Convenience Store Woman (Japanese: コンビニ人間, Hepburn: Konbini Ningen) is a 2016 novel by Japanese author Sayaka Murata. It captures the atmosphere of the familiar convenience store that is so much part of life in Japan. The novel won the Akutagawa Prize in 2016. Aside from writing, Murata worked at a convenience store three times a week, basing her novel on her experiences. It was first published in the June 2016 issue of Bungakukai and later as a book in July 2016 by Bungeishunjū.
The novel has sold over 1.5 million copies in Japan and is the first of Murata's novels to be translated into English. The translation, by Ginny Tapley Takemori, was released by Grove Press (US) and Portobello Books (UK) in 2018. The book has further been translated into more than thirty languages.
I felt like there was much joy in how Keiko had found her place in life, and fulfillment through doing a good job at the convenience store. Nicely critical of the way the people around her -- her so-called friends -- can't accept the choices she's made that make her happy and keep trying to push her into something else. The only sour note for me was Shiraha; I get why he's in the story, but every page with him on it was so unpleasant (perhaps I'd become weirdly protective of Keiko?) that I enjoyed the last third of the book much less than the preceding two-thirds.
Review of 'Convenience Store Woman' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
When you live in another country and its culture is less diverse than your own, you become aware of trends and fads not dissimilar from those of where you're from but that you were too close to to see. Japan, where I lived for some years decades ago, is known for having crazes over things—usually cute things—that often got international coverage by journalists on the interesting-things-done-elsewhere beat. (When I was there, koalas and "Jesus Christ lizards" had their time.) It's the only way I can explain the success of [a:Sayaka Murata|8816506|Sayaka Murata|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1522684114p2/8816506.jpg]'s 2016 novel, [b:Convenience Store Woman|36739755|Convenience Store Woman|Sayaka Murata|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680105376l/36739755.SX50.jpg|51852264]. It's awful. The translated version is badly written, and I found no new ideas or moments that I haven't seen expressed better elsewhere many times. What I can't explain is why this short novel (I'm a very slow reader, but I read it in under three hours) has …
When you live in another country and its culture is less diverse than your own, you become aware of trends and fads not dissimilar from those of where you're from but that you were too close to to see. Japan, where I lived for some years decades ago, is known for having crazes over things—usually cute things—that often got international coverage by journalists on the interesting-things-done-elsewhere beat. (When I was there, koalas and "Jesus Christ lizards" had their time.) It's the only way I can explain the success of [a:Sayaka Murata|8816506|Sayaka Murata|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1522684114p2/8816506.jpg]'s 2016 novel, [b:Convenience Store Woman|36739755|Convenience Store Woman|Sayaka Murata|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680105376l/36739755.SX50.jpg|51852264]. It's awful. The translated version is badly written, and I found no new ideas or moments that I haven't seen expressed better elsewhere many times. What I can't explain is why this short novel (I'm a very slow reader, but I read it in under three hours) has over five pages of gushing blurbs in the front. It's like they're trying to brainwash readers into seeing every scene in it as deeply profound, and if you don't get it, you're being culturally bigoted. But guess what: the emperor has no clothes. It might been an alright short story, but even then, it wouldn't show you anything you haven't seen by [a:Haruki Murakami|3354|Haruki Murakami|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615497402p2/3354.jpg]. Excerpt:
For breakfast I eat convenience store bread, for lunch I eat convenience store rice balls with something from the hot-food cabinet, and after work I'm often so tired I just buy something from the store and take it home for dinner. I drink about half the bottle of water while I'm at work, then put it in my ecobag and take it home with me to finish at night. When I think that my body is entirely made up of food from this store, I feel like I'm as much a part of the store as the magazine racks or the coffee machine.
Review of 'Convenience Store Woman' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
What a weird book. I'm writing this at a time when I haven't really wrangled my feelings about it. It's very well written/translated and it took me very little time to finish it. It's also a really well realized dark comedy in the sense that its exaggerations and caricatures all scratch at something real, whether it's the weight of societal expectations, the way people give themselves to the capitalist machinery or the need for structured behavior in general - and I didn't know whether to feel bad or laugh. It's argument is also complicated further by the existence of Shiraha, someone who, to me, represents the person who can kind of see the system for what it is but reacts to that by seeking to bypass it or benefit from it, and connects it to an extremely toxic worldview as a result. I think I liked this?
