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消滅世界
From the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings comes a surprising and highly imaginative story set in a version of Japan where sex between married couples has vanished and all children are born by artificial insemination.
Sayaka Murata has proven herself to be one of the most exciting chroniclers of the strangeness of society, x-raying our contemporary world to bizarre and troubling effect. Her depictions of a happily unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman convinced she is an alien in Earthlings have endeared her to millions of readers worldwide. Vanishing World takes Murata’s universe to a bold new level, imagining an alternative Japan where attitudes to sex and procreation are wildly different to our own.
As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents “copulated” in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange “system” by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable. As an adult in an appropriately sexless marriage—sex between married couples is now considered as taboo as incest—Amane and her husband Saku decide to go and live in a mysterious new town called Experiment City or Paradise-Eden, where all children are raised communally, and every person is considered a Mother to all children. Men are beginning to become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons, and children are nameless, called only “Kodomo-chan.” Is this the new world that will purify Amane of her strangeness once and for all?
Sayaka Murata has proven herself to be one of the most exciting chroniclers of the strangeness of society, x-raying our contemporary world to bizarre and troubling effect. Her depictions of a happily unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman convinced she is an alien in Earthlings have endeared her to millions of readers worldwide. Vanishing World takes Murata’s universe to a bold new level, imagining an alternative Japan where attitudes to sex and procreation are wildly different to our own.
As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents “copulated” in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange “system” by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable. As an adult in an appropriately sexless marriage—sex between married couples is now considered as taboo as incest—Amane and her husband Saku decide to go and live in a mysterious new town called Experiment City or Paradise-Eden, where all children are raised communally, and every person is considered a Mother to all children. Men are beginning to become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons, and children are nameless, called only “Kodomo-chan.” Is this the new world that will purify Amane of her strangeness once and for all?
253 pages, Hardcover
First published December 16, 2015
559 people are currently reading
28621 people want to read
About the author
Sayaka Murata
40 books8,995 followersSayaka Murata (in Japanese, 村田 沙耶香) is one of the most exciting up-and-coming writers in Japan today.
She herself still works part time in a convenience store, which gave her the inspiration to write Convenience Store Woman (Konbini Ningen). She debuted in 2003 with Junyu (Breastfeeding), which won the Gunzo Prize for new writers. In 2009 she won the Noma Prize for New Writers with Gin iro no uta (Silver Song), and in 2013 the Mishima Yukio Prize for Shiro-oro no machi no, sono hone no taion no (Of Bones, of Body Heat, of Whitening City). Convenience Store Woman won the 2016 Akutagawa Award. Murata has two short stories published in English (both translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori): "Lover on the Breeze" (Ruptured Fiction(s) of the Earthquake, Waseda Bungaku, 2011) and "A Clean Marriage" (Granta 127: Japan, 2014).
She herself still works part time in a convenience store, which gave her the inspiration to write Convenience Store Woman (Konbini Ningen). She debuted in 2003 with Junyu (Breastfeeding), which won the Gunzo Prize for new writers. In 2009 she won the Noma Prize for New Writers with Gin iro no uta (Silver Song), and in 2013 the Mishima Yukio Prize for Shiro-oro no machi no, sono hone no taion no (Of Bones, of Body Heat, of Whitening City). Convenience Store Woman won the 2016 Akutagawa Award. Murata has two short stories published in English (both translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori): "Lover on the Breeze" (Ruptured Fiction(s) of the Earthquake, Waseda Bungaku, 2011) and "A Clean Marriage" (Granta 127: Japan, 2014).
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January 17, 2025Excited to get fucked up again
November 24, 2025
new sayaka murata! i can't wait to finish this and just stare off into space for 6 hours.
ever since convenience store woman (a perfect book), sayaka murata hasn't had the same magic for me.
in spite of being very short and very fun, it was complex, making countless subtle arguments about the bizarre nature of social expectations and "normalcy."
ever since then, they have been very gross (which is fine), and very one-note (which is not ideal).
this one follows a protagonist in a world where sex is no longer necessary.
the strength of character, plot, and theme i used to feel just isn't there. this has interesting things to say, but they all could have been pulled off in a 30-page short story. instead it was redundant and over the top, and i wish with all our extra time we could've given our protagonist some traits or logical decision-making or something.
alas.
bottom line: convenience store woman come back to me!
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
ever since convenience store woman (a perfect book), sayaka murata hasn't had the same magic for me.
in spite of being very short and very fun, it was complex, making countless subtle arguments about the bizarre nature of social expectations and "normalcy."
ever since then, they have been very gross (which is fine), and very one-note (which is not ideal).
this one follows a protagonist in a world where sex is no longer necessary.
the strength of character, plot, and theme i used to feel just isn't there. this has interesting things to say, but they all could have been pulled off in a 30-page short story. instead it was redundant and over the top, and i wish with all our extra time we could've given our protagonist some traits or logical decision-making or something.
alas.
bottom line: convenience store woman come back to me!
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
June 3, 2025
That ending was literally not needed.
February 13, 2025
What’s essentially a critique of contemporary Japan is awkwardly entangled with Sayaka Murata’s personal concerns about gender, family, and the frameworks imposed on non-conforming individuals by mainstream society. It’s speculative fiction set in a version of Japan that many have dubbed dystopian despite Murata’s insistence that it actually represents utopian possibilities. Narrated by a woman named Amane it depicts a world in which links between sexual intercourse and reproduction have effectively been severed. Like all the girls, and boys, in her society Amane’s implanted with a contraceptive device at puberty. In a bizarre play on fan culture, Amane’s provided with an outlet for any romantic impulses via carefully-designed anime characters. These ‘consumables’ also serve as masturbatory aids for those who need them. Despite its seemingly radical reformulation of love and sexuality, this is a place steeped in heteronormative values. Queer relationships, queer sex, or any sexual expression outside of solitary masturbation, are all apparently unthinkable – although it’s not clear how, or why, that’s the case. PIV too is now viewed as strange and outdated, so much so that news of Amane’s initial conception through ‘copulation’ rather than artificial insemination shakes her local community.
However, the nuclear family still reigns supreme, so Amane enters into platonic marriage arrangements that will allow her to reproduce via artificial insemination. It’s a setup in which Amane’s husband will also assume an equal share of caring responsibilities. Murata then details Amane’s growing conflict between her desire for intimacy through heterosexual sex and her urge to conform to her society’s expectations. Amane’s experiences form a potentially interesting take on responses to Japan’s low birth rates, as well as the growing numbers of Japanese women rejecting traditional roles as wife, mother and general domestic appliance. But Murata's narrative lacks analytical depth. There are fleeting allusions to socioeconomic factors, there’s even a touch of Engels in Amane’s brief assessments of the family as social institution. Murata also refers to aspects of gendered violence and constricting femininity. But none of these issues are satisfactorily explored, nor is it clear why Amane might want a child. Instead, the emphasis is on Amane’s day-to-day states of mind which could be fascinating but could also feel frustratingly repetitive.
The world building, and the pace, pick up in the concluding sections set in Experiment City. The would-be bold social structures intended to regulate everyday existence and provide for the future are failing so a new model is being formulated and tested in this closed environment. This system has dispensed with traditional families in favour of individual adults taking on collective responsibility for communal Kodomo-chan (children) - produced via a lottery-style insemination system. For Kodomo-chan any and all adults are their mothers. The eerie Kodomo-chan, reminiscent of John Wyndham’s alien children, are intriguing creations, as is Experiment City itself. But then the plot’s unexpectedly complicated by muddled connections being made between nature vs. nurture debates and Amane’s fractured relationship with her mother - whose reappearance ushers in a series of increasingly-surreal scenes. There's a shift too from SF as social critique to SF as a means for Murata to map out what kind of place she might personally like to inhabit. So, fairly inventive, often gripping but for me there was ultimately too much surface and not nearly enough substance. Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Grove Press for an ARC
However, the nuclear family still reigns supreme, so Amane enters into platonic marriage arrangements that will allow her to reproduce via artificial insemination. It’s a setup in which Amane’s husband will also assume an equal share of caring responsibilities. Murata then details Amane’s growing conflict between her desire for intimacy through heterosexual sex and her urge to conform to her society’s expectations. Amane’s experiences form a potentially interesting take on responses to Japan’s low birth rates, as well as the growing numbers of Japanese women rejecting traditional roles as wife, mother and general domestic appliance. But Murata's narrative lacks analytical depth. There are fleeting allusions to socioeconomic factors, there’s even a touch of Engels in Amane’s brief assessments of the family as social institution. Murata also refers to aspects of gendered violence and constricting femininity. But none of these issues are satisfactorily explored, nor is it clear why Amane might want a child. Instead, the emphasis is on Amane’s day-to-day states of mind which could be fascinating but could also feel frustratingly repetitive.
