Life Ceremony

Stories

De: Sayaka Murata

Narrado por: Emily Woo Zeller, Jeena Yi, Nancy Wu, Natalie Naudus, Eunice Wong, Pun Bandhu

The long-awaited first short story-collection by the author of the cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, tales of weird love, heartfelt friendships, and the unsettling nature of human existence

With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness.

In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror to portray both the loners and outcasts as well as turning the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. Whether the stories take place in modern-day Japan, the future, or an alternate reality is left to the audience's interpretation, as the characters often seem strange in their normality in a frighteningly abnormal world. In “A First-Rate Material,” Nana and Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can’t stand the conventional use of deceased people’s bodies for clothing, accessories, and furniture, and a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. “Lovers on the Breeze” is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child’s bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. “Eating the City” explores the strange norms around food and foraging, while “Hatchling” closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in.

In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks above all what it means to be a human in our world and offers answers that surprise and linger.

©2019 by Sayaka Murata. English translation © 2022 by Ginny Tapley Takemori (P)2022 by Blackstone Publishing

Fun and thought provoking

Great book with a few fun and thought provoking stories, though a couple of the stories were a bit underwhelming in comparison to the seemingly more developed and thought through stories it was still a good experience.
As for the narration I found the second narrators voice a bit grating and the narration robotic, otherwise a great listen.

Weird and Wonderful

Weird, wonderful and very original, these stories are highly addictive. All of the narrators are really great too.

still a fun read

Still so wonderfully weird but thought provoking as ever. Really enjoyed these. not as weird as her other books in thar you wonder about hers or your sanity. I will keep reading her works.

fascinating

I found this book great fun to listen to. The stories had some interrelated themes. The premises are perspectives were original and interesting. There was some weight here, some substance. I wanted to listen in a quiet place, where I could concentrate. Thought provoking.

👏Let👏Women👏Wear👏Human👏Hair👏Sweaters👏

👏Let👏Women👏Wear👏Human👏Hair👏Sweaters👏

The vast majority of the short stories in this collection are focused around making you question normalcy. What could be normal, what things that are normal are bad, and why things outside normalcy are fine and can be beautiful. Very few of the stories I would say are outright horror, though they are often grotesque. A decent handful are actually really sweet. I teared up reading, "Two's Family", which is also one of the most normal stories of the bunch but very much beautiful. A lot of the ideas here will stay with me, both for making me think about things in different ways, and also comforting me in sharing some unusual thoughts I've had before. My first Sayaka Murata book and I enjoy the way she thinks. Will be reading more.

The voice performances were all excellent! Like I struggle to even say much towards them cause they just fit the stories perfectly. And indeed I felt elevated them. The final story especially due to the changing of voices.