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8stitches 9lives's Reviews > There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job
There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job
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There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job is a dark and comedic work of magical realism that moves seamlessly between moments of irreverence and moments of solemnity. It questions the quotidian tedium and banality of it all whilst pondering the philosophical and if life indeed has any meaning to it at all. It is award-winning writer Kikuko Tsumura's first novel to be translated into English and was very reminiscent of my all-time favourite writer Haruki Murakami in that it was ethereal and otherworldly as well as rather enchanting and a meditation on all aspects of our working lives. This is a quirky Japanese novel about a mysterious and peculiar 36-year-old unmarried and unnamed woman who has suffered burnout from her stressful job and has gone back home to live with her parents for the time being.
She visits an employment bureau, looking for the most undemanding job possible so that she can recover and rebuild herself. But she soon discovers exactly how dissatisfied she becomes in employment that is not fulfilling and in an attempt to find herself the perfect job, despite not being certain whether she wants it to be simple, challenging or rewarding work or a mixture of all three, she tries her hand at a plethora of diverse job in the hope of achieving satisfaction. Tsumura's book is divided in five sections, each one focusing on a different job: a surveillance job, recording ads for a bus company (advertising the shops that are on the route of that bus) and to find amusing and/or informative facts to be placed on packets of crackers. In the fourth job she puts posters up, and in her final job she works at a park maintenance office. This is a truly riveting and compelling work of fiction that featured a tonne of social commentary gems, lyrical prose and an eccentric and relatable central protagonist.
As a Japanophile, the setting was about as perfect as you could get from my perspective, and I could picture the cherry blossoms and smell the sushi from half a world away; it was an ideal piece of escapism but with an intelligent, cerebral aura to it. I'm not surprised Tsumura has won multiple prestigious awards in Japan for her fiction as I simply could put it down and before I knew it the sun was rising. The whole story has an inexplicable purity and rawness about it that is difficult to describe but that is only found in Japanese writing and only that of the highest calibre. It is a tale of belonging, modern life, identity, finding yourself and discovering your purpose and although humorous it is also both poignant and profoundly charming. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
She visits an employment bureau, looking for the most undemanding job possible so that she can recover and rebuild herself. But she soon discovers exactly how dissatisfied she becomes in employment that is not fulfilling and in an attempt to find herself the perfect job, despite not being certain whether she wants it to be simple, challenging or rewarding work or a mixture of all three, she tries her hand at a plethora of diverse job in the hope of achieving satisfaction. Tsumura's book is divided in five sections, each one focusing on a different job: a surveillance job, recording ads for a bus company (advertising the shops that are on the route of that bus) and to find amusing and/or informative facts to be placed on packets of crackers. In the fourth job she puts posters up, and in her final job she works at a park maintenance office. This is a truly riveting and compelling work of fiction that featured a tonne of social commentary gems, lyrical prose and an eccentric and relatable central protagonist.
As a Japanophile, the setting was about as perfect as you could get from my perspective, and I could picture the cherry blossoms and smell the sushi from half a world away; it was an ideal piece of escapism but with an intelligent, cerebral aura to it. I'm not surprised Tsumura has won multiple prestigious awards in Japan for her fiction as I simply could put it down and before I knew it the sun was rising. The whole story has an inexplicable purity and rawness about it that is difficult to describe but that is only found in Japanese writing and only that of the highest calibre. It is a tale of belonging, modern life, identity, finding yourself and discovering your purpose and although humorous it is also both poignant and profoundly charming. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
Started Reading
2020
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Finished Reading
November 27, 2020
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Jenna
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rated it 5 stars
Mar 29, 2021 04:57AM
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