Our search for the absurd spans the globe. In that search, we revel in finding original stories that teach us a thing or two about foreign cultural norms and fears alike.
Take the work of Japanese author Sayaka Murata. Known for her surreal psychological novels Convenience Store Woman (2016) and Earthlings (2018), Murata has established herself as an authority on weird contemporary Japanese lit.
Following her long-form fiction successes, Murata released the short story collection Life Ceremony (originally titled Seimeishiki) in Japan in 2019, and its English translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori in 2022. The collection offers a dozen stories, including the unsettling “A First-Rate Material.”
In this opening tale, the increasingly popular use of human body parts in the creation of furniture and fashion accessories is up for discussion. Following the main character Nana and her fiancé Naoki, we’re introduced to baffling uses of “human materials” and the discord caused between a couple with opposing opinions on the practice of recycling dead people for household goods.
Murata often explores themes of conformity and the usefulness of the individual in society, and this story is no exception. The ludicrous is presented as the norm, and its detractors are condemned for their outdated views. Nana is perplexed by her fiancé’s distaste for the trend, as everyone else seems to find comfort in the notion that their own bodies will posthumously be put to good use rather than burned to ash—a practice society has come to view as “barbaric.” With her lover in staunch opposition, Nana laments, “We use the same word to condemn each other’s values.”
Murata’s prose is unapologetic. It does not meander but rather cuts through with a deadpan quality and matter-of-fact confidence. There is no escaping the truths she bears in their absurdity and grotesqueness. These characters and their actions lead us to question our own obedience to cultural trends in the face of our mortality.
”A First-Rate Material,” like much of Murata’s work, inspires questions about intimacy, existential dread, and conformity. Would you take out a loan for a chandelier made of fingernails? Would you find comfort in wearing a dead relative’s skin? Would you consider the reuse of your own body parts as barbaric or would you delight in a morbid sense of usefulness?
Find a copy of Life Ceremony at your local library or independent bookstore and give “A First-Rate Material” a read. And be sure to take care of your body while it’s living; your loved ones will be grateful for the smoothness of your belly-skin-tablerunner when you’re gone.
— September, Editor in Chief