Convenience Store Woman is a Japanese novel revolving around a 36 year woman named Keiko who finds solace in her work at a convenience store, much to the chagrin of her family and friends who worry about her.
Keiko started working in the convenience store after university, though her family tried to ‘fix’ her up with better job prospects. The convenience store resonates persona while the store becomes her whole life. It is such that she starts mimicking the speech patterns of her colleagues and identifies that as her reality.
Working for 18 years in the store, Keiko settles in the mechanical life of the store which gives her ultimate happiness. I could see the resemblance of the same in many of our lives where our work invades our life and we get absorbed so much that we start identifying that as our only life.
The novel also worked on other levels tackling societal issues like conformity and labour divisions from a very interesting angles of sexual politics.
Murata describes the life of Keiko in a hypnotic way and I was immediately under the spell of her writing. The book is quite engaging. Have you read the book yet if not please share your thoughts.
Star 4.5 out of 5