Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Revolutionary Conformity

The Bob Dylan song ‘You’re Gonna Have to Serve Somebody’ comes to mind when reading this deceptively simple story. In fact, like Dylan’s lyrics, it is a highly sophisticated commentary on the need for human beings to belong to a social group, to have a role, and what happens - good and bad - when they do.

Miss Furukura is acutely aware of the details of human behaviour and speech but she has no emotional reaction to what she experiences. She must learn to fit in by copying from those around her, which she does expertly. She is concerned about her lack of emotional reaction but only because others seem to find it strange. Actually she simply does not make judgments unless necessary. She sometimes does inappropriate or extreme things in unfamiliar situations; but she is also punctilious on following corrections. Mostly she wants to be left alone to follow what she perceives as a happy and rewarding life as a single woman making her way as a shop assistant with no ambition and no serious worries. Except one - Miss Furukura finds the world frightening because it might deprive her of her way of living.

Shiraha is an alienated thirty-something, left behind in the credentials-race. He perceives the world as a jungle in which only the aggressive hunters survive. He is a prototypical Incel - an involuntary virgin who resents women because they prefer aggressive males. He also hates the society which considers him less than normal for not fulfilling his manly role. Shiraha is the inverse personality to Furukura. He is touchy and sensitive and judgmental of everything. But he makes no effort to conform or even to be civilly pleasant. He too wants to be left alone, to hide from the society which He wants to escape; she wants to avoid being ejected.

Remarkably, they each find an apparent solution to normality in the other. By allowing friends, family and co-workers to believe that there is a relationship between them, they suddenly appear to have the same social aspirations and mores as everyone else in Japanese society. They become normal. But instantly normality doesn’t become them. She quits her job; he gets serious about career and bread-winning. He also starts to exhibit Japanese machismo. The relationship between Miss Furukura and Shiraha, meant to be a ruse of convenience, entirely destroys their routine adaptations to the world. They have been absorbed.

The world accepts the couple because it believes that the couple has the same ambitions and problems as they do - children, money, advancement. And, if only briefly, the couple accepts the world in light of this acceptance. Until, that is, Miss Furukura understands that, however she got there, she is what she is - a convenience store woman, and proud of it. Sayonara Shiraha as well as the fears of her past and worries for her future. Maturity has arrived with a bang when you find it’s a necessity to choose well:

You may be rich or poor
You may be blind or lame
Maybe livin' in another Country
Under another name
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

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