Convenience Store Woman
By Murata Sayaka
Translated by
Portobello Books Ltd, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1846276835
Review by Beau Waycott
Murata Sayaka’s Convenience Store Woman is a book of deftly crafted paradoxes that hold a haunting mirror up to both Japanese and Western societies. The protagonist, Furukura Keiko, is a numb character depicted in bare and swift language, yet is one of the most intriguing personas I have read in recent Japanese literature. Aged 36, Furukura is single and has been working at the poignantly named ‘Smile Mart’ convenience store for over 18 years, having joined whilst a university undergraduate.
Furukura has always been a social outcast, recalling how, even as a child, she has always held a laissez-faire attitude towards conventional public behaviour, instead preferring simply to act according to a strange and deeply personal set of morals seemingly based on utilitarian violence. She doesn’t understand why it is not acceptable to hit a classmate over the head with a shovel in order to break up a fight, nor why her mother’s friends are shocked when she suggests that she uses a dead pigeon to cook her father yakitori as a celebratory meal. Her family encourage her to try counselling to “cure” whatever is wrong in her head, but the counsellor assumes time will naturally lead Furukura to normality.
Moving onto life as a university student, she makes no friends, and ends up finding sanctuary in a newly-opened Smile Mart konbini, where she sees herself with a clear purpose and goal, be it encouraging the sale of corndogs on a promotional deal, or devoting herself to “cleanliness crackdown time”. Over time, the store sees eight managers and an incredibly high turnover of part-time staff, but Furukura remains a constant, working five days a week for 18 years. However, her family have many concerns about her: aged 36, living in a rotting and cramped apartment, alone, never having shown signs of romantic interest, and working a dead-end job with poor pay and no progression. Even Furukura’s personality is contrived and essentially superficial, with her mimicking everything from fashion sense to inflection whilst speaking from co-workers.
It is only when a lazy and selfish worker, Shiraha, appears in the convenience store that real change comes into Furukura’s character. At first, she is infuriated by his androcentric lectures on the Stone Age and evolution of mankind, but soon finds much more infuriation in his disrespect for the store that is the very centre of her life, seeing his indolence as a personal attack on her love for the Smile Mart. However, after Shiraha is dismissed from the store, Furukura is forced to re-examine all the choices she has ever made whilst at the store, and consider new ideas towards employment, marital status, family and happiness.
For me, the major paradox of the novel is the Smile Mart itself. The konbini is a haven of synesthesia: the ever-present cry of “Irasshaimasé”; the smell of floor cleaner; the cold chill of the barley tea refrigerator. Murata has expertly characterised a central location that is a microcosm of so many things, such as the uniformity expected of Japan’s labour force, or the Japanese preoccupation with cleanliness (be it superficial or otherwise). Overall, however, I would argue that the main allusion is to the nature of capitalism- Murata believes it is an economic system driven not by producers, but by consumers. Furukura’s pride in her arubaito (part-time job)shows the hypocrisy of Japanese expectations towards women: whilst unmarried women are seen as outcasts and not fulfilling their societal duties, their quest for validation through work is often manifested not in high-powered careers, but as a exploited labour force seen as cheap and disposable.
As Marx once wrote, in order for workers to feel obliging and happy in the exchange of their labour, they need to see elements of their personality externalised in the products or services they provide; they need “to see themselves in the objects they have created”. Murata clearly affirms this view, with Furukura seeing her job not as a means of employment but as a means to ‘maintain [herself] as human’. Moreover, she doesn’t just see herself in the store’s products, but she knows the store’s products are herself, with a beautifully written passage detailing how, with a basic knowledge of biology and a diet restricted to that of damaged stock and meal-deals, over the course of her employment Furukura’s physicality has become composed entirely from products of the store. Murata encourages a Marxist interpretation of the text not just by suggesting or affirming it, but by actually taking a political theory of externalisation and expanding it to internalisation, both literally and metaphorically.
Thanks to Ginny Tapley Takemori’s accessible yet holistic translation, having knowledge of Japanese culture adds much depth to the book, from occasional native interjections -‘hai!’- to Murata’s sardonic name choices, such as ‘Keiko’, meaning (when written, as in the original Japanese, with the kanji combination ‘恵子’) ‘happy (or blessed) child’, leading you to question whether the situation Furukura finds herself in really is a blessing or a curse, and quite how much convenience these stores actually add to our lives. Even Takemori’s translation of the title is a political choice, as the native title (konbini ningen) literally means “convenience store people” and not “Convenience Store Woman”. Whilst I am unsure if Murata was involved in the title’s translation, this specific choice seems to reflect the character of Furukura herself: whilst most would consider the Smile Mart a place of community, workers and customers alike, the title suggests that Furukura is an insular and self-gratifying person.
Convenience Store Woman is a rewarding read, and raises many questions in its flat prose and subtle allegories. Many complex ideas are suggested during the plot, all poignant around the world, be it the type of society Japan imagines during and after the slow process of depatriarchiliastion, to native attitudes towards Asian migration into Japan. Murata’s combination of prose and plot is similar to Murakami’s, examining the mundane and relatively static life of a protagonist to celebrate all there is to human existence, from the subtly heart-warming to the suddenly devastating. Written in a simple register that will leave you both smiling and infuriated, you may often wonder why you are continuing to read the novel at all. After all, the protagonist is largely a removed and unchanging character, and the plot takes place over very few locations. The true beauty of Murata’s work is only found a few hours after reading; with an ending that hangs from the cliffs of ambiguity, you are almost forced to consider the fate of Furukura, and every other person sharing even one of her qualities. You are bound to an examination of your own life, and to acknowledge that you yourself encourage capitalism, and consumerism, and exploitation, and repression, simply by your very being. Murata’s main authorial decision is the use of aposiopesis over the novel’s final pages, telling you not just to spend time reading her book, but answering the questions she has raised over the past 176 pages.