The Pear Book

Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata

Sayaka Murata has written a world that completely flips our way of thinking on its head. Everything normal becomes abnormal and vice versa.

A society in which it is frowned upon for a husband and wife to have sex is completely fascinating. Not only is it frowned upon, but it’s considered incest. Murata shows us how quickly humanity and society can shift their beliefs and values. What was normal to us years ago can suddenly be absurd.

That’s what makes reading this novel so captivating. To us, as readers in the early 21st century, this world Murata has created is so utterly strange and unbelievable. Yet, it’s not impossible.

Amane, much like the reader, starts out apprehensive and unsure about the way the world is moving forward. But we see how, overtime, that world becomes more normal in her eyes.

One of the most interesting elements of discussion raised from this book is the distinction between the two different worlds. ‘Experiment City’ and the ‘Other World’. The topic of ‘brainwashing’ is what really fascinated me. At first, it’s not even a question that those living in Experiment City are being brainwashed. Unless you flip it on its head, in which case were we already brainwashed in our current world?

Finding where you belong and what you believe in is a very tricky business. Amane, through these uncertain, tumultuous times, finds that she is quite adaptable, and as a reader, I almost found myself adapting with her at moments.

Murata is keen to remind the reader that humans are nothing more than animals. And with this new way of living, with the idea of family, love and sex out the window – what kind of animals are we? Our current world is lead by family, love, and sex. So to write a world in which the very things that make us human are starting to vanish is incredibly original, slightly scary, and completely captivating.