Life Ceremony by Japanese writer Sayaka Murata is a unique and thought-provoking novel that explores the concept of ritual and ceremony in contemporary Japanese society. The story follows the protagonist, an office worker named Yoriko, as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with her mundane existence and seeks meaning and connection through various rituals and ceremonies.

One of the novel's strengths is Murata's vivid and immersive writing, which brings Yoriko's world to life in rich detail. From the elaborate tea ceremonies to the simple acts of gardening and cooking, the book is filled with descriptions of rituals and ceremonies that are both fascinating and meaningful.

The novel also raises important questions about the role of tradition and ritual in our lives, and the ways in which we can use these practices to connect with others and find meaning in our existence. Yoriko's journey is both poignant and relatable, and readers may find themselves reflecting on their own relationship with ritual and ceremony as they read.

While the novel's themes are universal, some readers may find it difficult to relate to the specifically Japanese cultural context in which the story is set. I am fascinated by this topic and have worked in Japan on two occasions, so I loved this experience.

Life Ceremony is a well-written and thought-provoking novel that will appeal to readers who are interested in exploring the intersection of tradition, ritual, and modern life.

This short story collection won’t surprise you too much if you’ve read Murata’s novel Earthlings, but be ready for a little gore and creepiness.
Several short stories make up Life Ceremony, including the self-titled one.
Its not clear whether the stories all take place in the same alternate reality but many could be called speculative fiction.
The author clearly questions society and our arbitrary rules and customs. In the book new traditions are presented and they might have you wondering, why we do the things we do anyway, and why wouldn’t we take it a step further?
If you have a leather sofa, and a woolly jumper, why not a teeth chandelier, or a human hair sweater?
In the stories we get glimpses into the human condition, existential questioning, and glances at human relationships.
These stories feel like a contemporary kind of satire, or something speculative.
There is a disquiet to them.

Having read Earthlings towards the end of last year, I was keen to read this but I preferred Earthlings. It’s along the same vein of weirdness but being a standalone novel, more time is given to develop the world and the characters.
Life Ceremony gives us instead many vignettes of alternate visions of social customs, without much room for plot or character development. I feel like many of the short stories could be the basis for longer works though, and some of them seemed to recall Earthlings.
One point of advice for the squeamish or just in general: Avoid snacking while reading! .

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

I was anxious to read this collection because I had previously read Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman and had enjoyed it immensely.
This short story collection is almost beyond words in terms of how different it is from 'usual' shorts collections. The stories' tones and settings differ; they range from dystopian to boldly feminist to darkly humorous and futuristic. Murata pushes us to extreme limits in this collection of stories, which is challenging and entertaining.

I read 'Convenience Store Woman' a couple of years ago, so when another book by Sayaka Murata popped up on Netgalley I couldn't wait to read it. 'Life Ceremony' is a little different though, as it's a collection of short stories with what appears to be the theme of taboos and norms running through them all.

As I find with many short story collections these were a little hit-and-miss. Some of them I absolutely adored and others I didn't quite get. These stories are also a little more out there than 'Convenience Store Woman', challenging us at every turn as to why we think in a certain way, why we think some things are normal, and presenting alternatives that are entirely possible.

Reading this one on the train wasn't always the best experience as I was paranoid people were going to read it over my shoulder, and I couldn't keep my emotions off my face! That being said I didn't get bored at any point. Highlights for me included: A First-Rate Material, A Summer Night's Kiss/Two's Family, Life Ceremony, Body Magic, and A Clean Marriage.

Verdict: The perfect collection for anyone into the weird, and wonderful and looking for a quick fix to get you out of a reading slump.

Honestly, I don't even know where to start with this!

The writing was engaging and intriguing, and kept me reading until the end, even though I generally had no idea what was going on or why! The whole thing felt like it was trying to hard to be clever and obscure, with too many hidden meanings.

I've studied literature at degree level and am well used to finding meanings within a text, but this felt like the whole purpose of the book was to have to work to understand it. At another time I may well have enjoyed it, but at this point in my life I want to enjoy what I'm reading without having to work too hard at it!

If you've ever read any of Sayaka Murata's other books, you'll already know what you're in for.
If not, strap in with this one because you are in for a wild ride.

This is a collection of weird and bizarre short stories covering everything that is to do with human life. Expect cultural differences, stories of relationships and stories that will absolutely melt your mind.

I couldn’t get excited about this one and found my motivation to continue reading was severely lacking :( so it ended up a dnf

Thrillingly transgressive and wildly imaginative, this scintillating collection of stories from the bestselling author of Convenience Store Woman takes in curtains, cannibalism and 'clean marriages.
Ominous and charming. Brilliantly sad. I devoured this book.