The world building, and the pace, pick up in the concluding sections set in Experiment City. The would-be bold social structures intended to regulate everyday existence and provide for the future are failing so a new model is being formulated and tested in this closed environment. This system has dispensed with traditional families in favour of individual adults taking on collective responsibility for communal Kodomo-chan (children) - produced via a lottery-style insemination system. For Kodomo-chan any and all adults are their mothers. The eerie Kodomo-chan, reminiscent of John Wyndham’s alien children, are intriguing creations, as is Experiment City itself. But then the plot’s unexpectedly complicated by muddled connections being made between nature vs. nurture debates and Amane’s fractured relationship with her mother - whose reappearance ushers in a series of increasingly-surreal scenes. There's a shift too from SF as social critique to SF as a means for Murata to map out what kind of place she might personally like to inhabit. So, fairly inventive, often gripping but for me there was ultimately too much surface and not nearly enough substance. Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Grove Press for an ARC
August 13, 2025
I love Murata for her disturbing, daring novels, and this is another provocative gem: The title-giving "Vanishing World" is a world in which romantic love is cherished and people have sex; protagonist Amane Sakaguchi lives in a new world where sex is perceived as primitive and disgusting, people marry purely for platonic companionship and to raise a family, and it is customary to have platonic love affairs outside of marriage - with real people, but, more commonly, with fictional characters from mangas, movies, books. Passion and sexual desire soil people and society, the new norm maintains, and the affairs are a clean pastime. Children are conceived through artificial insemination.
Amane was raised by the old norm though, she was conceived via sex and grew up in a red house (metaphor!) where her single mother tried to persuade her that she should stick to the old ways of interpersonal relationships. But Amane is swept away by her surroundings, marrying and then divorcing her husband because he tries to have sex with her - and sex between husband and wife, so family members, is considered incest -, then marrying again and moving back to her hometown Chiba, now Experiment City. The experiments conducted there? Making it possible for men to get pregnant, and raising children (now called Kodomochans) communally, meaning that they call all inhabitants Mother. Throughout, there is one major thing that sets Amane apart from the majority of women in her society: She enjoys having sex with real people and fictional characters (a.k.a masturbation).
Once more, Murata tells a story that questions the very concept of normalcy, and ponders the human tendency to simply adapt to surroundings: To this author, to unquestioningly accept something as normal and as the standard is the real madness, the real horror, it's doubt and deviation that renders the world rich. The aspect of (un-)clean sex made me think of Greenwell's amazing Cleanness, there are themes of incel and volcel culture here, the text challenges the line between friendship, marriage and family and highlights what it means to be able to give birth. What bothered me though was the biblical metaphor of Adam and Eve which is used throughout, as their original sin was not sex (which can be an actual sin), but their disobedience to God, which is interpreted as a general absence of holiness in human beings, a condition we can't change. Murata messes this metaphor up, IMHO.
And while the ending of the novel is once more brutal, surprising, and outright shocking (and I'm not easily shocked), the text is also hilarious, with sexually curious Amane and her 40 fictional lovers as well as the people around her that sometimes read like a parody of wokeness gone wrong. At the same time, there is a profound melancholy pondering the importance of heartache, of high stake in love and all interpersonal relationships, of, yes, desire and lust. What is called "the other world" is first the old world (hence: our world), then the world of the fictional characters, then the world outside Experiment City - will people always adapt what is sold to them as normal? Aren't these worlds all present at once, except when people employ cognitive dissonance to deny it?
Murata really manages to disrupt and disturb, and still, she is always so much fun to read, as she just refrains from categorization - this is no realism, it's a kind of narrative hallucination, as is everything she crafts. I'm very much looking forward to discussing this novel with friends.
You can listen to the podcast crew discussing the German translation by Ursula Gräfe, Schwindende Welt, here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...
Amane was raised by the old norm though, she was conceived via sex and grew up in a red house (metaphor!) where her single mother tried to persuade her that she should stick to the old ways of interpersonal relationships. But Amane is swept away by her surroundings, marrying and then divorcing her husband because he tries to have sex with her - and sex between husband and wife, so family members, is considered incest -, then marrying again and moving back to her hometown Chiba, now Experiment City. The experiments conducted there? Making it possible for men to get pregnant, and raising children (now called Kodomochans) communally, meaning that they call all inhabitants Mother. Throughout, there is one major thing that sets Amane apart from the majority of women in her society: She enjoys having sex with real people and fictional characters (a.k.a masturbation).
Once more, Murata tells a story that questions the very concept of normalcy, and ponders the human tendency to simply adapt to surroundings: To this author, to unquestioningly accept something as normal and as the standard is the real madness, the real horror, it's doubt and deviation that renders the world rich. The aspect of (un-)clean sex made me think of Greenwell's amazing Cleanness, there are themes of incel and volcel culture here, the text challenges the line between friendship, marriage and family and highlights what it means to be able to give birth. What bothered me though was the biblical metaphor of Adam and Eve which is used throughout, as their original sin was not sex (which can be an actual sin), but their disobedience to God, which is interpreted as a general absence of holiness in human beings, a condition we can't change. Murata messes this metaphor up, IMHO.
And while the ending of the novel is once more brutal, surprising, and outright shocking (and I'm not easily shocked), the text is also hilarious, with sexually curious Amane and her 40 fictional lovers as well as the people around her that sometimes read like a parody of wokeness gone wrong. At the same time, there is a profound melancholy pondering the importance of heartache, of high stake in love and all interpersonal relationships, of, yes, desire and lust. What is called "the other world" is first the old world (hence: our world), then the world of the fictional characters, then the world outside Experiment City - will people always adapt what is sold to them as normal? Aren't these worlds all present at once, except when people employ cognitive dissonance to deny it?
Murata really manages to disrupt and disturb, and still, she is always so much fun to read, as she just refrains from categorization - this is no realism, it's a kind of narrative hallucination, as is everything she crafts. I'm very much looking forward to discussing this novel with friends.
You can listen to the podcast crew discussing the German translation by Ursula Gräfe, Schwindende Welt, here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...
April 18, 2025
Oh my, Sayaka Murata. You did that.
I genuinely don't know how it's possible to fuck a book like that. This was a 4 star read from me, and at 97%, yes 4 minutes from the end of the book, it dropped to a 0.5. I truly believe that ending should be cut from the book. There is a fucking line, and Sayaka Murata completely sprints past the fucking line. Disgusting, horrifying, I'm upset.
I was so ready to praise this book for its unique concept, for the humour that I always find in her writing, for some lines that I even highlighted that hit so deep, I freaking got emotional and teared up at one point!
I want to rant more but it isn't worth the energy. I would never recommend this to anyone, and I'm actually going to actively discourage people from reading this. Genuinely if I could've rated this a 0, it would get a 0. This is easily my lowest rated book, by a mile. Oh, and read the fucking trigger warnings, I BEG you.
0.5 stars (rounded up to a 1 on Goodreads)
Thank you to NetGalley, Granta Publications and Sayaka Murata for the opportunity to read this advanced reader copy.
I genuinely don't know how it's possible to fuck a book like that. This was a 4 star read from me, and at 97%, yes 4 minutes from the end of the book, it dropped to a 0.5. I truly believe that ending should be cut from the book. There is a fucking line, and Sayaka Murata completely sprints past the fucking line. Disgusting, horrifying, I'm upset.
I was so ready to praise this book for its unique concept, for the humour that I always find in her writing, for some lines that I even highlighted that hit so deep, I freaking got emotional and teared up at one point!
I want to rant more but it isn't worth the energy. I would never recommend this to anyone, and I'm actually going to actively discourage people from reading this. Genuinely if I could've rated this a 0, it would get a 0. This is easily my lowest rated book, by a mile. Oh, and read the fucking trigger warnings, I BEG you.
0.5 stars (rounded up to a 1 on Goodreads)
Thank you to NetGalley, Granta Publications and Sayaka Murata for the opportunity to read this advanced reader copy.
