Life Ceremony

Life Ceremony is a collection of short stories, many of which seem to have inspired her two novels Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings. The stories are mostly concerned with societal conventions, human integration or exclusion from nature and female sexuality. Most of them have a female protagonist, and even though I said they seem to have inspired her previous novels, usually you'll have the same characters appear in a similar setting (like the cousins that are in love, from Earthlings) but with a different story tied to them, or a different conclusion and theme. A lot of topics in this book are meant to provoke unease or confusion for the sake of removing you from the common sense you're used to, so that you can't really tell the right from wrong. You're inclined to side with the one character who finds cannibalism disgusting, but that makes no sense in a society where this became a sacred ritual that promotes life and helps the human race survive.

Honestly I liked each and every story in this book, I really love Murata's voice and what makes her, her. Even though everyone's attention was grabbed by the more shocking stories featuring cannibalism and weird what if scenarios, the story that weirdly stood out to me was Body Magic, because it talks about teenage sexuality in a very pure and honest way, and it sneakily disses porn culture and how corrupted our view of sex is because of it. Especially as a young girl, being able to free yourself of the eternal performance that's expected of you is the main road to enjoying yourself and having a healthy relationship with sex. I don't think many teen girls had that luxury growing up, because they're stuck with performing porn tropes for their coomer teen boyfriends.

Lastly, I loved the feralness of it all. I relate to it so much, I grew up with a similar mindset and ideals many of her characters share so she's one of those writers that truly speak to me through her books.