I am a big fan of Sayaka Murata and always get a lot from her bizarre brand of wisdom. If you haven’t read her books before, Life Ceremony may actually be a good place to start, as it’s a collection of short stories that I think introduces the spectrum of genres and ideas that she writes about. Her English-translated novels Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings are (at least on the surface) vastly different from each other, so if you’ve only read one of those, you won’t have experienced her whole range. She’s a writer who is in a category all of her own and I’ll be forever fascinated to see where her mind takes us next.

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, Life Ceremony contains 12 stories that question social norms and frame the outcasts as deep thinkers. Exploring unconventional marriages, the strangeness of human customs and the beauty of living life in accordance with who you really are, this collection forces us out of our usual perspectives and forces us to look at the world from a different angle. Her imagery is incredibly graphic and stomach-churning but there is also plenty of humour and heart in these stories.

The title story tells us about a world where a horrific ritual is carried out after a person dies. The deceased is cooked and eaten by their loved ones and then attendees are encouraged to have sex in order to generate new life. On the surface, this is a product of a darkly bizarre mind but Murata is commenting on humans’ obsession with reproduction. In almost every culture of our world, women are pressured to have children by their families and by society. Women of a certain age, especially if they’re in a committed relationship, will constantly be asked when they’re going to have children as if it’s a given that they will. The story of Life Ceremony shows this strange compulsion to ask women these questions in a rather base, animalistic light and makes it seem a very strange thing for an evolved, intelligent creature to do.

The same story explicitly discusses the fact that things that are considered normal by society are inherently mad. The idea that any kind of behaviour or belief that falls outside the boundaries of ‘normal’ is considered to be wrong and something to be fixed is certainly something that every reader can recognise, regardless of their background and experiences. We don’t do enough to celebrate harmless yet alternate lifestyles or personalities and we really should.

In A First Rate Material, Naoki can’t understand people’s obsession with using dead people’s bodies for clothing, furniture and other functional materials. The human hair sweater is a nod to the fact that humans wear animals all the time (in both fur and leather) but the idea of wearing our own kind is obviously completely barbaric. You can smell the hypocrisy in huge waves and the true message of this story is perhaps the clearest in the collection.

Food is certainly a common theme and A Magnificent Spread is definitely one of the funniest stories in the collection. In it, a couple eat mostly healthy ready meals while our narrator’s sister eats strange concoctions of her own that she says are the cuisine of Dundilas, where she claims she is really from. This story ends up being a musing on the nonsense of xenophobia and fear of foreign cuisine but it’s done in such a humourous, profound way. Spoiler: no matter how mundane you think your eating habits are, there will be someone in the world who thinks it’s the weirdest thing ever.

Two’s Family is a beautiful, moving tale about two women in their seventies who have decided to spend their lives together in a platonic relationship rather than get married and follow tradition. Through artificial insemination, they have raised three daughters together and been very happy but now Kikue is terminally ill, Yoshiko is unsure what her life will become. It celebrates the beauty of a pure and simple relationship that is based on very little other than true, undying love. Stories like this really show off Murata’s range as a writer, showing that she can do quiet, subtle stories as well as the shocking violence that some readers will know her for.

One of the most relatable stories for me was Hatchling. This is the story of a woman who struggles to fit in but wants to be liked by everyone. As a result, she develops multiple personas and is a ‘different character’ depending on what company she is in. I think everyone does this to a certain extent but Hatchling explores what happens when this goes too far and the personality splits so much that true identity is lost. It’s almost a warning from Murata to simply be our authentic selves and not lose sight of who we really are. Fitting in really isn’t the most important thing in life.

Life Ceremony is a fantastic whistle-stop tour of the world’s unconsidered oddities and the real problems that they cause. It is both funny and grotesque, thought-provoking and incredibly peculiar but most of all, a very unique view of the human race and the ridiculousness of it.

This has been my favourite book by Sayaka Murata so far. I love short stories and I loved the unusual concepts that came up in this collection.

Life Ceremony

by Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator)

Weird, hilarious and wildly imaginative !!

I didn't know I could be this intrigued about stories this bizzare!! The stories give an unique perspective on human behaviours. The stories break social norms, our moral beliefs.

The title story -" life ceremony " - To cook someone after they die and have a feast instead of a funeral. Instead of laying paths with someone's ash , you make meatballs , soup and have them and it was actually their wish to be eaten, to celebrate their life (" life ceremony ") . It doesn't stop there. It's a dystopian future that we are talking about considering the normalcy that we live in now.... World's population is decreasing and they have a ritual called " insemination " along with the life ceremony. To create new life when one goes down !

“You know what? I don’t think this world is all that bad. And I don’t think the world that you remember from thirty years ago was bad either. It’s always changed over time. The world here and now is just a momentary tint.”

Since this is a short story collection, i don't want to give lot of spoilers but these stories are graphic, triggering in some parts but also written with dark humour and wit in some stories, making topics considered taboo as discussed as new normal. I have described one story for you people to decide!! Do read this for the new perspective on our morals 😉

Some stories left me unsettling and some left me pondering and discussing about the morals/society mentioned for hours!! Even though it's a short story collection, I took a lot of time reading this. These stories can are not for everyone but is really so authentic that readers should surely try!!

