"Earthlings" by Sayaka Murata (2020)

 

"Earthlings. This is a funny word I haven't heard of in ages," I thought to myself. "Kinda reminding me of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I'm so digging it." 

So, I started reading it right away, and my thoughts of it were like: 

Ohh, a nice family reunion. Japanese mountains. Festivals. Lanterns. Ancestors. Oh, a boy meets a girl. How cute! How adorable! Huh! We're back to cram school. It's okay. We still got our friend. We'll see fireworks and dress in yugata kimonos. Plus. The teacher is nice and handsome like those boy bands and... wait just sec. What's that h— OH MY GOD! This isn't happening! What the flying fuck is happening?! I didn't see that coming. Nope! That escalated waaaay too fast, I donno what to feel!!!

I wish it stopped at that, but no, it was just getting started.

Earthlings is seriously not for the faint-hearted. What makes it so is how easy-going and straightforward the prose and narrative style are, so straightforward to the point that the book splashes the reader's face with things unimaginable matter-of-factly, and then says, 'Deal with it.'

There were a few instances when I literally dreaded reading forward because the story was too much for me. Earthlings tops this list without dispute. It has this inviting atmosphere that makes you feel relaxed and cozy, and actually want to be living in that world, but then, without a hint, it catches you off guard and twists your psyche in horrible ways. But that is the point, the trap, the lure, isn't it? How else the shock value would be quadrupled in effect? 

Anyway, satire works best if writers blow the characters and their actions out of proportion so they can highlight the themes discussed. Clearly, Murata is just so fed up with society's values, and its assessment of one's worth: how should they dress, eat, talk, act, sleep with another, etc. It's predeterminism vs free will. Are we truly free to do whatever we want, and to what extent, or are we slaves not just to our genes but to society's rules, to what she refers to as 'the Factory' whose sole purpose is to produce babies who will grow up to produce more babies, sort of like living life just for the sake of living life?

In this sense, the book can be looked upon as an example of escapism. Think of it as Into the Wild minus all the disturbing stuff, where the protagonist feels alienated and longs for a basic, two-dimensional understanding of the universe, where s/he yearns to return to the roots of nature, and shed all of humanity behind and all its confusing rules and constrictions by committing the unthinkable.

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Summary:

Why do you have to be so weird, Japan?!