very dryly witty as it subtly pokes fun at the conventions of conformity that become unquestionable. Keiko thinks she has her life flawlessly under her control until she takes one step out of her comfort zone and suddenly she's barraged with other people's views and misinterpretations of why she's doing what she's doing. She discovers she is actually happier and more fulfilled by being a convenience store worker, despite everyone else's view that she cannot possibly be. It creates a space for her to be her own woman, to have a sense of independence and agency within society. Convenience Store Woman is an often moving, funny and a really enjoyable read. Whilst exhibiting many things which we've come to know as inimitably Japanese in tone and character, this is not a conventional novel, its as delightfully odd in its narrative as is its lead character.
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