Earthlings by
Sayaka MurataMy rating:
3 of 5 starsEarthlings is a multi-genre extravaganza from the planet Popinpobopia.
It starts as a fable, mixed with a kids' story, then stirs in science fiction, crime and horror, all served up as misery lit.
The narrator seems like an idiot savant: at times stuck in childhood, at times perspicacious about the nature of modern human society, though not nearly as perspicacious as your average sociologist or anthropologist: if only the author or her characters could have read some.
The three main characters deserve and elicit our sympathy, but they are anti-conformists not non-conformists, and so equally shaped by the society they hate as is everyone else.
A happily retired translator is not going to criticise a working translator, so I'll assume the original Japanese version reads as awkwardly as the English version. Fortunately, the narrator's perverse character, the author's story-telling skill and the book's insights into contemporary Japan and its cultural conflicts are enough to keep the reader going until the spaceship arrives.
View all my reviews
Published on February 22, 2021 10:54