Earthlings By Sayaka Murata
"What I'm really scared of is believing that the words society makes me speak are my own."
Synopsis
“As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin Yuu in her grandparents’ ramshackle wooden house in the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki decides that she must be an alien, which would explain why she can’t seem to fit in like everyone else. Later, as a grown woman, living a quiet life with her asexual husband, Natsuki is still pursued by dark shadows from her childhood, and decides to flee the “baby factory” of society for good, searching for answers about the vast and frightening mysteries of the universe--answers only Natsuki has the power to uncover.” ~ Via Goodreads
Review
After finishing Earthlings, all I could think was, "what the heck did I just read??" It was definitely not what I was expecting, especially with the cute cover of a hedgehog! I don't want to give anything away because it's a novel where readers are meant to be shocked and surprised; however, I will include content warnings at the bottom of the review because of the nature of the content. Let's get to it!
In Earthlings, Murata poses questions about normalcy and tests the bounds of conformism and rebellion against societal norms. As we follow Natsuki, what starts as childhood trauma at the beginning of the novel slowly morphs into horrendous and surreal acts of violence as means of self-preservation. Characters will do anything to survive, even if that means faking normalcy. Yet, when pressures intensify from family and friends, having to live within the bounds of society (also called the Factory) becomes overwhelming and unbearable. But is the alternative better? What can be said about the lines between living in a capitalist baby-making society versus heeding to one's most basic animalistic tendencies? In this regard, Earthlings does remind me of Han Kang's The Vegetarian, which in some ways examines a woman's descent into madness caused by societal pressures.
The ending is surreal, to stay the least, and left me completely shocked and confused. Murata lends no easy answers, and it's entirely up to reader interpretation. I can't say I enjoyed the novel because some scenes were brutal to get through, but it's definitely a book that I'll be thinking about for a while. The characters we follow are not exactly pleasant but not wholly unlikeable, especially when considering the trauma and strange events in their childhoods. Murata's prose is distant and unemotional, which creates some distance with readers, which I think was necessary. I still have so many questions about the book, but if you're looking to be shocked, definitely pick up Earthlings by Sayaka Murata.
cw: incest, child molestation, sexual abuse, murder, cannibalism