Book Review: "Life Ceremony" by Sayaka Murata

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.

Japanese fiction is basically some of the greatest fiction in the world at the moment. Authors like Yoko Ogawa have really brought out the shine in the strange whilst also borrowing writing style from the Golden Age of modern Japanese literature (authors such as: Yukio Mishima and Junichiro Tanazaki come to mind). Japanese literature is not only on the rise, it is also on the change as well. Moving away from the once twisted humanist storylines, it makes its way into the modern day with Sayaka Murata's Earthlings, and Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police. I have found that Sayaka Murata's newest text, a book of short stories called Life Ceremony, follows this brand new tradition that I sure hope to see more of.

In Sayaka Murata's twisted style which earned her the reputation of one of Japan's great modern writers in the minds of literature nerds everywhere, Life Ceremony has twelve short stories. Each of these stories has some sort of strange extended metaphor. The titular story, something uncomfortable and raw, is read with brief moments of fear and disgust. But, it makes sense at the end. The story Life Ceremony is about eating the flesh of the dead to increase the rates of conception. I found this story incredibly relevant as Japan's own conception rate seems to be dropping as we speak. Is this Sayaka Murata giving us a lesson in life and death and what it means to replace life with life? An absolutely brilliantly written story, this echoes the messed up nature of her previous and powerful Earthlings.

When it comes to themes, Sayaka Murata is never short of ideas. Everything from modern Japanese themes to more international ideas are discussed but, all of them are relevant as ever to our lives today. The story Eating the City deals with the idea of 'not enough resources' for the population we have as an underlying message. The story is about foraging and yet, we see the deep discomfort of the people in that situation as one of very first points of recognition. The way we connect with her stories is that we recognise the deep-seated fear of the characters, and yet their inability to act against it. The other thing we can recognise is the exact opposite. We recognise the normalacy of the characters in these extreme and rather harsh situations. It makes Sayaka Murata fit into both sides of the coin.

Sayaka Murata's style has always made an impression on me ever since I read Convenience Store Woman. I think her writing style is extremely deep but the one thing I love is the intense amounts of symbolism. Symbolism seems to be a big thing in Japanese Literature with one of the most famous symbolist writers being Haruki Murakami and his symbol of the cat. But, Sayaka Murata does something slightly different. She doesn't use one symbol to symbolise things, instead she uses many symbols that all fit into the same category, for example: the act of eating, foraging and then we have cannibalism over a couple of stories in order to symbolise the same idea: requirements for survival. This message of 'requirements for survival' however, has a different meaning in each story. I think that is extremely clever.

In conclusion, Sayaka Murata may just be Japan's next great writer next to Yoko Ogawa. Her writing is uncomfortable, symbolic and relevant and she is able to write the reader's fear into the text so well you will not even notice yourself becoming afraid. It is a brilliant set of short stories and as her debut anthology of short stories, I think it is an incredible effort.