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Caroline Spalding
Features Correspondent
2:17 PM 28th November 2020
arts

Review: Earthlings By Sayaka Murata

 
I don't think I'd be alone if I said that on finishing Sayaka Murata's novel, Earthlings, I was left quite speechless. It is the kind of book that needs you to pause, take a step back and then decide upon a response.

The themes it deals with are largely dark, some clearly exaggerated for the purposes of fiction, but nonetheless relevant to the modern world. However, the approach does keep a distinct gap between reality and fiction, so the reader may observe, but in the manner of a cinemagoer: thankfully, this alternate reality is sufficiently strange to prevent the reader from full immersion into its peculiar horror.

Murata told an interview in October that she thought fans of her previous, international bestseller, Convenience Store Woman, would be ‘disappointed’ but, whilst she hadn’t intended Earthlings to be shocking, she was originally a ‘cult writer’ and therefore perhaps the ‘old Murata has returned’ with this new novel. Placing Earthlings in the genre of ‘cult novel’ does go some way to help us try to understand what is truly quite a perplexing read.

The novel begins with Natsuki, the central protagonist, aged eleven, recounting her story in suitably childlike prose. At the annual family gathering, she reveals to her cousin, Yuu, that she is a magician, with a magic wand provided by her cuddly toy, Piyyut, who is an emissary sent from the Planet Popinpobopia. It's quite lucky, really, because Yuu himself is an alien, so he tells her. The imagery here is apt: both are children who feel rejected by their immediate families and have instead conjured their own illusions to compensate for their lack of place, purpose and identity. For Natsuki, her imagination gives her a reason to be different, and it becomes a coping mechanism as much as a convenience. A year passes, during which Natsuki endures an abhorrent episode of abuse, and whilst she does not wholly understand what is occurring, she knows it is wrong. She ‘removes herself’ from her body, watching from above to better process the distress that is inevitably felt.

We fast forward to the present, Natsuki is thirty four and in an asexual marriage that is her defence against the intrusions and expectations of her family and wider society. As an adult, she is expected to marry and produce children and so far, she has kept suspicion at bay.

Whilst aware of the need to appear ‘normal’ Natsuki still feels wholly at odds with the world she inhabits. She remains at arm’s length, being a person who the ‘Factory’ has failed to brainwash. Society is the ‘Factory’, people are the ‘components’ used to ‘manufacture new life’. I suppose, thematically, this might be a response to modern Japanese society - one which has had a declining birth rate for years (the theories behind its causes numerous), and which has witnessed a defiant shift in the attitudes of younger generations. The declining fertility rate has been attributed to the lack of steady jobs available to the young, particularly men, who can no longer assume the traditional role of ‘breadwinner’ and therefore become suitable marriage material. Other reasons cited are the expense of living, and the near impossibility of trying to balance a job with childcare, the increased use of online porn, and the decline in traditional matchmaking practices (omiai). Irrespective of the cause, the younger generations are just having less sex and are in general less interested in forming lasting relationships. So, in some respects, Natsuki and her husband are not aberrant, but they are still subject to the pressure of tradition, at least in Japan.

The childlike prose persists with Natsuki as an adult, adding to the sense of detachment, but also masking the more chilling undertones of the narrative. Potentially symbolic of modern Japanese youth rejecting the traditions of the past, Natsuki and her husband take flight when their asexuality is discovered and they reunite with cousin Yuu, who has grown up obeying the orders prescribed by his elders - his mother, his college professors, his company. He has unthinkingly obeyed their commands; he has literally heard what to the rest of the world is simply subliminal messaging: ‘this is what you must do to conform’.

Sayaka Murata
Sayaka Murata
The prose throughout is driven by dialogue, the casual exchanges between family members and friends, all whose appearance is left to the imagination of the reader. The confabulatory tone continues with Natsuki’s own thoughts, sometimes almost irreverently disclosed to readers, as if it was normal to tell us ‘my womb and my husband’s testes did not belong to us’. Her narration illuminates the exchanges she witnesses, ‘she sounded almost euphoric. The way she was talking was so contrived that I wondered whether she was imitating one of her TV dramas’. We do get a real sense of the people in Natsuki’s world, but beyond the descriptions of exchanges, we aren’t given any visual guides to the landscape they occupy – possibly deliberately, to exacerbate a sense of the surreal.

Natsuki as a character is hard to understand. Clearly conflicted, I doubted her sanity, and that of her husband and Yuu. We are perhaps supposed to believe she is deluded, maybe creating her character is meant to represent how people like Natsuki may be perceived, how they are made to feel. There does appear to be a conflict between the pressure of societal norms and freedom of choice in modern Japan. Young people may become ostracised, certainly terms such as hikikomori (‘shut-ins’ or recluses) and parasaitoshingurus (parasite singles) indicate a rejection of those that shun the norm, but there is also an indirect pressure driven by economics. Financial insecurity and the rise in ‘irregular jobs’ in Japan decrease male ‘marriageability’, but also encourage women to go it alone. Japan’s ageing and declining population is an economic and demographic time-bomb, and so the government has taken various steps to reverse the trend, improving ‘female economic participation’, for example in the provision of child day care, and in October this year, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced plans to make fertility treatment more affordable. However, despite the economic need, the fertility rate remains well below ‘replacement level’ at 1.36 children per women (in 2019) and, according to a 2013 survey 45% of women aged 16-24 ‘were not interested in or despised sexual contact’, with over 25% of men feeling the same.

Earthlings is a thought-provoking novel. A reader might tie themselves in knots searching for meaning and attempting to understand the points it touches upon. In addition to the thematic ideas I have already voiced, the novel encompasses the influence of capitalism, incest, murder and cannibalism, not to mention the possibility of insanity. If you determine that the protagonists have ultimately lost their minds, the bigger question obtains as to what, truly, is the cause?

The novel closes with a descent into the shocking, absurd and disturbingly surreal, and the reader is no longer sure that what they are reading is really happening, or if it is a manifestation of delusion. The final pages will leave you reeling – it’s no wonder, then, as Murata told an interview earlier this year, that her parents don’t read her writing! Earthlings is not for the faint-hearted, but one that will undoubtedly draw a new audience to the work of this fearless and audacious writer.

Earthlings, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori from the Japanese version, Chikyu Seijin, is published by Granta