Reviews

Overall, I really enjoyed this collection, though obviously I liked the weirder ones more. I wish those ones had been longer, since she doesn’t give those stories the room to breathe that they need- there is no sense of atmosphere or tension but the concepts were memorable and interesting.

Mini Reviews:

A First-Rate Material (4 stars)

Very creepy and surreal but also kind of beautiful?

A Magnificent Spread (3 stars)

Still surreal, but this one was surreal in the ways the characters talked in very stilted, unnatural ways that took me out of the story at times.

A Summer Night’s Kiss (3 stars)

I think I would have liked more character development- by now it is clear that these stories are all about defying social norms in strange and interesting ways, and although it's sadly true that two women in their 70’s talking about romantic and sexual attraction is inherently taboo, I still wish we had gotten more of the “strangeness” or more of the “breaking”

Two’s Family (3 stars)

Maybe this was just a cultural difference, but this one didn’t seem as “challenging” as the others- it was maybe a little strange, but not sweaters-made-of-human-hair strange.

The Time of the Large Star (3.5 stars)

I definitely enjoy the more supernatural stories more, but I wish they were a bit longer. The premise of this story was interesting, but underdeveloped and I think I will likely forget about it.

Poochie (3 stars)

This one had the potential to be alternating darkly funny and deeply disturbing but, again, was too short. I would have liked for it to delve deeper into the girls’ treatment of Poochie, but that might just be my problematic love of horrifying little girls.

Life Ceremony (4.5 stars)

I can already tell this one is going to be my favorite. The thematic elements work really cohesively, and the mixing of cannibalism and sex into one kind of erotic ceremony creates just the right level of discomfort for the reader. Plus the fact that the life ceremony is for the main character’s colleague and she is attending this event with work acquaintances and people she had just met lends a kind of dark humor that I really enjoy. I also love the way Murata describes food, and the long passages at the end describing the food were almost certainly intended to make you hungry. Again, the connection of life, death, hunger, and sex into a cannibalistic ceremony was a really visceral concept.

That being said, I did have some issues- the worldbuilding is a little clunky, I almost think it would have been better for the reader to only know about either the cannibalism or the insemination aspect of the life ceremony beforehand and experience the other when the main character does. Also, coming off of “A First-Rate Material”, I wish we had gotten a story where we don’t get characters questioning the “strange” thing and instead just treat it as totally normal- I think just throwing the reader in without any sort of acknowledgment that anything is strange would have been more effective at creating the atmosphere. Of course, without this, we wouldn’t have the scene in the bar where Yamamoto literally, explicitly says what the story is about and what the reader is supposed to take from it, but I also think that would have been an improvement.

Body Magic (2.5 stars)

Did he have to be her cousin?

Lover on the Breeze (4 stars)

Very strange but very imaginative depiction of asexuality. I don’t love ace characters being inhuman objects, but Murata has enough human ace characters in her other stories that it is clear she knows what she’s doing. Also, anyone who thinks this story is about sex is completely missing the point.

Puzzle (3 stars)

I actually liked how visceral and gross this one was in the beginning, because it's an existential allegory that you don’t normally get. I’m also really enjoying reading asexuality into all of these stories, and this sort of detached fascination with the mechanics of life played right into that. The ending seems to have gotten away from her, though, and it seemed to me to be a confusing mixture of allegories.

Eating the City (3 stars)

I think I was supposed to find this one weirder than I did, and because I didn’t find the idea of urban foraging that strange, this one was very slow. That being said, I think the story kind of turned for me when she started ”spreading” her ideas of nature first to the little boy and then her friend. Thinking about manipulating her friend into eating foraged food as “marinating” her until one day she would “absorb” her into the natural world made her sound like some sort of evil fungus that was spreading and consuming. I think it could have leaned heavier into the sporror (not one mention of mushrooms?!) and the absence made it much lighter on the horror and disgust than it could have been, and I still think the first half dragged and could have been edited, but it does get there in the end.