February 13, 2025
Vanishing World is split into three parts - the first two explore Amane’s early life, her sexual awakening and the events that led her and her husband to join an experimental city. While the plot is completing, the narrative quickly becomes tedious. Themes and conversations are repeated so often that I sometimes thought I had accidentally flipped back a few pages. The book relies heavily on dialogue and internal monologue rather than plot, which, combined with the circular nature of the discussions, made large portions of it feel stagnant.
The third part is where things pick up, with more action driving the story forward. Murata explores fascinating ideas - parasocial relationships, the emotional legitimacy of loving fictional characters, and the consequences of societal conditioning - but her analysis remains surface-level.
While I can appreciate the endings intent, suggesting that suppressing human instincts only forces them to manifest in more extreme ways, it was so disturbing that it overshadowed much of the experience for me. I can't, in good conscience, rate it higher than one star.
A thank you to the author and NetGalley for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased and honest review.
The third part is where things pick up, with more action driving the story forward. Murata explores fascinating ideas - parasocial relationships, the emotional legitimacy of loving fictional characters, and the consequences of societal conditioning - but her analysis remains surface-level.
While I can appreciate the endings intent, suggesting that suppressing human instincts only forces them to manifest in more extreme ways, it was so disturbing that it overshadowed much of the experience for me. I can't, in good conscience, rate it higher than one star.
A thank you to the author and NetGalley for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased and honest review.
March 29, 2025
If you can say one thing about Sayaka Murata is that she creates very original material that is sure to provoke you. And I don’t think she does it just to be provocative. Her stories always have some deeper idea about humanity, especially how odd it is to be a human, at their core. In this one she especially explores the ideas of gender in relation to sexuality and reproduction.
In a world nearly devoid of sex as humans almost exclusively reproduce through artificial insemination, Amane is an outsider. Her parents created her the ‘old-fashioned’ way and for that she feels beholden and nearly cursed by an outdated way of thinking. As she grows up and explores her sexuality while trying to fit into the evolving society she lives in, she struggles to balance her compulsions with expectations put on her by her family, friends, and lovers.
This story was so interesting and I loved so much of what it was digging into around how at the end of the day, humans are another animal species on earth and so much of our culture that we think is “normal” is really just made up.
But I felt the style of this book which relied heavily on dialogue to explain things and repeated itself quite frequently, just didn’t live up to the concept. The last 1/3 was probably the most interesting part…and that ending?! I’m a bit disturbed by it, not gonna lie, but I kind of expect that with her. And it does raise some questions even if I felt that the novel didn’t always have a clear focus.
I wanted to love this but it was probably my least favorite of her novels I’ve read. Still worth a read if you like her stuff, but probably not one to win her fans like Convenience Store Woman.
In a world nearly devoid of sex as humans almost exclusively reproduce through artificial insemination, Amane is an outsider. Her parents created her the ‘old-fashioned’ way and for that she feels beholden and nearly cursed by an outdated way of thinking. As she grows up and explores her sexuality while trying to fit into the evolving society she lives in, she struggles to balance her compulsions with expectations put on her by her family, friends, and lovers.
This story was so interesting and I loved so much of what it was digging into around how at the end of the day, humans are another animal species on earth and so much of our culture that we think is “normal” is really just made up.
But I felt the style of this book which relied heavily on dialogue to explain things and repeated itself quite frequently, just didn’t live up to the concept. The last 1/3 was probably the most interesting part…and that ending?! I’m a bit disturbed by it, not gonna lie, but I kind of expect that with her. And it does raise some questions even if I felt that the novel didn’t always have a clear focus.
I wanted to love this but it was probably my least favorite of her novels I’ve read. Still worth a read if you like her stuff, but probably not one to win her fans like Convenience Store Woman.
April 15, 2025
ogni volta penso “la Sayakona nazionale non potrà aver fatto di peggio, vero?” … VERO?????????????
raga io chiamo malattia dal lavoro per sto libro ve lo dico
raga io chiamo malattia dal lavoro per sto libro ve lo dico
July 14, 2025
Vanishing World offers a lot of ideas on society and how malleable human nature is or isn't. The world is lightly sketched, and many of the dialogues and thoughts of our main character feel distinctly repetitive, making full appreciation of the concepts quite hard
Times change. What’s normal also changes. Clinging on to what was normal in the past is insanity.
Sayaka Murata has carved out an oeuvre that comments on the professed normality of life, and the absurdities that especially the female body is subjected to in society. In Vanishing World, which I ironically got an ARC for on Valentine's Day, we have a Japan where sex is disappearing, with human sexual desires finding an outlet in anime and manga for the most part. Amane Sakaguchi, the main character, grew up cloistered by her mother and is one of the last humans who is conceived in the old-fashioned way through copulation. Population decline and war led to major leaps in innovation in respect to insemination, with everyone now sterile through mandatory body implants and children being born via IVF.
This alternate world is only told to us, and the level of immersion is definitely less than those worlds that for instance Kazuo Ishiguro gave us in Klara and the Sun or Ian McEwan in Machines like Me. In a sense the world made me think a bit of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, where also major societal changes is contemplated through technological advances.
Part one focusses on societal pressures the main character is subjected to, as she is still seeking "unhygienic" sexual intercourse, while her schoolmates all move away from the body. Quite an interesting metaphor for porn addiction undermining the chance for real connections and reflecting plummeting sex and birthrates in millennials and younger generations in a sense. These nonhuman lovers being AI companions would have been a more dynamic, realistic rendition of the concept. The commentary that love and sexual desire are only as vehicle for capitalist exploitation is very clear nonetheless.
Unfortunately, the writing is so much focussed on the thoughts and statement-like observations of Amane that it all feels rather superficial. She tries to build up a family in the middle section of the book, sexless and with physical relationships strictly out of the marital bed, but even this polyamory is rather boring and bloodless.
The final section of the book is a sort of Brave New World, with children communally raised (Kodomo-chans, calling everyone Mother, and being heralded as children of all humankind) and the concept of family destroyed. People use cleaning stations to "dispose" of their sexual desires efficiently in 1 to 5 minutes. I was reminded strongly of Equals, a sterile movie with Kirsten Stewart and Nicholas Hoult of people no longer allowed to feel emotions and living in communes, the high-tech white buildings as sterile as the interactions between people.
The conclusion in an experimental city dubbed Paradise-Eden, with collective AI powered virginal insemination at 24 December, has hints of Earthlings, with so much societal change (and society at large proving a construct) that breaking taboos seems inevitable and logic.
Getting there took a long, long time and I feel this book could have been much more impactful if the ideas had been given more time to breathe and Amane would have been a more emotionally invested, a more of a do and less of a show kind of main character.
A frictionless, convenient world in the end is also deeply a boring world we are led to conclude - 2.5 stars rounded down.
Quotes:
I can’t believe you tried to have sex with your wife!
A marriage that goes to smoothly gives me the creeps
Love is love, and family is family, right?
We should just live our lives looking forward to the future.
I’ve heard that falling in love is basically just entertainment for our lower bodies. And it’s true, isn’t it?
Having been made to suffer by the religion of romantic love, we wanted to be saved by the religion of family.
Love is just entertainment, that’s what I think, anyway.
You’re veins really stand out against your skin. Well if this isn’t the most normal conversation ever with one's neighbour you talked to once...
Sex is somehow like a ritual, isn’t it?
We’re the opposite of Adam and Eve
They do not have to bear the unfair risk of being part of flawed family
It’s like a breeding factory - really creepy!
Common sense is completely different for us now.
Love is about having the courage to be called a pervert.
I guess the concept of family will cease to exist.
I was an animal with a womb.
It’s a bit like a cat cafe, isn’t it? - Human children as pets
And I was transforming into a person who took the shape of this world.
Things are getting more and more convenient, aren’t they?
Normality is the creepiest madness there is. This was all insane, yet it was so right.
Life had always been what was right.
We were, all of us, under the world’s curse. Whatever form the world took, there was no escaping it.
Is there any such thing as a brain that hasn’t been brainwashed? If anything, it’s easier to go insane in the way best suited for your world.
Normal is the most terrifying madness in the world. Don’t you agree?
Times change. What’s normal also changes. Clinging on to what was normal in the past is insanity.
