Convenience store woman review
This book has left me with a lot to think about. Personally, I found it extremely witty, intense, admittedly weird, and relatable. But wasn’t it the aim of this book? Aren’t we “the village”, “the Stone Age” society that Shiraha constantly refers to? On the other hand, haven’t we all been Miho’ed during our lives? We find Keiko/Miss Furukura so hard to grasp, understand, at times hard to stand, because she is not our idea of a functioning member of our society. In this way we confirm Shiraha’s ideas. However, while Shiraha is clearly a parrot, like a kid that repeats swear words to stand out, and ultimately doesn’t walk the talk, Miss Furukura talks less but knows what she is. At first, she listens to the public’s judgements and expectations but ultimately, she goes back to her initial self. Although her job is not exactly the public’s idea of a perfect career, she doesn’t care. Keiko eats, sleeps and breathes the convenience store so much so that without it she doesn't feel like a functioning human being, she only has a purpose when working. Admittedly, on this aspect humankind has then influenced her more than she realises. Therefore, isn’t Sayaka Murata indirectly critiquing our society on this behalf as well? Surely everybody has felt, at least once in their lifetimes, that they had become a member of an invisible production chain. In our constant search for purpose, for a worthy job, we have dehumanised ourselves instead. We have created convenience stores, here just as a tangible example, which have made us even less human. We have turned ourselves into machines who cannot exist without a career, a family, but still we critique people like Keiko for not following the criteria. We are not walking the talk too. Keiko embraced her status as an animal, as part of a production chain, are we ready to accept the ugly truth too? That is, we are not so different from Keiko either, just too scared to admit it. Isn’t it why we find her, at times, so irritating? Surely a part of us is inadvertently jealous of Keiko for not caring about society’s standards. Finally, as you might be able to tell, I particularly appreciated the deep study of our human psyche that can be often found in Keiko’s naive thoughts. Inevitably, we are all drawn to imitate the manners and speech of the people we are next to, like animals do. However, we often don’t realise. Miss Furukura has covered that bridge for us. This makes her the spokesperson of all the truths we don’t want to hear, with a pinch of humour.
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