Hatchling (4 stars)

This was unsettling in that can-anyone-ever-really-know-me kind of way, and the ending where she sort of just accepts that she will need to become a new person in order to stay with her husband is pretty existentially horrifying. I kind of wish we didn’t end on such a sad note, but the themes are pretty in line with the rest of the book.

sunflower_martha's review

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3.0

Just what I expected from Murata's short stories, which is both good and bad. I got a sense of familiarity and drew comfort from that but on the other hand the stories resulted overall predictable.

moz_art's review

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challenging dark funny fast-paced

4.0

abergson's review

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4.0

Interestingly feminist and disturbing in an easy way, beautifully written. Felt like I got a peek into the author's mind. Excited to read her more popular books.

drdihai's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

shrimpseas's review

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4.0

sayaka murata... i have already read/watched a smattering of her interviews & essay like pieces after earthlings & convenience store woman but nonetheless her writing makes me so curious as to how she thinks & operates. personally i think the collection was a bit long, or i just don't really like collections of short stories with >10 stories.

a story breakdown:
a first rate material: i think the concept was very cool (actually snippets of it was what made me want to read this collection) a bit underwhelming from the emotional perspective of it. the characters are very mundane (which i appreciate) but the resolution of the story is very standard.
a magnificent spread: again, i think the resolution/message about cultural exchange was a bit heavy handed, and the concept itself didn't really stand out to me too much
a summer night's kiss: very short, i didn't think too much of it
two's family: i appreciated this a bit more, i liked how it was a continuation or re imagining of the characters from a summer night's kiss. a bit sweet of a story, but not particularly out-there in terms of what murata has written
the time of a large star: also super short, and because of that, like a summer night's kiss, a bit forgettable. i think the concept

of not being able to sleep upon arriving to such and such place

is an interesting one, but moreover the kid's thought to try

fainting

to fix that is interesting. very kid like, if you will.
poochie: this was crazy, i was super uncomfortable at first with the idea and it took me a second to understand what poochie was saying, but something something code monkey something something... i get it
life ceremony: i really enjoyed this one. the ending was a bit random imo but i think the new character played his role well in tying the story together. again the story progression was nothing new but i think the concept fit very well with her attempts at hitting the emotional goalposts throughout the story. i also really loved the discussion about how people still remember 30 years ago and the culture shifts... i think some of the issues about other speculative work i watched recently was that it didn't make sense for people to be surprised rediscovering the past... aren't there such people who still remember how it was back then? didn't you grow up in a family with such people? anyway, that's to say, this felt mildly more realistic.
body magic: this is very strongly related to one her interview-essays that i read, and as such it wasn't super new to me... i thought this approach to sex is a very sayaka murata-type of story, a much purer/lighter version of perhaps earthlings.
lover on the breeze: honestly i'm not sure i got this one,

the couple broke up cause the guy cheated on her with her curtain?

wild
puzzle: this one was so good. i'm still not really sure what was up with sanae after all but i loved the analytic way she described her body her emotions & her perspective on society... the progression from being inhuman, robotic, to all consuming... wow! i love it!
eating the city: also a banger. it was a bit slow at first, and as mentioned, i was a bit over the collection at this time cause there were too many stories for me to read in one go, but when she was rejecting everything from the city cause it was dirty... then when she really got into picking food from the city... then when she was talking about stewing her coworkers and inducing this same idea... wow! i love it!
hatchling: i also really liked this one, the idea of presenting different sides of yourself to other people is very simple and surely done before, but i think the execution in taking to the extreme was done well enough

i think one of the things i enjoyed most about this series was that no matter how out there the protagonists might be (e.g., puzzle) there are still inevitably people besides them there for them etc to enjoy life together and so on. i was a bit hesitant about reading more murata after convenience store woman since to me it was mostly a rehash of earthlings, but i think this made me look forward to seeing more of her work translated :)

henriettesettmacher's review

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challenging dark funny reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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