Sayaka Murata - Blog Posts

Earthlings by sayaka murata; the fmc was annoying, it was always this weird bragging mixed with "poor lil me" also, it dragged sooooooooooo bad, it felt like half the book was only 15 minutes of plot, and it was the most boring 15 minutes u could imagine, nothing happened and it keep dragging and dragging and i couldn't finish it

I haven't heard of this one, but I accept your offering and will hate this book on your behalf

Sayaka Murata and Autism

Recently I read both Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, and from my perspective, I see these books as two sides of the same coin. CSW is My Neighbour Totoro as Earthlings is Grave of the Fireflies in the way that they’re twin media, with one being exponentially darker than the other.

Reading from an autistic lens, I see CSW as being from the perspective of an autistic person that easily masks and wants to fit into allistic society (or “The Factory” as they call it in Earthlings); the convenience store is a representation of larger society with the main character having found her role in it, a role that she loves despite the shit she gets for not having a “real job” in her mid-30s. She grew up with a loving family that albeit saw her as odd, she has perfectly catered her very being to please others, using scripts and practised expressions and emotional responses to fit in with others and maintain her position as a convenience store worker, aka, her place as a highly masked autistic in society.

In comparison, in Earthlings, our main character is deeply traumatised, and abused by her family. Similarly to CSW, she is seen as odd, but is treated worse since she struggles to mask and fit in according to society’s standards. The fact that she, her cousin, and her partner see themselves as belonging to another extraterrestrial race is an act of literal and metaphorical alienation by perceiving themselves as aliens for being autistic and unable to gel with allistic society — and this isn’t an uncommon occurrence for autistic people, seeing yourself as non-human! And when she grows up and we learn that her cousin “stopped believing” in being an alien, it’s not because he’s matured, but because he’s learnt to mask.

While the cannibalism and incest in Earthlings is shocking at first, especially in comparison to CSW, I see it as symbolic of them accepting who they are by fully unmasking. Since they’ve been treated as grotesque monsters their whole life for being autistic, it would only make sense to me that by fully committing to the depravity depicted in the book that it’s supposed to be representative of them embracing themselves wholly.

Something something marginalised groups treated like filth will embrace filth and find beauty in it something something