Sayaka Murata has carved out an oeuvre that comments on the professed normality of life, and the absurdities that especially the female body is subjected to in society. In Vanishing World, which I ironically got an ARC for on Valentine's Day, we have a Japan where sex is disappearing, with human sexual desires finding an outlet in anime and manga for the most part. Amane Sakaguchi, the main character, grew up cloistered by her mother and is one of the last humans who is conceived in the old-fashioned way through copulation. Population decline and war led to major leaps in innovation in respect to insemination, with everyone now sterile through mandatory body implants and children being born via IVF.
This alternate world is only told to us, and the level of immersion is definitely less than those worlds that for instance Kazuo Ishiguro gave us in Klara and the Sun or Ian McEwan in Machines like Me. In a sense the world made me think a bit of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, where also major societal changes is contemplated through technological advances.
Part one focusses on societal pressures the main character is subjected to, as she is still seeking "unhygienic" sexual intercourse, while her schoolmates all move away from the body. Quite an interesting metaphor for porn addiction undermining the chance for real connections and reflecting plummeting sex and birthrates in millennials and younger generations in a sense. These nonhuman lovers being AI companions would have been a more dynamic, realistic rendition of the concept. The commentary that love and sexual desire are only as vehicle for capitalist exploitation is very clear nonetheless.
Unfortunately, the writing is so much focussed on the thoughts and statement-like observations of Amane that it all feels rather superficial. She tries to build up a family in the middle section of the book, sexless and with physical relationships strictly out of the marital bed, but even this polyamory is rather boring and bloodless.
The final section of the book is a sort of Brave New World, with children communally raised (Kodomo-chans, calling everyone Mother, and being heralded as children of all humankind) and the concept of family destroyed. People use cleaning stations to "dispose" of their sexual desires efficiently in 1 to 5 minutes. I was reminded strongly of Equals, a sterile movie with Kirsten Stewart and Nicholas Hoult of people no longer allowed to feel emotions and living in communes, the high-tech white buildings as sterile as the interactions between people.
The conclusion in an experimental city dubbed Paradise-Eden, with collective AI powered virginal insemination at 24 December, has hints of Earthlings, with so much societal change (and society at large proving a construct) that breaking taboos seems inevitable and logic.
Getting there took a long, long time and I feel this book could have been much more impactful if the ideas had been given more time to breathe and Amane would have been a more emotionally invested, a more of a do and less of a show kind of main character.
A frictionless, convenient world in the end is also deeply a boring world we are led to conclude - 2.5 stars rounded down.
Quotes:
I can’t believe you tried to have sex with your wife!
A marriage that goes to smoothly gives me the creeps
Love is love, and family is family, right?
We should just live our lives looking forward to the future.
I’ve heard that falling in love is basically just entertainment for our lower bodies. And it’s true, isn’t it?
Having been made to suffer by the religion of romantic love, we wanted to be saved by the religion of family.
Love is just entertainment, that’s what I think, anyway.
You’re veins really stand out against your skin. Well if this isn’t the most normal conversation ever with one's neighbour you talked to once...
Sex is somehow like a ritual, isn’t it?
We’re the opposite of Adam and Eve
They do not have to bear the unfair risk of being part of flawed family
It’s like a breeding factory - really creepy!
Common sense is completely different for us now.
Love is about having the courage to be called a pervert.
I guess the concept of family will cease to exist.
I was an animal with a womb.
It’s a bit like a cat cafe, isn’t it? - Human children as pets
And I was transforming into a person who took the shape of this world.
Things are getting more and more convenient, aren’t they?
Normality is the creepiest madness there is. This was all insane, yet it was so right.
Life had always been what was right.
We were, all of us, under the world’s curse. Whatever form the world took, there was no escaping it.
Is there any such thing as a brain that hasn’t been brainwashed? If anything, it’s easier to go insane in the way best suited for your world.
Normal is the most terrifying madness in the world. Don’t you agree?
March 13, 2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Science Fiction + Literary Fiction + Dystopia
Vanishing World is a dystopian story set in an alternative Japan where love, marriage, sex, and procreation have totally transformed into something different from our current world and definitions of all these things.
The story follows a woman called Amane, who now lives in this world where sex between married couples is something prohibited and considered like an assault! She is shocked when she knows that her parents conceived her the natural way for our world, but not for the main character’s world!
Not only that, but Amane and her husband, Saku, have a sexless marriage where the wife also can date other men openly! As we follow Amane, we get to see the conflicts inside her, whether those are related to her personal identity or to the norms of the society. In a society where men can also get pregnant, Amane as well as the other characters have many challenges to face.
This was a crazy read! Of course I mean it in a good way. I’m sure the original Japanese version must be better because, no matter what, some sentences and meanings change during translation. But even if this version was the original version that was written, it still has a lot to offer.
The book is atmospheric and has many ideas, some of which can be considered bizarre. And I guess that was one of the main things that made me enjoy reading this dystopian story. The concept is bold and quite unique, making this book a very original work of art. The author's beautifully blended themes will make you pause and think. I love it when stories provoke my thoughts in this way.
I’d recommend this book for any reader who has an open mind and can get into the story without being too judgmental. Indeed, the topics discussed here and their treatment in this alternative Japan may not resonate with all readers.
Note: What irritated me while reading the book on my Kindle, and this is not the fault of the book or the writing, was the format. More specifically, it was the absence of appropriate formatting. It is not OK to send ebooks even if they are ARCs in this way. No matter how hard I tried to ignore the problem, it still affected my reading experience.
This is a picture of my Kindle to show one of the pages. Not all the pages are like that, but many of them are.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC of this book.
Genre: Science Fiction + Literary Fiction + Dystopia
Vanishing World is a dystopian story set in an alternative Japan where love, marriage, sex, and procreation have totally transformed into something different from our current world and definitions of all these things.
The story follows a woman called Amane, who now lives in this world where sex between married couples is something prohibited and considered like an assault! She is shocked when she knows that her parents conceived her the natural way for our world, but not for the main character’s world!
Not only that, but Amane and her husband, Saku, have a sexless marriage where the wife also can date other men openly! As we follow Amane, we get to see the conflicts inside her, whether those are related to her personal identity or to the norms of the society. In a society where men can also get pregnant, Amane as well as the other characters have many challenges to face.
This was a crazy read! Of course I mean it in a good way. I’m sure the original Japanese version must be better because, no matter what, some sentences and meanings change during translation. But even if this version was the original version that was written, it still has a lot to offer.
The book is atmospheric and has many ideas, some of which can be considered bizarre. And I guess that was one of the main things that made me enjoy reading this dystopian story. The concept is bold and quite unique, making this book a very original work of art. The author's beautifully blended themes will make you pause and think. I love it when stories provoke my thoughts in this way.
I’d recommend this book for any reader who has an open mind and can get into the story without being too judgmental. Indeed, the topics discussed here and their treatment in this alternative Japan may not resonate with all readers.
Note: What irritated me while reading the book on my Kindle, and this is not the fault of the book or the writing, was the format. More specifically, it was the absence of appropriate formatting. It is not OK to send ebooks even if they are ARCs in this way. No matter how hard I tried to ignore the problem, it still affected my reading experience.
This is a picture of my Kindle to show one of the pages. Not all the pages are like that, but many of them are.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC of this book.
May 7, 2025
This one made me think of so much on a number of levels. However, given I haven't slept yet (and it's nearing 7 am), this review is going to be short.
Read this on audio while preparing for my move. I generally have a hard time paying attention on audio. This time, I was pretty plugged in the whole time. So I already knew this was going to be good.
The underlying and unspoken subtext (or perhaps, my interpretation of it) is deep. Japan's had a steadily declining birth rate for about a decade. Conformity is valued, as is the greater good over individualism. Filial piety practiced is in high regard, but national/cultural piety is even more important. Sexual assault and domestic abuse are more common than theft in terms of crime, though their laws are codified differently (e.g., rather than cataloging the domestic battery, the law counts the number of furniture pieces broken to determine the intensity of the incident - or so I was told while I lived there). Sexism is the status quo. Take all this and throw it into a blender, and you get Vanishing World.
The title is appropriate, and the cover art makes so much sense now. There's so much more I want to say. Perhaps if I can remember to come back to it after my move, I'll update it then. For now, I really need to get to sleep! Five stars all the way and then some!
Read this on audio while preparing for my move. I generally have a hard time paying attention on audio. This time, I was pretty plugged in the whole time. So I already knew this was going to be good.
