Earthlings

The process of reading this book is excruciatingly unpleasant. It is not enjoyable, and not meant to be enjoyable, but still gives you the compulsive urge to continue turning the pages to see just how off the rails this story can get in pursuit of getting its message across.

This book deliberately makes you uncomfortable. You as a reader are not given the solace of being in a bubble of detached observation whilst reading about the main character grow up experiencing trauma, because the author gives a visceral portrayal of everything that happens. You are there, experiencing Natsuki's trauma with her—which makes the absurdness of her fantastical coping strategies much more comprehensible from a thematic point of view.

Despite its absurdness, the magical realism aspect of this story allows Murata to both implicitly and explicitly present an extended metaphor for Othering, “a process whereby a group of people is made to seem fundamentally different, even to the point of making that group seem less than human” - Musée de l'Holocauste Montréal.

Aliens are not humans. In this story, those who are incessantly shunned from society from failing to adhere to its pedagogy find fleeting moments of peace embracing their Otherness in private—as self-proclaimed Aliens, detaching themselves from Earthlings. The Earthlings, who are raised to be productive members of society—aka the Factory, whose reproductive organs are factory components themselves, and who are the epitome of conformity. This conformity is what Natsuki grapples with and eventually detaches from in the most in-your-face messed up way I imagine the author was able to conjure—but I think that decision was nothing short of poignant and insightful. This book challenges societal conformity with layers upon layers of extended metaphors left to unpack, and hit really close to home for me—though in a different from which Natsuki was ‘othered'.

This is not a story that I can adequately explain without sounding completely insane. I'll never ever put myself through rereading this, and at the same time, I'll never forget what this story opened up to me. This book isn't for the faint of heart, nor for those who refuse to challenge their preconceived notions or those who choose to be dogmatic. It really makes you wonder, how much of what we deem ‘normal' in everyday society can be disputed with rational reasoning—to become examples of brainwashing?