Earthlings Review
The novel follows the story of Natsuki, a severely neglected and abused young girl who finds her mental escape in the belief that she is actually an alien and that her toy hamster is helping her with it. With her cousin Yuu, she is able to keep this delusion going for a while, as the whole family meets in the mountainous and isolated village of their grandparents. After a traumatic childhood, Natsuki is now an adult and married woman, without children, but still living close to her family. The more platonic than romantic relationship she has with her husband satisfies two of them, but as the pressures of both of their families to fulfil their duties to reproduce rises, their past traumas get triggered and a wild series of events starts happening.
Honestly, there is so much happening in this book, with many twists and turns, but I do not want to spoil anything for you and I really could not do it justice. I will say that this an incredibly sad and disturbing novel, not just because of the cannibalism scenes (although those are incredibly visceral and made me physically cringe), but also because of the topics Murata decided to explore in this novel. Her approach was somehow equally naturalistic so that I could not look away or pretend I do not understand why she was writing about and also magical. Her deliberate, but effective use of magical realism added a layer of horror, especially in Natsuki’s childhood memories. Her reliance on toys and imagination as a way to dissociate from constant verbal, physical, psychological and sexual abuse really emphasized how young she truly was.
Murata’s criticism of modern Japan, but also society at large, was anything but subtle. Through the characters of Natsuki, Yuu and Natsuki husband who all decide to become hikikomori (people who avoid all social contact with outside world) as they simply do not want to conform to the expectations, she was able to explore the complexities of motivations of people who decide to do this. As an author, Murata was not afraid to truly dig deep into the worst and most demented of people and really expose not just them, but also those that are deemed ‘normal’. Although the setting of ‘Earthlings’ is in Japan and this is important for some of the context of the story, this is an even bigger story than one country.
This is a deeply uncomfortable book, but written in such a compelling and direct way that I simply could not put it away. At first, I found Natsuki’s inability to defend herself annoying, but as the story progressed, Maruta made sure her readers were able to empathize with her and understand her actions to a degree. Towards the end, I really wanted her to find happiness, even if her choices did not always make sense to me fully or at all. I just realized that she was so deeply troubled and traumatized that her quirkiness was a mask and a defense mechanism to protect herself. She was such a tragic heroine that even at the very disturbing end, I still cared for her and wanted her to be left alone and be happy or at least not miserable.
In the end, as I mentioned before I was not sure if I can recommend this book to anyone. It is a masterfully executed narrative, but so fully disturbing that I do implore you to get some ideas of what you are getting yourself into before reading it. On the other hand, if you think you can handle body horror and explicit scenes of violence in fiction, then I would say try to not spoil the actual plot points.
I rated this book ⅘. Sayaka Murata has written another book, but I have read reviews saying that it was quite similar to this one. Eventually, I do believe I will read it as well, but for now, I need something much lighter and less disturbing.
Comments
Post a Comment