The underlying and unspoken subtext (or perhaps, my interpretation of it) is deep. Japan's had a steadily declining birth rate for about a decade. Conformity is valued, as is the greater good over individualism. Filial piety practiced is in high regard, but national/cultural piety is even more important. Sexual assault and domestic abuse are more common than theft in terms of crime, though their laws are codified differently (e.g., rather than cataloging the domestic battery, the law counts the number of furniture pieces broken to determine the intensity of the incident - or so I was told while I lived there). Sexism is the status quo. Take all this and throw it into a blender, and you get Vanishing World.
The title is appropriate, and the cover art makes so much sense now. There's so much more I want to say. Perhaps if I can remember to come back to it after my move, I'll update it then. For now, I really need to get to sleep! Five stars all the way and then some!
December 17, 2024
An off-kilter and unsettling page-turner, Vanishing World tackles declining birth rates, widespread loneliness, social isolation, and the rise of unhealthy parasocial relationships – issues that feel even more relevant today than when this book was first published in Japan in 2015.
In a world where copulation has gone out of style, Amane longs for the days of old. Yet she quickly learns how difficult it is to swim against the current of established societal norms, no matter how bizarre they may be. Everyone around her feels slightly unhinged, as though facsimiles of real people, adding to Amane’s feelings of isolation.
This was a tough one to put down and it certainly goes out with a bang. Murata’s dry, matter-of-fact prose is engrossing, even as she hammers home certain ideas and themes to the point of excess.
★★★½
My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Bluesky
In a world where copulation has gone out of style, Amane longs for the days of old. Yet she quickly learns how difficult it is to swim against the current of established societal norms, no matter how bizarre they may be. Everyone around her feels slightly unhinged, as though facsimiles of real people, adding to Amane’s feelings of isolation.
This was a tough one to put down and it certainly goes out with a bang. Murata’s dry, matter-of-fact prose is engrossing, even as she hammers home certain ideas and themes to the point of excess.
★★★½
My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Bluesky
April 25, 2025
CHI LE HA DATO IL PERMESSO DI SCRIVERE QUELLE ULTIME CINQUE PAGINE, ho bisogno di un esorcista, di un terapista, di un ritiro spirituale, di una benedizione, di un pellegrinaggio a lourdes, di avvistare la madonna
December 17, 2024
"Still feeling disoriented , I tried stroking the head of the Kodomo-chan who was clinging onto the hem of my skirt. It was extremely warm, and its entire body was squishy and soft. It gave me the creeps."
“It’s a bit like a cat cafe, isn’t it? Petting them without being responsible for them, and when you’ve had enough you can just go home ,”
👶In a nutshell, Shōmetsu sekai (Dwindling or Vanishing World), is set in an alternate world in Japan where sex between married couples is reviled as a form of incest, and women—and men—become pregnant and give birth artificially.
In Experiment City: Paradise-Eden, children are being raised in a new system. Everyone there is a Mother to all the children, who are all called Kodomo-chans. Experiment City is a kind of factory to manufacture uniformly convenient people. It's like a large-scale baby cafe.
💭 Murata inhabits a planet of her own. Her questioning of taboos and social norms through fiction plus her struggle with the notion of family is evident in this novel. She mixes humour and horror quite well. The writing is daring in construction, sparse and straightforward. Strange and thought provoking and has elements of sci-fi fiction. The story has a similar theme with Aldoux Huxley's Brave New World.
This is my first book by the author and I like her absurdity. 😹 Some who have read this book say this is tamer and less darker compared to her other works like Earthlings, Life Ceremony and Convenience Store Woman. That being said, it certainly piqued my interest all the more and I can't wait to embark.
At first I was confused why this book looks new to me and the expected publishing date is set to April 2025 but I've seen reviews way back in 2023. I found out that it was originally published in 2015 in Japanese and the translated version is the one out in 2025.
My thanks to Grove Atlantic for providing an early copy. I received an arc for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.🖤
“It’s a bit like a cat cafe, isn’t it? Petting them without being responsible for them, and when you’ve had enough you can just go home ,”
👶In a nutshell, Shōmetsu sekai (Dwindling or Vanishing World), is set in an alternate world in Japan where sex between married couples is reviled as a form of incest, and women—and men—become pregnant and give birth artificially.
In Experiment City: Paradise-Eden, children are being raised in a new system. Everyone there is a Mother to all the children, who are all called Kodomo-chans. Experiment City is a kind of factory to manufacture uniformly convenient people. It's like a large-scale baby cafe.
💭 Murata inhabits a planet of her own. Her questioning of taboos and social norms through fiction plus her struggle with the notion of family is evident in this novel. She mixes humour and horror quite well. The writing is daring in construction, sparse and straightforward. Strange and thought provoking and has elements of sci-fi fiction. The story has a similar theme with Aldoux Huxley's Brave New World.
This is my first book by the author and I like her absurdity. 😹 Some who have read this book say this is tamer and less darker compared to her other works like Earthlings, Life Ceremony and Convenience Store Woman. That being said, it certainly piqued my interest all the more and I can't wait to embark.
At first I was confused why this book looks new to me and the expected publishing date is set to April 2025 but I've seen reviews way back in 2023. I found out that it was originally published in 2015 in Japanese and the translated version is the one out in 2025.
My thanks to Grove Atlantic for providing an early copy. I received an arc for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.🖤
July 11, 2025
This book honestly could not be more perfectly timed to the recent American discourse around birth rates, pro-natalism and traditional family values, and the decline of romance and sex among younger adults. I know Japan is a bit ahead of the US on that trajectory, but wild to think that Murata wrote this book 10 years ago! It feels like a weird, provocative, at times outlandish but ultimately very worthwhile addition to the discussion around those topics.
March 5, 2025
Sayaka Murata did it again. She got me in her chokehold with this dystopian, bizarre world of abnormality is the new normal, traditional copulation is disgusting, abstaining from sex is a new fad, husband and wife does not engage in marital sex bcus thats a taboo and incest, you can have as many lovers you want, fictional or real. You dont even have to get married bcus love and sex is atrocious and I freaking dig this ??. My gosh, this was peak unhinged of Murata I have ever encountered and one that I think will turn off a lot of people if you read this with a certain set of mind. But if you have been an avid reader of Sayaka Murata then you know that she loves to challenge the quote unquote normal behaviour in the society and flip it over in Vanishing World. In this world, man can get pregnant with a fetus hanging outside of their body, normal husband and wife is considered family member and family does not make love to each other, engaging in sexual activity is a thing of the past and marriages are vastly different than what it is in the past. Artifical inseminatiom is the new evolution in mankind to create another human being and in the Experiment city, everyone female or male is mother to all the children born there. Children are raised by the city as a community and not as a family.
Our main character, Amane is one of the rare case of her parents birthed her in a natural copulation and her mother had drilled into her that love and sex is a form of genuine love. Thus, Amane was obsessed with the pleasurable sensation of sex, she fall in love with many people both human and 2D characters. Married to her husband, they still continue living like everyone else with their own lovers as partner. What I found so interesting about this book is how it question the nature of the family, the standardised perception or generalisation of what a normal or complete family unit should looks like. How Experiment City is the exact opposite of this notion and unashamedly proud of this. I was laughing, cackling and giggling the entire time I'm reading this bcus my gosh, do I feel called out in some of the scenes. Amane was relatable in her ideas of love & romance which I could not agree more but her obsession with sexual activity does get borderline extreme at times and by the end, I was shooked and be like what the f ??????.
Sayaka Murata, you are one amazing woman and I will stand by you till the end
Thank you Edelweiss and Grove Antlatic for the review copy
Our main character, Amane is one of the rare case of her parents birthed her in a natural copulation and her mother had drilled into her that love and sex is a form of genuine love. Thus, Amane was obsessed with the pleasurable sensation of sex, she fall in love with many people both human and 2D characters. Married to her husband, they still continue living like everyone else with their own lovers as partner. What I found so interesting about this book is how it question the nature of the family, the standardised perception or generalisation of what a normal or complete family unit should looks like. How Experiment City is the exact opposite of this notion and unashamedly proud of this. I was laughing, cackling and giggling the entire time I'm reading this bcus my gosh, do I feel called out in some of the scenes. Amane was relatable in her ideas of love & romance which I could not agree more but her obsession with sexual activity does get borderline extreme at times and by the end, I was shooked and be like what the f ??????.