Review of 'Convenience store woman' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
An expert convenience store worker and Robert D. Hare-level psychopath and possible ace or aro (asexual or aromatic) adopts a pet rat—actually a men’s rights activist/incel type—to reduce people’s discomfort with her lifestyle, which apparently everyone around her in 2016 Japan condemns for failing to include either a full-time job or a family.
This is the setup used to criticize a common habit of society. If people can’t tell some linear combination of socially-common eigenstories about you, they often question the evidence their eyes present them with: even if you’re the perfect worker, the model worker in every way, but you don’t have a respectable life story, you might never be recognized as a valuable colleague or employee or person. Even if you, like the narrator, win over your new bosses and coworkers by being exceptionally skilled and dedicated to your craft, any hint of conventional respectability (full-time job or …
An expert convenience store worker and Robert D. Hare-level psychopath and possible ace or aro (asexual or aromatic) adopts a pet rat—actually a men’s rights activist/incel type—to reduce people’s discomfort with her lifestyle, which apparently everyone around her in 2016 Japan condemns for failing to include either a full-time job or a family.
This is the setup used to criticize a common habit of society. If people can’t tell some linear combination of socially-common eigenstories about you, they often question the evidence their eyes present them with: even if you’re the perfect worker, the model worker in every way, but you don’t have a respectable life story, you might never be recognized as a valuable colleague or employee or person. Even if you, like the narrator, win over your new bosses and coworkers by being exceptionally skilled and dedicated to your craft, any hint of conventional respectability (full-time job or family) rewires their attitude towards you as they automatically extrapolate stories about you. Professionals stop being professionals and start being stupid men and women eager to help you along your way towards a respectable life (remember: a job or a family).
The book is helping me stop attributing people’s foibles to one deeper character flaw so readily. Yes, often a set of often-paired life problems has one common root cause, but unless I’m going to get all scientific about it, it’s better just to take the diversity of unrespectabilities as-is, and strive to see the person rather than the role they or I think they should play.
Review of 'Convenience store woman' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
The latest literary sensation seems to be Convenience Store Woman, this book is everywhere but maybe because it is currently WITMonth (Women in Translation Month). This is a dark comedy that explores the life of Keiko, who never felt like she fit in with society. She took a job in a convenience store and now eighteen years later she feels like this is where she belongs. Thanks to the convenience store manual she knows exactly how she is meant to act and behave.
Convenience Store Woman dives into society and starts questioning what we consider social norms. For Keiko she feels comfortable working in a convenience store. However for everyone else, they think something is wrong with her. To them, she should have moved on to a better job, gotten married and had kids. This is a brutal look at how damaging social norms can be as the reader follows …
The latest literary sensation seems to be Convenience Store Woman, this book is everywhere but maybe because it is currently WITMonth (Women in Translation Month). This is a dark comedy that explores the life of Keiko, who never felt like she fit in with society. She took a job in a convenience store and now eighteen years later she feels like this is where she belongs. Thanks to the convenience store manual she knows exactly how she is meant to act and behave.
Convenience Store Woman dives into society and starts questioning what we consider social norms. For Keiko she feels comfortable working in a convenience store. However for everyone else, they think something is wrong with her. To them, she should have moved on to a better job, gotten married and had kids. This is a brutal look at how damaging social norms can be as the reader follows Keiko dealing with these outside pressures that society have put on her.
The novel is constantly questioning this idea of what people call ‘normal’ and wants us to consider why it is so important. Keiko seemed like a happy person, she liked the structure and the routine of being a convenience store worker. She may be socially awkward or odd but why would that matter to everyone else in the world? We see the damage social pressure puts on this woman.
I loved this novel because it explored this important social issue so flawlessly. There is constant pressure put on people that is so unnecessary. For example, I have been married for almost nine years now and the question of children is always being asked. What if we do not want children? Or what if we cannot have children? I have witnessed this pressure and how damaging it can be. You are basically saying, ‘this person is not human because they will not conform to my expectations of what makes a person normal’. That whole attitude makes me so angry. People should be able to live their own lives the way that choose to do so.
As you can see, Convenience Store Woman has had an effect on me. It was such a pleasure to read this dark and humorous book but the feeling of anger still runs strong within me. I am pleased to see this novel getting so much attention, and I hope this is another small step towards allowing others to live their own true self.
Unrelated but I need to memorialise this event, when telling my wife that I had finished reading Convenience Store Woman, she thought I said I inconvenienced all women.
