Life Ceremony #

Author Sayaka Murata
Date April 24, 2025
Rating 4/5

Sayaka Murata might seem an anomaly. These stories feel like they would break The Tower of Babel, and yet, they exist. I really do like them. I think these stories may be perceieved as just wierd and quirky, whatever that is supposed to mean, but this is really Sayaka Murata. I wouldn’t have believed it either, had I not read her profile in the New Yorker. I think this is just her.

I can understand why people say that her stories have changed their life. That sort of effect I feel like would come from stories like these. I really like these stories, regardless of how off kilter they might be.

There was a really great line in that article, “Murata was offering a corrective to “a worldwide trend, especially on social media,” of believing totally in the self-evident rightness of current norms”. I felt this strongly throughout the entire novel, and it has made me re-think a lot of pre-conceptions I might have had. At least those that felt obvious for whatever reason that might be.