Sayaka Murata, you are one amazing woman and I will stand by you till the end
Thank you Edelweiss and Grove Antlatic for the review copy
October 11, 2025
Etwas zäh behäbiger Aufbau der Geschichte, in der plausibel gemacht werden soll, dass in der Welt in der die Protagonistin lebt, langsam der Sex an Bedeutung verliert und innerhalb der Familie als Inzest verpönt ist, auch zwischen Eheleuten. Aber der Trieb ist noch nicht gänzlich ausgestorben, deshalb haben manche Menschen außereheliche Beziehungen, so auch die Protagonistin, Amane, die wir bereits in ihrer Kindheit kennenlernen. Ihre ersten sexuellen Beziehungen hat sie in ihrer Phantasie mit Anime-Figuren. Nahezu alle Kinder lieben irgendwelche Anime-Charaktere, nicht alle nutzen ihre Phantasie auch zur Masturbation.
Amane heiratet und hat eine Menge außerehelichen Sex, mit ihrem Ehemann lebt sie wie mit einem Bruder.
Nach der Umsiedelung in die Stadt Experimenta wird es etwas spannender, da gibt es nur Singles und alle, Männer und Frauen, werden Mutter genannt. Und jeder kann künstlich befruchtet werden. Sex gibt es da nicht mehr, auch Eheleute müssen sich trennen. Kinder werden zentral versorgt und von allen „Müttern“ gehätschelt. Die Kinder sind fast beunruhigend gleichförmig, man erkennt nicht mal genau ob man einen Jungen oder ein Mädchen vor sich hat. Alle sehen irgendwie gleich aus.
Murata schafft es irgendwie dieses alternative Gesellschaftssystem so zu transportieren, dass man es erstmal so glauben kann, wie sie es beschreibt und man kann schwer final beurteilen, ob es sich um eine erschreckende Dystopie handelt oder doch eine Utopie, die irgendwann Realität werden könnte. Inwiefern der Roman meine Gedanken noch weiter beschäftigen wird weiß ich nicht, aber zumindest für den Zeitraum der Lektüre habe ich über die verschiedenen Thesen nicht ungern nachgedacht.
Geschrieben war das ganze in einfachster Sprache, fast im Stil eines Jugendbuchs, der aber inhaltlich durch die sehr explizite Beschreibung sexueller Handlungen konterkariert wird. Und es hat einige Längen und Wiederholungen, die wohl nötig waren, um die behaupteten Regeln, die in dieser Welt gelten, glaubwürdiger zu machen. Ich hätte das nicht gebraucht und habe die Vermutung die Geschichte wäre eingedampft auf die Hälfte literarisch vielleicht besser geworden. Aber dazu wagt Murata literarisch zu wenig. Sie versucht alles zu erklären. Erst ganz am Ende wird es etwas surrealer.
Amane heiratet und hat eine Menge außerehelichen Sex, mit ihrem Ehemann lebt sie wie mit einem Bruder.
Nach der Umsiedelung in die Stadt Experimenta wird es etwas spannender, da gibt es nur Singles und alle, Männer und Frauen, werden Mutter genannt. Und jeder kann künstlich befruchtet werden. Sex gibt es da nicht mehr, auch Eheleute müssen sich trennen. Kinder werden zentral versorgt und von allen „Müttern“ gehätschelt. Die Kinder sind fast beunruhigend gleichförmig, man erkennt nicht mal genau ob man einen Jungen oder ein Mädchen vor sich hat. Alle sehen irgendwie gleich aus.
Murata schafft es irgendwie dieses alternative Gesellschaftssystem so zu transportieren, dass man es erstmal so glauben kann, wie sie es beschreibt und man kann schwer final beurteilen, ob es sich um eine erschreckende Dystopie handelt oder doch eine Utopie, die irgendwann Realität werden könnte. Inwiefern der Roman meine Gedanken noch weiter beschäftigen wird weiß ich nicht, aber zumindest für den Zeitraum der Lektüre habe ich über die verschiedenen Thesen nicht ungern nachgedacht.
Geschrieben war das ganze in einfachster Sprache, fast im Stil eines Jugendbuchs, der aber inhaltlich durch die sehr explizite Beschreibung sexueller Handlungen konterkariert wird. Und es hat einige Längen und Wiederholungen, die wohl nötig waren, um die behaupteten Regeln, die in dieser Welt gelten, glaubwürdiger zu machen. Ich hätte das nicht gebraucht und habe die Vermutung die Geschichte wäre eingedampft auf die Hälfte literarisch vielleicht besser geworden. Aber dazu wagt Murata literarisch zu wenig. Sie versucht alles zu erklären. Erst ganz am Ende wird es etwas surrealer.
December 5, 2025
Murata schreibt Schockliteratur, die man eher als Experiment betrachten muss, in dem Konsistenz und Logik keine Rolle spielen.
Ihre Figuren sind keine Subjekte, sondern stehen für ein System. Sie bilden gesellschaftliche Mechanismen ab, verkörpern Diskurse und erfüllen Rollen.
Um diesem Raster, in dem sie agiert, Ausdruck zu verleihen, verzichtet sie weitgehend auf Vermittlung.
Die Welt, in der das Buch spielt, wird ohne Übergänge gezeichnet. Eine Norm oder Ordnung muss hingenommen werden. Es gibt keine psychologische Entwicklung der meisten Figuren, die in einer Innerlichkeit nachvollziehbar wäre – jedenfalls nur andeutungsweise.
Ihre glatte, einfache Sprache verstärkt diesen Effekt. Sie möchte eine ästhetische Kälte erzeugen, die die dystopische Klarheit in ihrer Radikalität nicht zerstört. Daher erfahren wir kaum innere Widerstände der Figuren, sondern werden mit einer gegebenen Welt konfrontiert, die offensichtlich Individualität vernichtet und zu psychotischem, wahnhaftem Verhalten führen muss – und wir bekommen vor allem das Ergebnis dieses Prozesses zu sehen, nicht den Weg dorthin.
Eine Ausnahme stellt Amanes Entwicklung dar, insbesondere gegen Ende, die zumindest in Ansätzen und durch das, was sie erlebt, eine gewisse Prozesshaftigkeit durchläuft. Allerdings bleibt auch dies unvollständig.
Da Murata auf Verstörung setzt, den Tabubruch inszeniert und Realitätsverschiebung zum Prinzip erhebt, schert sie sich auch nicht um Logikfehler innerhalb der Trieb- bzw. Begehrensstruktur.
Wahrscheinlich setzt sie diese sogar bewusst, um den Verstörungseffekt auf die Spitze zu treiben.
Die Welt bleibt daher erschreckend unmotiviert. Für einen Leser, der gerne eine gesellschaftliche Entwicklung mitdenkt, ist das hart. Zumal Murata für einige der Entscheidungen und Argumentationen des Lebensstils in christlich motivierte Einheitsphantasien (Garten Eden) verfällt.
Auch die Mutter von Amane als „Trieb-Prophetin“ zu inszenieren, die eher über Effekt funktioniert, statt den Konflikt auszugestalten und zu reflektieren, grenzt für mich an formale Verantwortungslosigkeit.
Wer also reiner Dekonstruktion und Verrückungen bis zur Entmenschlichung in einem Buch folgen möchte und sich vielleicht durch die Schockmomente von symbolischer Last befreit fühlt, bekommt ein konsequent gearbeitetes, verstörendes Werk, das innerhalb seines Rasters gut funktioniert.
Für mich persönlich war das ein 1-Sterne-Read. Mich macht ein solcher Umgang mit Literatur regelrecht wütend. Da ich es als Hörbuch gehört habe und formal-ästhetisch kein Textmaterial habe, mit dem ich ausarbeiten könnte, warum die Form des Textes die fehlende Vermittlung nicht trägt – und auch keine Lust habe, es noch zu tun –, belasse ich es bei dieser Aussage.
Ihre Figuren sind keine Subjekte, sondern stehen für ein System. Sie bilden gesellschaftliche Mechanismen ab, verkörpern Diskurse und erfüllen Rollen.
Um diesem Raster, in dem sie agiert, Ausdruck zu verleihen, verzichtet sie weitgehend auf Vermittlung.
Die Welt, in der das Buch spielt, wird ohne Übergänge gezeichnet. Eine Norm oder Ordnung muss hingenommen werden. Es gibt keine psychologische Entwicklung der meisten Figuren, die in einer Innerlichkeit nachvollziehbar wäre – jedenfalls nur andeutungsweise.
