Sayaka Murata

In Japan, *konbini* are small convenience stores stocking everything; and it is here that a story unfolds, seemingly light and predictable, which instead confronts a crucial issue: as the protagonist observes following a conversation with her sister, people prefer someone who is > "normal," even if plagued with problems, to a sister who is quiet but "abnormal," from another planet. Keiko grew up in a peaceful household, with attentive parents and a loving sister; yet from early childhood she was a "strange" girl—antisocial, at times even aggressive. The widespread disapproval following singular acts, such as killing a sparrow, led her to withdraw into herself. > I was approaching adulthood, the hour of truth, and kept telling myself that I had to be cured at all costs. The turning point comes when she is hired at a *konbini*. After a brief training period, Keiko learns how to stock shelves, highlighting promotional items, keep the store clean, and, above all, greet customers in a loud voice. > Irasshaimase! (welcome, in Japanese) I cried (...) bowing by the book and beginning to scan the items. In that moment, for the first time in my life, I savored the feeling of having found my place in the world. I am born, at last!, I thought elatedly. (...) The repeated chime that heralds the entrance of customers rings out like church bells. The rectangular box of luminous, transparent glass takes me into itself. A perfect world, which continues to turn relentlessly. I hold a blind, absolute faith in this gleaming microcosm— With gentle irony, the author guides us to appreciate life in the *konbini*: the bustle of customers, colleagues growing increasingly indistinguishable in their demeanor and even their accents, the succession of store managers, each to be accepted along with their flaws, and then the merchandise on the shelves—the heart of the store—products that have evolved over time to adapt to shifting patterns of consumption. The years go by; Keiko grows older under her part-time contract, living in a squalid studio apartment, still a virgin. She is content, fulfilled by the "music of the *konbini*," > a myriad of sounds blending together and seeping endlessly into me. For her parents and sister, for her friends as well as her own coworkers, Keiko cannot be happy because she is different, estranged from social conventions dictating that a woman must marry, procreate and raise children, and hold a secure job with a decent wage. To justify her "strange" life, Keiko invents an illness, but this excuse cannot hold up for long. To silence everyone—and not out of affection—Keiko takes in a selfish, deadbeat young man; at last, she can claim to have a man, perhaps even marry. > Virgin, spinster, and a poor *konbini* clerk, (...) everyone will believe you are sexually the same, and you will be just like all the other women on the planet. Yet Keiko discovers that within her "gleaming microcosm" she is no longer merely the clerk to be dealt with professionally; she is a vulnerable woman, before whom > it was no longer my eighth manager, but merely a male of the human species, eager like all the rest to see one of his own kind mate and reproduce. In the name of the perpetuation of the species. What is left to do? Flee the *konbini* in search of something else, or recognize without pretense that > even before being a human being, I am a *konbini* clerk? With engaging prose and a narrative detached from psychologisms and moral judgments, the author shows us that not everyone must belong to the "tribe of the normal," that the pursuit of happiness takes many paths, and that embracing one's own—however modest and devoid of ambition—allows one to be at peace with oneself. In the tale of the *konbini* girl, there is undeniably a critique of Japanese social conventions; from a distance, there also emerges the desire to turn inward, to avoid being inevitably ensnared by love, sex, and childbearing. The *konbini* functions like a monastery where a woman can finally be free, shielded by the armor of professionalism within a workplace that is stationary, yet radiant with lights and sounds. The plot is tenuous, the narrative develops slowly, burdened by long, often tedious and inconclusive dialogues. The secondary characters are either banal or implausible, serving merely as foils to the protagonist: she never truly breaks free, in fact, from her own "narrating I," ironic and sharp, yet ultimately stale and predictable.