Life Ceremony is full of wonderfully strange and bizarrely compelling short stories that remain imprinted on the brain for a long while. There are themes of cultural differences and how we reckon with them, connecting with humans through food as well as themes of family, friendship and love.
Overall a delightful read!

Sayaka Murata’s Life Ceremony, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, is redefining “weird” as “quirky”. Her short stories, as sharp as her previous two novels Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, have made me question the notion of normality. Why do we have this concept of “normal” in the first place and dislike anything that is not “normal”? Through Sayaka Murata’s lens, “normal” is a debatable concept. She presents us with alternative points of view through characters that society would label as social outcasts, abnormals, and lunatics (the list could be exhaustive).

This view is most apparent in the titular story Life Ceremony which presents an alternative future in which humans eat other humans’ flesh in their wake, in a different sense from the dystopian Tender is the Flesh. Rather than following cannibalistic practice due to “necessity”, the society in which the main character lives seems to accept cannibalism as a regular practice after some period of time. She tried to recall her childhood from 30 years ago when she was judged by her classmates in kindergarten when she jokingly came up with the idea to eat a human. Fast forward 30 years, she is an adult and is forced to attend a “life ceremony” of her colleague who died in an accident. She has been showing reluctance to attend “life ceremonies” until then. Not because she felt there was anything particularly wrong about eating human flesh, but she “felt indignant” that the ethic by which she’d been judged had turned out not to exist in the first place.

Humans change through time. What was previously unthinkable could gain acceptance through time. What was once true could lose relevance in the span of decades or centuries. Sayaka Murata shows us that there is no fixed point such as “normalcy”. No matter what we do, we might be judged differently by others, or through different standards by those who live in the future. It’s a relevant understanding of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous saying “hell is other people”. It’s not that other people are true “hell”. Yet subconsciously, people provide judgment to other people, and they could only understand what they want to understand through their lenses. Even now, we could lay judgment towards colonialism and persecution towards heretics in the bygone era because we have the benefit of knowing. The standards of our time are different from the standards of the past, and so do our values. In the span of 100 years, for example, decolonisation happened and colonialism is now looked upon as a practice from the past.

Sayaka Murata is more experimental in her short stories rather than in her novels, bringing into being characters practising unusual practices such as cannibalism, wearing clothing made from human hair, or characters embarking on sexless marriage. Life Ceremony is probably also a collection of stories about celebrating the diversity of human experiences. “Weird” is our usual label to denote anything not “normal”. But each of us perhaps also embodies a certain dose of weirdness. And through Sayaka Murata’s curation, the weirdness becomes something “quirky”, which indicates unusualness in especially an interesting or appealing way.

I am new to this author but her books are truly fascinating and disturbing. This one has probably disturbed me the most, but in such a good way. So well written and unique. I wouldn’t have expected where the story would go and it’s what keeps you reading. Not for the faint hearted but worth reading

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC to review. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved the storytelling, narrative voice, and the characters felt so real and full.

From the incomparable Sayaka Murata comes a new translation of some of her short stories. Unique is a word bandied about here and there, but Murata's mind and world view is one of a kind.

Shocking, moving, thought-provoking, each story will make you re-evaluate your perspective of what it is to be socially normal, often to the point of making you question everything, and wondering how the heck someone came up with these ideas. If you liked 'Convenience Store Woman' and 'Earthlings' then you know exactly what you are going to get.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5 just because Murata is s genius.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

Sayaka Murata surprises me every time. Loved their other books and I really enjoyed this too although it’s completely different to the others I’ve read! Some stories made me feel strange and uncomfortable when others were relatable but all around intriguing!

Disturbing, that is the first word that comes to mind when thinking of these stories. Disturbing because of the way they begin as small narratives of everyday life and then take increasingly creepy turns, without ever abandoning the quiet, almost emotionless tone. Disturbing because they are narratives that somehow celebrate life (as the title, which is also that of one of the stories, says) by strongly linking it to death. Disturbing because of the way they cling to the mind, reappearing in the form of fragments that during the reading one did not think had affected one so much. Definitely not a read for everyone, but an excellent read nonetheless.

In the end Murata’s new collection didn’t fill me with the same distastful glee I garnered from her first two reads.

The title story was my favourite, it’s inspection of the life death cycle and the ways in with society forces future reproduction onto bodies was thought provoking for sure.

The story discussing human skin jewellery and furniture was also one of the more novel premises that felt fully fleshed (no pun intended) out to me.

Some of the very short stories felt unremarkable and overall the collection hasn’t stuck with me. Although I will continue to pick up her work in future.

I adore everything Murata publishes (even the exceedingly disturbing Earthlings...) Always bringing the strange and enticing fiction, Murata is a class act in literary fiction. Adore.