‘Profoundly Weird’ Book Club

Welcome to the ‘Profoundly Weird’ Book Club!

This book club is dedicated to the newly-coined genre of ‘profoundly weird people trying desperately to be normal’. This genre was defined in the おいしいごはんが食べられますように discussion thread, though for many of us our interest in it was first aroused by the works of Murata Sayaka.

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A Title Author Where to buy Read by
konbini_cover コンビニ人間 + repeat club + slow repeat club 村田沙耶香 AB phryne omk3 pocketcat Kappa421 NicoleIsEnough Myria Belerith eefara Mithrillion morteASD
earthlings_cover 地球星人 村田沙耶香 AB phryne omk3 Kappa421 NicoleIsEnough Belerith Mithrillion morteASD
oishii_cover おいしいごはんが食べられますように 高瀬隼子 A:headphones: B phryne omk3 pocketcat Kappa421 NicoleIsEnough eefara Myria
mizu_cover 水たまりで息をする 高瀬隼子 AB omk3 Kappa421 NicoleIsEnough Myria
inu_cover 犬のかたちをしているもの 高瀬隼子 AB
koufu_cover 家庭用安心坑夫 小砂川チト AB omk3
kirai_cover 嫌いなら呼ぶなよ 綿矢りさ AB omk3 pocketcat
murasaki_cover むらさきのスカートの女 今村夏子 AB Mithrillionomk3 Belerith NicoleIsEnough pocketcat
oshi_cover 推し、燃ゆ 宇佐見りん A:headphones: BR omk3 pocketcat Belerith Mithrillion
kirakira_cover きらきらひかる 江國香織 A Belerith pocketcat NicoleIsEnough
seiyoku_cover 正欲 朝井リョウ AB:headphones: omk3 pocketcat
hasami_cover ハサミ男 殊能将之 AB pocketcatomk3
timemachine_cover タイムマシンに乗れないぼくたち 寺地 はるな AB:headphones: pocketcat

Index: A Amazon, B Bookwalker, R Rakuten, :headphones: Audible or Audiobook.jp

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推し、燃ゆ is the book that was being discussed in the extensive reading thread as another ‘profoundly weird’ nomination. Rakuten, Bookwalker, Amazon, it’s also available on Audible (use Amazon link) and Audiobook.jp!

Oh, and おいしいごはん is also on audiobook.jp. :grin:

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Thanks, added it all!

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Yay, my new favourite genre, thanks for setting it up, @Phryne !

I wonder if コンビニ人間 and 地球星人 also belong here.

About 推し、燃ゆ, Tsundoku Reader has this to say in their review:

Like the narrators of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman and Natsuko Imamura’s The Woman in the Purple Skirt , Akari doesn’t fit in and finds it difficult just to get through the day.

Three “profoundly weird people” books in one short sentence :grin:

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I think they do! We could add them retroactively as honorary members :grin:

After all,

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This sounds interesting. :thinking: Wouldn’t mind reading more books like those from Sayaka Murata from other authors.

Is this a book club that’s eventually going to read a book together or more of an individual read and talk about those books?

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Join us!
The 水たまりで息をする reading club is ongoing right now (as in, some of us are reading it right now, and no one has finished it yet).

It’s a book club hub. Existing book clubs are linked in the OP. Each book will get its own thread whenever one of us (or a group of us) decides to start reading it, then people can join at any time and read and discuss at their own pace.

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Oh I didn’t notice that one was going on right now. Might join soon then. Was looking for a short novel to read anyway. :grin:

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I have to admit, the title had me hoping to learn about books that are, themselves, “profoundly weird.” I love that stuff. Still, this sounds cool too, I’ll look into some of these when I’m trying to pick new books.

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I think you’d enjoy おいしいごはん - it’s petty and vicious and hilarious. But also kind of thoughtful? Like why must people be like this?
I personally found コンビニ人間 more depressing than anything, but a short story by the same author I enjoyed a lot more (コンビニエンスストア様) but there is no ‘trying to be normal’ in that one :joy:

推し、燃ゆ is about idol culture (insanity, :white_check_mark: ) and when I loaded it onto my ipad it was less than 100 pages :scream:

I’ll probably kick off a club for it end of month if no one starts it up before then, but I don’t imagine it will be a lengthy one :sweat_smile:

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Sounds good, was just looking at your Natively review of that now too. Another book for the pile.

