“convenience store woman” — an ode to those who don’t want that much in life, really.
Books find me at exactly the perfect time. So, there’s me, stuck in 10-day quarantine after being exposed to Covid-19 (yikes), my mind unraveling like yarn-balls pawed by clumsy kittens, and in my soft state, I think, hey, maybe I want to be a librarian, later on, when It’s All Over. I think how peaceful it would be, the rhythm of it, shelving books, guiding people through research, being helpful and kind to all my patrons. Then I think about telling other people my idea. I imagine the raised eyebrows, not surprised, just condescending. Yeah, right. What with the internet, no one’s even gonna know what a book is in ten years. And then I think, they’re right. And so, the imagined conversationalists talk me out of yet another dream.
On Day 7 of quarantine, I need a voice other than my own to bounce around inside my head, so I listen to an audiobook of “Convenience Store Woman” by Sayaka Murata. I expect it will help me drift off to sleep, maybe fifteen minutes in. Nope. I listen to almost all three audiobook hours in one sitting.
Murata’s novel tells the story of Keiko Furukura, who has worked at the same convenience store for 18 years, half her life. Furukura has never had another job, and has never dated, or had many ambitions at all beyond the convenience store. She feels herself a part of the store, a cell to its ornate organism, and is at her happiest on the job. Her friends and family, however, are growing desperate. They want her to be “normal.” Furukura tries to appease them, the way she has her entire life, but secretly, she doesn’t understand society’s demands, and spends much of the book pointing them out, confused.
“Convenience Store Woman” is a book about outsiders, contentment, and finding one’s purpose. The prose is simple, deadpan, and endearingly honest, with our protagonist absorbing us wholly, the way the reliable routines of the convenience store absorb her. One can’t help but take Furukura’s side against the “normal” people in her life, who forever prod, nag, complain, and criticize the peaceful existence she creates for herself. The novel constructs social commentary in a childlike voice innocent in its misunderstanding, a voice relatable to anyone who’s ever felt misunderstood.
Furukura does not care for men, or sex in general. She does not like children. She learns how to act in public by copying her colleagues’ clothes and mannerisms, training herself to say the right thing at the right time. Only the convenience store stirs genuine feelings within her.
It’s bittersweet, the dedication this woman shows to keeping shelves tidy and displays well-stocked: beautiful in its knowledge, effort, and love, but sad that all this human activity goes to a corporation that will easily replace her. But then, in feeling sad, I realized I was judging her exactly like the people in her life. Does it really matter what she does if she is so content?
I loved this book, the way one loves an audiobook listened to on an old Chromebook at 2 am in the second half of quarantine, an audiobook that arrived at just the perfect moment, for it comforted me in the way I needed most. It’s okay to want what you want, no matter how simple that thing is. Furukura wants to be a convenience store clerk, so she is. I want to be a librarian, and who can convince me otherwise? It’s a beautiful, modest, timeless message, one artfully delivered by “Convenience Store Woman.”
