There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job / Kikuko Tsumura
trans. from the Japanese by Polly Barton
London: Bloomsbury, 2020, c2015.
416 p.

I certainly meant to get a few more reviews shared in January! But I for sure have to share this one as part of the Japanese Literature Challenge hosted by Dolce Bellezza. I finished this book a while ago but it has stuck with me. I really liked it, from the slower pace to the focus on a working life -- I find this not so common with contemporary life. 

In this novel, our unnamed narrator is looking for an easy job. We follow her through five attempts to settle into a job that won't require interaction with people and won't demand too much of her. At first she finds a job right across from her home, which entails watching video footage of a writer, alone in a room-- super easy, right? But she still finds ways to interact with the few other people in this office and eventually finds that she can't stomach the ethics, so quits. And goes back to her employment counsellor for another try, and again, and again. She finds jobs writing ad copy with an almost mythic coworker, writing cracker fortunes, handing out flyers, and finally as a kind of caretaker in a forested park. 

But each of these brings with it new dilemmas and even a boring job becomes eventful for her. There is always something in a job that forces her to develop connections to other people and/or office drama. She just cares too much; there really is no such thing as an easy job. 

It can feel like a short story collection as you go, but by the last story all the threads come together and we find out why she was looking for an easy job all along. I found it relatable and touching. There's a lot about work culture in Japan rolled into this story, as well as women's experiences in particular. I liked the measured pace of this and the quirky details that made each job both interesting and deadly routine, no matter how odd it was, something that's likely familiar to many of us who've worked in similar surroundings. These small details made this story stick in my mind and I've thought about it often since I finished it. It's not a Japanese cozy, no cats in sight here, but I liked it all the more for that.