Ihre glatte, einfache Sprache verstärkt diesen Effekt. Sie möchte eine ästhetische Kälte erzeugen, die die dystopische Klarheit in ihrer Radikalität nicht zerstört. Daher erfahren wir kaum innere Widerstände der Figuren, sondern werden mit einer gegebenen Welt konfrontiert, die offensichtlich Individualität vernichtet und zu psychotischem, wahnhaftem Verhalten führen muss – und wir bekommen vor allem das Ergebnis dieses Prozesses zu sehen, nicht den Weg dorthin.
Eine Ausnahme stellt Amanes Entwicklung dar, insbesondere gegen Ende, die zumindest in Ansätzen und durch das, was sie erlebt, eine gewisse Prozesshaftigkeit durchläuft. Allerdings bleibt auch dies unvollständig.
Da Murata auf Verstörung setzt, den Tabubruch inszeniert und Realitätsverschiebung zum Prinzip erhebt, schert sie sich auch nicht um Logikfehler innerhalb der Trieb- bzw. Begehrensstruktur.
Wahrscheinlich setzt sie diese sogar bewusst, um den Verstörungseffekt auf die Spitze zu treiben.
Die Welt bleibt daher erschreckend unmotiviert. Für einen Leser, der gerne eine gesellschaftliche Entwicklung mitdenkt, ist das hart. Zumal Murata für einige der Entscheidungen und Argumentationen des Lebensstils in christlich motivierte Einheitsphantasien (Garten Eden) verfällt.
Auch die Mutter von Amane als „Trieb-Prophetin“ zu inszenieren, die eher über Effekt funktioniert, statt den Konflikt auszugestalten und zu reflektieren, grenzt für mich an formale Verantwortungslosigkeit.
Wer also reiner Dekonstruktion und Verrückungen bis zur Entmenschlichung in einem Buch folgen möchte und sich vielleicht durch die Schockmomente von symbolischer Last befreit fühlt, bekommt ein konsequent gearbeitetes, verstörendes Werk, das innerhalb seines Rasters gut funktioniert.
Für mich persönlich war das ein 1-Sterne-Read. Mich macht ein solcher Umgang mit Literatur regelrecht wütend. Da ich es als Hörbuch gehört habe und formal-ästhetisch kein Textmaterial habe, mit dem ich ausarbeiten könnte, warum die Form des Textes die fehlende Vermittlung nicht trägt – und auch keine Lust habe, es noch zu tun –, belasse ich es bei dieser Aussage.
January 11, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book 🫶🏼
such an interesting concept but unfortunately lacked so much in execution. page after page of the same conversations about family and sex and childbearing being had with the words slightly re-arranged each time. the premise is set up beautifully for meaningful conversations on societal norms but fails in every way to pack the punch. 1.5 stars rounded up 🙃
such an interesting concept but unfortunately lacked so much in execution. page after page of the same conversations about family and sex and childbearing being had with the words slightly re-arranged each time. the premise is set up beautifully for meaningful conversations on societal norms but fails in every way to pack the punch. 1.5 stars rounded up 🙃
April 5, 2025
A little like if I Saw the TV Glow was an Arthur C. Clarke book about sex-repulsed Steven Universe tumblr teens with ita bags, but don’t actually carry any of that with you into the book. I’m glad I went in basically blind, and I’m glad I read this after her other two English-translated novels because it REALLY bridges the gap. If you didn’t like Earthlings you probably won’t like this, but Sayaka Murata they will NEVER make me hate you
February 16, 2025
2.5
Easy fast read but felt it was weird for weirdness sake
Easy fast read but felt it was weird for weirdness sake
April 2, 2025
A unique concept for sure, but unfortunately this was a steady downhill slope for me. The one star was solidified by the entirely unnecessary ending. I’m actually repulsed.
March 19, 2025
Review
Sayaka Murata asks difficult and uncomfortable questions through her quirky imagination and daring writing. Vanishing World is her fourth book translated into English by Ginny Tapley Takemori. It is a speculative dystopian fiction that explores the traditional concepts of family, love, and sexual desire/practices, which have been radically altered.
The novella follows Amane from childhood to adulthood as she grapples with her identity in a fast-changing post-World War II Japanese society, where a large portion of the male population died, triggering societal reforms that favoured artificial reproduction and condemned sex. While the premise is intriguing, the execution ultimately fell short for me. The premise is similar to Under the Eye of the Big Bird longlisted for the International Booker 2025, a more realised book, yet flawed.
From a young age, she is confronted with the "abnormality" of her conception. This confusion results from the adoption of fictional characters to explore love. Murata explores the potential consequences of a world where biological reproduction is independent of personal relationships. The repetition of words and concepts became tiresome and ultimately spoiled my reading experience – the word "husband" is mentioned 228 times in a 240 pages book. Amane's internal monologues, while intended to be thought-provoking, lacked the emotional depth and impact expected from her previous works. Although the premise was interesting, it wasn't mature enough. The ending felt as though it was written only to shock and prove the irony of her mother's words. The translation also felt clunky at times, with A.I.-generated dialogue and phrasing, even with the same translator; it made me wonder if the book was rushed or lacked adequate editing.
While the book's premise is intriguing, I found it lacked depth. Vanishing World may appeal to readers interested in exploring speculative themes and unconventional social structures, but it ultimately failed to resonate with me on a deeper level.
Pre-Read
I have read Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman and absolutely loved them. I have high expectations for Vanishing World - a speculative fiction where "traditional sex" has been replaced by artificial insemination and masturbation; a world where sex is seen as incestuous; a place where Murata twists all norms? S-I-G-N M-E U-P!
Sayaka Murata asks difficult and uncomfortable questions through her quirky imagination and daring writing. Vanishing World is her fourth book translated into English by Ginny Tapley Takemori. It is a speculative dystopian fiction that explores the traditional concepts of family, love, and sexual desire/practices, which have been radically altered.
The novella follows Amane from childhood to adulthood as she grapples with her identity in a fast-changing post-World War II Japanese society, where a large portion of the male population died, triggering societal reforms that favoured artificial reproduction and condemned sex. While the premise is intriguing, the execution ultimately fell short for me. The premise is similar to Under the Eye of the Big Bird longlisted for the International Booker 2025, a more realised book, yet flawed.
From a young age, she is confronted with the "abnormality" of her conception. This confusion results from the adoption of fictional characters to explore love. Murata explores the potential consequences of a world where biological reproduction is independent of personal relationships. The repetition of words and concepts became tiresome and ultimately spoiled my reading experience – the word "husband" is mentioned 228 times in a 240 pages book. Amane's internal monologues, while intended to be thought-provoking, lacked the emotional depth and impact expected from her previous works. Although the premise was interesting, it wasn't mature enough. The ending felt as though it was written only to shock and prove the irony of her mother's words. The translation also felt clunky at times, with A.I.-generated dialogue and phrasing, even with the same translator; it made me wonder if the book was rushed or lacked adequate editing.
While the book's premise is intriguing, I found it lacked depth. Vanishing World may appeal to readers interested in exploring speculative themes and unconventional social structures, but it ultimately failed to resonate with me on a deeper level.
Pre-Read
I have read Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman and absolutely loved them. I have high expectations for Vanishing World - a speculative fiction where "traditional sex" has been replaced by artificial insemination and masturbation; a world where sex is seen as incestuous; a place where Murata twists all norms? S-I-G-N M-E U-P!
May 17, 2025
I don't know what to do with that ending 😬
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ARC received from publisher
Vanishing World was originally published before Convenience Store Woman and, for better or worse, you can tell. Some classic Murata themes such as nonconformity, gender roles, sexlessness, and the nuclear family, as they relate to Japanese culture, are explored; but here it feels like she’s still working through them, ending up too on the nose to the point of repetitiveness. Then there’s that ending.
In VW, marriage has morphed into an open familial relationship closer to siblings, with sex disappearing and thought of as incestuous. Maybe you’ll have sex with lovers, but even this is pretty rare (these lovers could be real or fictional!). To increase the birth rate after WWII, artificial insemination technology has been advanced - to the point that even men can carry babies. To go along with this, a birth control device is implanted into the uterus after the first menstruation.
