Bring your own food
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| Very cool English Edition cover. |
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata.
Murata´s stories are fascinating, how she stands there confidently playing at: everything is so weird if you think about it, if you pull that string, if we switch this with that. I guess she ticks the right spots in my mind and reminds me how we sometimes try too damn hard to align, to get by with normality and the world and she is just like: fuck it!
I am just able to fangirl Murata, she is awesome! Love! Love! Read her and stuff. So, I am putting here my silly mumblings about each story.
Spoilers ahead!
A First-Rate Material. Ed Gain approves. In short, I was: well... ok... fair... ok, the other side... well... ugh... understandable.... and then... wha... eh? eh?!
A Magnificent Spread. That was fun. Loved how Kumi’s sister viewed cute/lovingly her husband´s trend chasing.
I somehow got the idea where he was coming from and whispered to my sister, “That seminar really got to him, huh? He’s so gullible.”
“I wonder what our lives would have been like if we hadn’t lived together.”
“Hmm. We would have been the same, I guess. Talking about trivial things, saying nasty things to each other, yet still getting by in our own way.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Twin stories of "what if..." Very smug from her part.
The Time of the Large Star. Bright and sad, like the loss of dreams.
Poochie. Ay, that was creepy. I got the "girls... ruuuun!" vibe and thought: Ah! What girls do for their crush!
Life Ceremony. Well, I was surprised. The story very sneakily build momentum and went: meh, weird, funny, eh?, uncomfortable, funny, oh-god-I-want-meatballs-now-no-you-don’t! to... beautifully creepy? Beautifully creepy Murata™
I was as repulsed as amused with people stepping on semen in the street, like, what happened to old school bananas as a funny gag.... what?!
Things like:
Stripping the meat off Yamamoto’s arm bone was hard work, a bit like dealing with a giant chicken wing.
All along with the sharp bits of commentary, I think she is brilliant and I appreciate her to no end for the outsider perspective and transfiguration of the most seemingly common things. Bless her!
Body Magic. Caught me off guard and was very pleased with it.
Lover on the Breeze. Oh, my... that was funny and weird. I can’t believe I started thinking about consent and apparently inanimate objects. Oh, boy! That was an unsettling ending!
Puzzle. Was puzzling, lol. I started thinking things I am not sure were intended, I don’t know, but the story kept plowing forward and I couldn’t keep up really with it.
I liked the idea of having entirely different worlds (in a way) existing in harmony and I felt growing tension expecting a moment where things would break that harmony between them. In a certain level, it could have happened? There were vague things happening in that last scene. Maybe not?
I also like how that while she was so distant and her relationship with her body was completely alien, she had a clear perception of the world and the other people around her (clear in an "according to everybody" way). As her relationship with her body changed and became closer to it, her view of the world started shifting to a very different understanding that other people had, but still shared a point of effective interaction. I don’t know, I feel there is some deep shit here that I cannot grasp and equally probable Murata was: let´s do a person who just feels this way.
Eating the City. Scary and wholesome. I get the feeling of: who needs alien beings, spaceships, alliances, what-makes-us-human humans in the big expanse? We have sort-of-alien contact in mundane life. Case in point: eating veggies.
My hand looked like a tree. Normally I was different from plants, separated from the earth, but I was growing out of the earth too.
And then we would start to live a wholesome existence together in this world teeming with life.
Hatchling. Wa... wa... wait... how did we get there?! That was cheerfully messed up, Murata totally played me, that ending caught me entirely by surprise.
A Clean Marriage. It seems that not all editions have this story, my edition had it. This story was hilarious and I feel the urgent need to say: go read it now! And please, have your hazmat suit on!
The life flow has entered your husband´s body.
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