Another brutal book, if not MORE BRUTAL than "Convenience Store Woman". Despite the cute plush hedgehog on the cover, "Earthlings" follows Natsuki from childhood to adulthood as she experiences obon with her cousins in her grandparent's house, suffers from abuse at home at the hands of her parents and sister, has an innocent childhood romance with her cousin Yu, suffers abuse and harassment at the hands of a teacher, and grows up trapped in "the factory" - expected to get married, be intimate, have a baby, and "live a decent life".

The story hurts a lot more than "Convenience Store Woman" since we see all of the abuse from a child's perspective, and then from the adult perspective looking back at her past on her own, and as she spends time in her grandparent's home with her cousin and the husband she married out of convenience. And while society for the protagonist of "Convenience Store Woman" is pretty bleak since everyone wants her to get married and have a child, Natsuki has to deal with constant monitoring from her family (father, mother and sister - which come with the threat of beatings if she doesn't comply), as well as her in-laws (which gets particularly brutal), and the few friends she has outside of the family. It's made very clear that her body is not hers; it's a tool for society and for the adults around her. And because of that, she has this internal struggle with trying to escape the factory once and for all, or find a way to give in and fall for the brainwashing of the factory (society), become a useful tool, actually get intimate with someone, have babies, etc.

The time skip from childhood to adulthood is pretty abrupt, and because it's so abrupt, it feels like two completely different stories mashed up into one book UNTIL Natsuki goes back to her grandparent's house and interacts with Yu again for the first time since childhood, where it all starts coming together and feels like the story it started out as. Natsuki, Yu and Tomoya (Natsuki's husband) all start talking abut freedom and escaping the factory and we see this weirdly satisfying friendship form between all of them despite all of their pasts.

The book definitely takes a turn when they start formulating a plan to escape the factory, and I think that's where the book can get super weird and while the childhood portion definitely isn't for the feint of heart (Strange Circus levels of not for the feint of heart), the last portion of the book related to the escape feels like Rimworld mixed with 1Q84 and a pinch of Brave New World. I don't wanna spoil it, since I think it's definitely an experience worth experiencing on your own. But yeah, it's not for everyone.

This is probably the first book I've read with really strong magical realism, and it's really something. I personally like it despite how brutal it gets, and I feel like (for me at least) the brutality softened up toward the end during the escape; really it feels like a relief after watching the protagonist get physically, sexually and emotionally abused. Whether the aliens in the story are real or not, the ending and the bliss it provides makes me hopeful that the protagonist finally found freedom and actual love. ( )

After reading two somewhat disappointing novels, I'd momentarily forgotten what it's like to be unable to put a book down. I intended just to start 'Earthlings' before bed, then accidentally stayed up reading the whole thing. Murata is an incredibly compelling writer and has been brilliantly translated by Tapley Takemori. Like her previous novel [b:Convenience Store Woman|38357895|Convenience Store Woman|Sayaka Murata|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1523623053l/38357895._SY75_.jpg|51852264], which I really enjoyed, 'Earthlings' centres upon a woman who feels out of place in society. However, 'Earthings' is a much darker take on this. It is brutal and extremely disturbing in places. Natsuki, the protagonist, suffers abuse throughout her childhood, including horrible scenes of sexual abuse by a teacher. She has a strong bond with her cousin Yuu, based on both abused children considering themselves aliens. There is a disorientating jump from Natsuki's childhood to her adult life aged 34 about a third of the way in. By this point, she has acquired a husband of convenience via the internet. They agreed to marry as both wanted to get their families off their backs, but live separate lives and do not touch.

Murata takes the reader deep into Natsuki's state of mind, both as a child and as an adult, and it's a discomforting place to be. As a child, she dissociates from her body and constructs fantasies to cope with the unbearable reality of abuse she's experiencing. Adulthood only cements her view of the society in which she lives, which is essentially Marxist: capitalism as a factory in which people work and reproduce to generate more workers.

Everyone believed in the Factory. Everyone was brainwashed by the Factory and did as they were told. They all used their reproductive organs for the Factory and did their jobs for the sake of the Factory. My husband and I were people they'd failed to brainwash, and anyone who remained unbrainwashed had to keep up an act in order to avoid being eliminated by the Factory.

Natsuki and her husband meet up with Yuu, who she has not seen since childhood, and bond over their hatred of the Factory. Their attempts to escape from it together lead to horror. I think the defining feeling of this novel is entrapment. Natsuki, her husband Tomoya, and Yuu all feel a claustrophobic inability to escape their families and obligations to earn a living. The families are absolutely nightmarish, especially Natsuki's mother and sister. I wondered why she and the other two didn't move to another country and start again, but of course life is not that simple. Murata demonstrates the incredibly oppressive psychological impact of family cruelty and expectations around marriage and reproduction. Natsuki wants to be brainwashed into Factory values, as this would make her life so much easier to bear:

It wouldn't be long before an envoy would arrive from the Factory. We were shirking our responsibilities as components and would soon be forced to return. And actually, I was longing for the envoy. We would be taken back to the Factory, where my husband would be put to work, and I would be calmly but coercively encouraged to have a baby. Everyone would lecture me on how wonderful it would be.
I was ready for it. This time everyone would ensure I was perfectly brainwashed, and my body would become a Factory component.
My womb and my husband's testes did not belong to us. The sooner I was brainwashed the better. That way I would no longer suffer. I, too, would be able to live with a smile on my face in the virtual reality world in which everyone was living.

This was particularly striking to read less than a week after [b:Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex|52128695|Ace What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex|Angela Chen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580804471l/52128695._SX50_SY75_.jpg|73599792], which examines Western social norms around sex and romance through the lens of asexuality. Compulsory sexuality, romantic relationships, and reproduction are among the Factory values that the main characters of 'Earthlings' so deeply resent. They take this resentment to the extreme of trying to totally reject humanity, as if only alien beings could possibly be incompatible with the Factory. Being unfamiliar with Japanese society, I don't know to what extent the novel exaggerates genuine oppressiveness of social norms as enforced by families there. It certainly depicts an extreme case, but the concept of the Factory is of course highly realistic. Natsuki's story has a genuinely shocking denouement and works very well as a dark fable of how cruelty, abuse, and suffering hide behind capitalist family values. I was not expecting Natsuki, Tomoya, and Yuu to become cannibals, but there is certainly a horrible inexorability to it. They have been trying to break taboos, and cannibalism is a powerful one. They resort to eating parts of each other because they are isolated from the Factory, which is their only means of subsistence.

'Earthlings' is the most disturbing novel I've come across for a while and I definitely do not recommend reading the entire thing between half midnight and 3am. I then slept badly and had a nightmare about being forced back into the awful job that I've escaped from. The book deserves five stars for being extremely compelling and powerful; I'm deducting one for how much it unsettled me. ( )

This book is possibly the most fucked up story in existence, but I liked the book. This book requires almost every trigger warning in existence. Incest, murder, child abuse, you name it and this book has it. This book is definitely not for sensitive readers, but if you love disturbing and strange stories this is for you. ( )

It is rare to have a work so deeply resonate with me and my distinct perception of the world, my autistic sense of alienation from other women and from society. I deal with so much pressure to conform to "the factory", but it eludes me, will always elude me. I am constructed differently, constructed from the stardust of a remote galaxy. One day, perhaps, something will descend from the sky to take me home. ( )

DNF

pedo and incest stuff. - no thanks