For the first time the work of award-winning Japanese author Kikuko Tsumura has been translated into English, with the release of her novel There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job.
After facing burnout in the job she has held since graduating from university — a job which is, cleverly, only revealed at the end of the novel — a young woman sets out to find the most simple, straightforward work possible. Her criteria? The job must be as close as possible to her home and ideally requires only sitting all day with minimal thinking. Thus begins the unnamed narrator’s journey through a handful of monotonous job placements.
The first job sounds simple enough: watching surveillance footage of an author who is suspected to be storing contraband in his home. While this assignment meets the criteria of being close to the narrator’s home and requires only staying awake to watch a computer screen, the hours are long and allow little time for even a restroom or food break. The narrator next moves on to a position writing advertisements to be played on the local bus line. More brain-power is required here, but it sounds interesting, so she gives it a go. However, she quickly notices something odd about many of the businesses being publicised … they seem to appear and disappear along with the timing of the ads! From here she tries out a job composing trivia for the packaging of a popular brand of rice crackers, canvassing a local neighbourhood to hang posters, and even a post in a public park with very few assigned tasks except to explore the surrounding woods. But will any of these jobs be the right fit?
Tsumura has an interesting take on the universal themes of job satisfaction and burn-out, as well as capitalism, beautifully set down within and reflective of the Japanese culture. Centered on an unnamed and quirky, yet likeable protagonist in the vein of literary characters like Eleanor Oliphant or Ove (but more subdued), this story relays the relatable challenge of finding a job that is both devoid of excessive stress yet which will also be satisfying and fulfilling. The writing is tongue-in-cheek with the extremity to which the narrator is seeking the most simple employment possible. Yet despite her best efforts to keep things uncomplicated, each placement sparks an investment in the work, leading her to extend herself past the basic job requirements. Each job also has a strange or unnatural element to it which simultaneously draws the narrator in and causes her to question the fit of said position.
Perhaps the greatest accomplishment Tsumura makes here is that of normalising the stress of so many modern-day work environments and creating a space for reflection, both by the narrator and by the reader, on where boundaries should be drawn between our work and home lives. The novel explores the narrator’s internal struggles of self and mental health as reflected through her search for the ever-elusive “easy job” to counteract the burden from her previous career. This experience of significant exhaustion and fatigue with one’s job is rendered common and the resulting effects on mental health are normalised in a way that is often ignored, as many characters throughout the story are allowed the necessary space by their employer to take leave from their work. The impacts and strengths of Tsumura’s writing perhaps would have been more profound, however, if condensed. Although the intended effect may be to create a mood of tedium which parallels the narrator’s experience, at times the narrative seems unnecessarily drawn-out.
Overall, Tsumura’s work probes at a topic not often tackled in literary fiction; a topic well-worth the investigation.
There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of March 23rd 2021. Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me with an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Convenience Store Woman meets My Year of Rest and Relaxation in this strange, compelling, darkly funny tale of one woman’s search for meaning in the modern workplace.
A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing – and ideally, very little thinking.
She is sent to a nondescript office building where she is tasked with watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods. But observing someone for hours on end can be so inconvenient and tiresome. How will she stay awake? When can she take delivery of her favourite brand of tea? And, perhaps more importantly – how did she find herself in this situation in the first place?
As she moves from job to job, writing bus adverts for shops that mysteriously disappear, and composing advice for rice cracker wrappers that generate thousands of devoted followers, it becomes increasingly apparent that she’s not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful…
