コンビニ人間: Week 12 Discussion

Join the Intermediate Book Club here!

コンビニ人間 Home Thread

Week 12

image
Start Date: September 14th
Previous Thread: Week 11
Next Chapter: Week 13

Reading:

End Page (PB) End Page (HB) End % End Phrase Pages
146 137 86% ぼんやり見上げていた。 12

Word lists - Learn the vocabulary for コンビニ人間

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle:

Read-along Sessions

Come and read from the previous week’s section, join in the chat about this book or just lurk and listen. Readers of all speeds and abilities welcome - we are here to help each other out. Reading sessions will be held every Sunday at 9:30pm JST.

Week 12 session (in your timezone): Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:30 PM TZ

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m skipping this book
  • I’m no longer reading the book

0 voters

3 Likes

This week was so sad :sob:

12 Likes

Aah I finished the book already and that makes it hard to know what happened which week… (which is why I should have stopped). I‘ll probably wait until next week to write some more. I just remember it was all sad.
It also feels like success to be deeply moved or surprised or shocked when reading a Japanese book, because that’s probably the exact same reaction a native reader would have, and it makes me pretty excited to be able to enjoy Japanese books like a native.

10 Likes

Uh this is killing me. Why can’t she just find happiness :cry:

8 Likes

One question so far.

Page 140

Last sentence before the first break of this week’s reading.

久しぶりの静寂が、聞いたことのない音楽のように感じられて、浴室に立ち尽くしていると、その静けさを引っ掻くように、みしりと、白羽さんの重みが床を鳴らす音が響いた。

I take the first part to mean “the not-recently-heard silence felt like music never heard before”. (wow translation is hard)

Then as she stood in the bathroom, as if clawing/scratching as the silence, …

And then I have no idea… I can’t find anything useful for みしりと. みしり means “recognition; acquaintance​” according to jisho, but I’m not sure how that fits here. With the と I thought it might be some adverb, but I can’t find anything.

白羽さんの重み - His significance? To her? The importance of him or his words earlier?

床を鳴らす - the floor is ringing? Probably not that so I have no idea…

3 Likes
Page 140

Apparently みしり is one of those onomatopeic things. This one specifically refers to the squeaking of floor boards when you walk over them:

柱や床板などがきしんだりしなったりして出る音を表す語。ぎしぎし。みしりみしり。

So 白羽さんの重みが床を鳴らす means his literal weight is making the floorboards do noise, and that noise broke the silence as if clawing/scratching at it.

6 Likes

I’m surprised 重さ wasn’t used for literal weight. :thinking:

What dictionary did you find みしり in?

1 Like

The デジタル大辞泉 entry for みしり said it’s the same as みしみし, so I took that from the entry for みしみし. By the way, I just checked and that one is also on jisho :upside_down_face:

4 Likes

:sob: :sob: :sob:

6 Likes

With only one week to go I’m worried we won’t get a happy ending. I just want everything to work out for 恵子

10 Likes

I just feel bad for her at this point. She just cannot catch a break. Especially when his sister in law called her out on how essentially her whole life is wrong and the worst part is how Keiko just kept agreeing. Made me so sad.

8 Likes

Please, if I may ask some questions…

At 77%

(Very near the start of this week’s reading)
まだ若い、メイクきつめの女性だった。

I’m not sure what きつめ means here… jisho says きつ目 means a little tight or a little harsh, but I have no idea what a “tight make-up” or “harsh make-up” actually means. Google images shows up a variety of make-up styles for those two words but nothing I could find a pattern on…

At 79%

「やってけるわけないじゃないですか!
I can’t seem to figure out what that ける is doing there, or what does it mean…

初対面ですけど、絶対にちゃんと生きたほうがいいですよ!
Jisho says that 生きた means “live, living”. Does this mean “Definitely, it is better to have a proper living” ? Somehow I expected something like 生き方 instead.

At 81%

バイトが辞めていくのは困る、人手不足なんだから次を紹介して辞めてほしいといつも言っていた店長なのに、嬉しそうだった。
So, if I understand correctly, this is a list of things 店長 said (while looking actually happy), related to 恵子 quitting. I don’t understand the 次を紹介して part though… does this mean that 店長 hoped 恵子 would recommend someone to work at the store to replace her before she went away?