I’ve really liked both things I read by her, so I’m taking a small break from her writing, but I’m definitely going to come back to it! Was already thinking about the aforementioned 地球星人, but since it’s a short, maybe I’ll get on that one soon…

This seems interesting, and short is good since I’m already inundating myself with VN clubs and everything. We’ll see how things are looking for me when you do that :skull:

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The “trying to be normal” is rather optional, or at least brief, in many of these books. “Failing to be normal” might be more appropriate. Or even “embracing not being normal” :grin:

I’d better go get it then while 50% coinback is still on. Which reminds me, would 正欲 be an appropriate candidate for this club? If I remember correctly from reviews, it’s about sexual minorities, but not necessarily the ones you’d expect. There’s a character aroused by water, I think? The exact opposite of 水たまりで息をする :joy:

That would be another interesting non-genre, but I believe it’s even harder to spot. Normally you’d only know a book is profoundly weird after you’ve already read it, right? Open to recommendations though :grin:

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I had to drop reading it after 2 chapters to catch up on my book clubs and I didn’t get to anything like that, though the opening chapter had something about pedophilia if I’m remembering correctly. It was a pretty difficult (harder than 半落ち), but deeply interesting read. I’d be open to doing a book club for it down the line, but definitely not while I’m juggling multiple others!

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It’s certainly not always clear, yeah. Unfortunately I am so much more familiar with movies and other media, I’m coming at this from the perspective of loving really weird art and thus was hoping for the help in finding such books, heh. I can only recommend the author 安部 公房, who I’ve read in English. I expect his work to be extremely difficult though – I can’t say I really understood 箱男 even in English!

On that note, I guess 箱男 fits this club if the idea is that “trying to be normal” is unnecessary. It’s about a guy who puts a cardboard box on his head to stop being a normal person and become a “box man”, so…

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EDIT: I completely blanked on this already being on the list :woman_facepalming:

I did find this book a while back looking for more weird books: 家庭用安心坑夫

Summary:

夫との平穏にみえる家庭に漠然とした不安を抱えた専業主婦小波が、ある日、日本橋三越の柱に、幼いころ実家に貼ったはずのシールがあるのを見つけたところから物語は始まる。小波はいまも実在する廃坑テーマパークに置かれた、坑夫姿のマネキン人形があなたの父親だと母に言い聞かされ育つが、やがて東京で結婚した彼女の日常とその生活圏いたるところに、その父ツトムが姿を現すようになって……。
現実・日常と幻想・狂気が互いに浸蝕し合いながら、人間の根源的恐怖に迫っていく作品。想像力と自己対話によって状況を切り抜け成長していく主人公は不可思議で滑稽な言動と行動に及ぶが、それがかえって小説としての強度となり、ある種のユーモアを孕みながら読む者を惹き込み、我々を思ってもみなかったような想定外の領域へと運んでいく。

deepl for those who would find it helpful

The story begins when Konami, a housewife with a vague sense of insecurity about her seemingly peaceful home with her husband, one day finds a sticker on a pillar at Mitsukoshi Department Store in Nihonbashi that was supposed to have been attached to her parents’ house when she was a child. She was told by her mother that her father was a mannequin doll in a miner’s outfit that was placed in an abandoned mine theme park that still exists today.
This work explores the fundamental fears of human beings as reality/everyday life and fantasy/madness erode into each other. The protagonist, who grows out of his situation through imagination and self-dialogue, engages in strange and comical behavior and actions, but this is the strength of the novel, which, with a certain humor, draws the reader in and transports us to unexpected realms.

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I have to travel tomorrow so planning to read 推し、燃ゆ | L35 on the plane - it’s a very short book and a ~4 hour plane ride so I expect I will finish it in one day. Given that I won’t exactly be reading section by section to discuss should I still spin up an informal group or better to just chat about it (with spoilers covered of course) in here?

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Yes please! I plan to start reading it soon too, and I find that having someone (and somewhere) to discuss it is good motivation. I believe the plan is to have a home thread for all the club’s books, so that current and future readers can discuss them there. For now there’s relatively few books and readers, but it might get pretty chaotic in the future.

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推し、燃ゆ Informal Reading Group ❤ 🔥 is available to join. Looking forward to reading and discussing it!

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Just checked out 高瀬隼子’s first book 犬のかたちをしているもの and wondered whether it might fit here as well :grin:
(links point to BookWalker)

Summary (Japanese)

「子ども、もらってくれませんか?」――彼氏の郁也に呼び出された薫は、その隣に座る見知らぬ女性からそう言われた。薫とセックスレスだった郁也は、大学時代の同級生に金を払ってセックスしていたという。唐突な提案に戸惑う薫だったが、故郷の家族を喜ばせるために子どもをもらおうかと思案して……。昔飼っていた犬を愛していたように、薫は無条件に人を愛せるのか。第43回すばる文学賞受賞作。「おいしいごはんが食べられますように」で第167回芥川賞を受賞した高瀬隼子のデビュー作!

Also, I’m currently finishing off 穴 I’m late, I know :sweat_smile: and I totally lost track of where we discussed it back then…?! We didn’t have a thread for it, did we? I think we just discussed it in the Read Every Day? :thinking:
And would that be a good fit for here? Or is this rather the other way around, i.e. normal people in weird circumstances? Can’t really decide…

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I believe it was just random updates in the Summer 2022 Read Every Day thread. I seem to remember I also wrote something in the Akutagawa thread.

I think it’s more the latter.

At first glance it does look like it might fit :thinking:

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