The MC Amane is humiliated and bullied because she was conceived through natural methods and is set on having a child through the new ‘normal’ way. But Amane also has this tendency to fall in love and have sex, which she sees as a curse from her mother who still believes in the old ways of marriage. There’s definitely a ‘back in my day’ argument between Amane and her mom - how do we accept and understand the new normalities? Sometimes I wasn’t sure what Amane really wanted which reflects her inner struggle to conform.
This is definitely a book that works best reading it with a friend (thanks Amber!). On its own it can fall a little flat, but it’s definitely a conversation starter. I see this marked as a dystopian, but is it? Eventually Amane and her second husband move to the experimental city of Chiba, dubbed Eden, where technology controls your reproductive, social, and individual life. It could be argued abolishing sexual acts and gender roles (in Eden everyone is ‘mother’ and all the children are genderless ‘kodomo-chan’) is freeing through the lack of marital roles and the untwining of sex and reproduction. You can love anything or anyone outside of marriage however you want, opening up the world to new relationships - though marriage is still legally stuck in heteronormativity.
Of course I’m playing a bit of a devil’s advocate here. The way the government in Chiba controls reproduction and the population, along with an almost farm-like baby space, is a classic dystopian only appearing as a paradise. But what if creating a communal, almost posthuman, world opens us to new possibilities?
That ending?
I'm used to a Murata ending and it usually makes sense to be. But here it came out of nowhere and I still don't know what it was supposed to me or what I was supposed to get out of it besides shock value. I could make some bs up but come on! Murata likes to challenge taboos and I just want to know why is this case she went there
----------------
ARC received from publisher
Vanishing World was originally published before Convenience Store Woman and, for better or worse, you can tell. Some classic Murata themes such as nonconformity, gender roles, sexlessness, and the nuclear family, as they relate to Japanese culture, are explored; but here it feels like she’s still working through them, ending up too on the nose to the point of repetitiveness. Then there’s that ending.
In VW, marriage has morphed into an open familial relationship closer to siblings, with sex disappearing and thought of as incestuous. Maybe you’ll have sex with lovers, but even this is pretty rare (these lovers could be real or fictional!). To increase the birth rate after WWII, artificial insemination technology has been advanced - to the point that even men can carry babies. To go along with this, a birth control device is implanted into the uterus after the first menstruation.
The MC Amane is humiliated and bullied because she was conceived through natural methods and is set on having a child through the new ‘normal’ way. But Amane also has this tendency to fall in love and have sex, which she sees as a curse from her mother who still believes in the old ways of marriage. There’s definitely a ‘back in my day’ argument between Amane and her mom - how do we accept and understand the new normalities? Sometimes I wasn’t sure what Amane really wanted which reflects her inner struggle to conform.
This is definitely a book that works best reading it with a friend (thanks Amber!). On its own it can fall a little flat, but it’s definitely a conversation starter. I see this marked as a dystopian, but is it? Eventually Amane and her second husband move to the experimental city of Chiba, dubbed Eden, where technology controls your reproductive, social, and individual life. It could be argued abolishing sexual acts and gender roles (in Eden everyone is ‘mother’ and all the children are genderless ‘kodomo-chan’) is freeing through the lack of marital roles and the untwining of sex and reproduction. You can love anything or anyone outside of marriage however you want, opening up the world to new relationships - though marriage is still legally stuck in heteronormativity.
Of course I’m playing a bit of a devil’s advocate here. The way the government in Chiba controls reproduction and the population, along with an almost farm-like baby space, is a classic dystopian only appearing as a paradise. But what if creating a communal, almost posthuman, world opens us to new possibilities?
That ending?
I'm used to a Murata ending and it usually makes sense to be. But here it came out of nowhere and I still don't know what it was supposed to me or what I was supposed to get out of it besides shock value. I could make some bs up but come on! Murata likes to challenge taboos and I just want to know why is this case she went there
March 17, 2025
thank you to the publishers for the ARC! this was a dystopian story involving sexuality and human reproduction. this was disturbing, and gave me cold shivers. the only thing is i felt a bit disconnected from the writing and dialogue. but that ending!!! omg
May 16, 2025
I've read two books by the author earlier and loved those, however this did not work for me. The subject of the futuristic look onto relationships. marriage, sex and kids wasn't really my cup of tea.
February 2, 2025
3.5 stars. Mostly because I liked the first half much more than the second. The first two books by Murata translated into English (CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN and EARTHLINGS) felt wildly different to me. But now with VANISHING WORLD I see them as much more connected, this book serves as a kind of bridge between the two. It has the more fantastical elements of EARTHLINGS and the consideration of societal expectations of CSW. Put the three together and you can see that Murata is bringing a keen eye to consider gender, sex, romance, and family in Japanese society.
Once again our protagonist, Amane, is an outsider in many ways. In a world where children are conceived via artificial insemination, where sex is frowned upon as an outdated instinct, especially within the family, Amane continues to fall in love with people and have sexual desire. (Many people around her either fall in love only with animated characters or their romantic love with other people is sexless.) She does her best to fit in, with a marriage and a plan for children the way everyone else does. Much of the book is just following Amane through life, seeing her in comparison to those around her. Eventually a big part of the plot is Experiment City, a place where these new societal norms are taken to a new level. There, away from the push of normalcy she has tried to follow, Amane finds herself forced to examine her own desires.
Murata is doing something so interesting here, writing about sex without eroticism. Imagining sex in a world without the erotic. Where sex is not shunned as a sin but treated like a base instinct that people should have moved past by now. Nothing she writes is titillating, though she writes quite graphically about sex several times in the book. (Some of these scenes involve minors, and honestly if you have any real sensitivity around the subject I would probably give this one and Murata generally a miss because this is really what she wants to dive into.)
I think this could be a really interesting pairing with HUNCHBACK by Saou Ichikawa, which is also out in early 2025. They are both examining womanhood and desire in Japanese society, the role of sex and bodies, even if they are approaching it with very different angles and aims.
Once again our protagonist, Amane, is an outsider in many ways. In a world where children are conceived via artificial insemination, where sex is frowned upon as an outdated instinct, especially within the family, Amane continues to fall in love with people and have sexual desire. (Many people around her either fall in love only with animated characters or their romantic love with other people is sexless.) She does her best to fit in, with a marriage and a plan for children the way everyone else does. Much of the book is just following Amane through life, seeing her in comparison to those around her. Eventually a big part of the plot is Experiment City, a place where these new societal norms are taken to a new level. There, away from the push of normalcy she has tried to follow, Amane finds herself forced to examine her own desires.
Murata is doing something so interesting here, writing about sex without eroticism. Imagining sex in a world without the erotic. Where sex is not shunned as a sin but treated like a base instinct that people should have moved past by now. Nothing she writes is titillating, though she writes quite graphically about sex several times in the book. (Some of these scenes involve minors, and honestly if you have any real sensitivity around the subject I would probably give this one and Murata generally a miss because this is really what she wants to dive into.)
I think this could be a really interesting pairing with HUNCHBACK by Saou Ichikawa, which is also out in early 2025. They are both examining womanhood and desire in Japanese society, the role of sex and bodies, even if they are approaching it with very different angles and aims.
January 31, 2025
"Normality is the creepiest madness there is."
Vanishing World is Murata at her best - interrogating social norms and institutions the way only an alien ought to be able to.
In this society, people have opted for artificial insemination since WWII, eliminating the need for sexual reproduction which then creates a social taboo against intercourse. This taboo is intensified for married couples, for whom sex would be considered incest because there is now a stark distinction between family (which includes one's spouse) and romantic or lustful desires, which are for non-family.
The book almost reads like Amane is experiencing the five stages of grief as she observes the social change around her - there are moments of denial, bargaining, anger, etc. I loved following our protagonist from childhood into adulthood and watching her battle with her own responses to concepts like desire, love, family, and children differently over time.
Vanishing World is Murata at her best - interrogating social norms and institutions the way only an alien ought to be able to.
In this society, people have opted for artificial insemination since WWII, eliminating the need for sexual reproduction which then creates a social taboo against intercourse. This taboo is intensified for married couples, for whom sex would be considered incest because there is now a stark distinction between family (which includes one's spouse) and romantic or lustful desires, which are for non-family.
The book almost reads like Amane is experiencing the five stages of grief as she observes the social change around her - there are moments of denial, bargaining, anger, etc. I loved following our protagonist from childhood into adulthood and watching her battle with her own responses to concepts like desire, love, family, and children differently over time.
July 19, 2025
as usual a lot to unpack with a sayaka murata book 😅
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