At 82%

僕はね、求人なんて見るの大嫌いだったんですけど、自分が働くわけじゃないっていうと、面白くて仕方ないものなんですね!

I still struggle with the わけではない, わけじゃない, わけがない structures, but if I understand correctly, 白羽さん is saying that even though he hated looking through job offerings, given that it is not the case that he will be the one working, he actually finds it really interesting? In other words, he’s looking for a job for 恵子?

General Plot Question

I feel bad for asking this, but somehow I feel that I missed a page or completely misunderstood something.

Why did 恵子 quit her job at the conbini?

For all I understood it seemed very clear to me that she felt the conbini was the only place she felt like a “normal” person, and where she found any glimpse of actual satisfaction; I find it really hard to believe she could be talked into quitting.

Clearly 恵子 sees 白羽 as a tool for the sake of looking normal; I doubt he could convince her to quit her job; she also didn’t seem to care much about what his sister-in-law said, nor do I see why she’d listen to her instead.

Even considering 白羽’s debt, I doubt she’d agree carrying that burden for him; everything 白羽 said to his sister-in-law seemed like the usual lies just to get her off his case, and it seemed to me that 恵子 saw it in a similar light.

Any help is appreciated!

Random commentary on this week's reading

5 Likes
79%

I’m pretty sure やってける is やっていく in potential form with the い dropped.

生きたほうがいい is a grammar point. Verb[た]ほうがいい = it would be better to verb, for giving advice. So even though it’s the first time they are talking (so it’s rude to say), she’s telling Keiko that she’d (or they’d) be better off living properly.

2 Likes

That makes a lot of sense. I’ve seen the い dropped in the ている form, so it wouldn’t be surprising if this is certainly the case here too.

Oops, not sure how I missed that since I’ve studied that grammar point before >.<

Thank you for the help!

1 Like
77%

I think you’re on the right track, but it seems that メイクがきつめ is maybe not that common as an expression. Adj + め makes something „rather (adj.)“, and in this case, it’s きつい + め, meaning that her makeup is rather strong, or on the stronger side. (i think that’s what it means, but Google pictures doesn’t really tell you anything, so maybe it’s wrong? Context wise it would fit though)

81

I think he doesn’t actually say these things to Keiko. She thinks „いつも言っていた店長なのに、", so he would usually ask that of people before they quit, but this time he was just happy even though it’s completely irrational for him to be happy since they are always understaffed.
And 次を紹介して is as you guessed, he would usually ask people to introduce a successor before they quit.

At 82% you’re spot on I would say.

Plot stuff

It also kind of surprised me, i at first thought that there was a time jump before that chapter and that Shiraha‘s „business“ was starting to go well and that’s why she could afford to quit, but apparently that was super off :joy:
She didn’t even start to look for another job while still employed. I was really confused by that. But I do guess Shiraha did manage to convince her. Also during her sister’s visit I think Keiko was asking whether it would be more normal to quit the konbini, or not, that sounded kind of like she wished another person could tell her what would be best to do. And maybe she was also influenced by how her coworkers transformed and her workplace kind of changed through that.

9 Likes

Really! Very sad and poignant too.

5 Likes

Thank you for the help with my questions!

Also I am relieved to see I wasn’t the only one confused by that time skip / plot twist and that it wasn’t related to me missing something crucial.

3 Likes

Well, you weren’t kidding when you said this was sad :frowning_face:
Really wondering how the ending will be.
Glares at people that already finished
Soon.

I guess 恵子’s desire to appear ‘normal’ won over her love for the コンビニ. And it’s heartbreaking. I hope we can still get a good ending somehow ;_;
For now I’m just going to focus on appreciating the fact that I can feel such emotion from a book in Japanese (as someone said).

14 Likes

Repeat Club Discussion Starts Here!

##27 March 2021

End Page (PB): 146
End Page (HB): 137
End Kindle Location: 1415
End Phrase: ぼんやり見上げていた。

Welcome to Week 12!

Feel free to use past discussion for reference, but please don’t hesitate to post any questions or comments! The more we discuss the more we all learn, and the more fun it is! Also, I strongly recommend setting each week’s thread to “watching” to stay abreast of the discussion. Please try to mark any spoilers as such.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’ll catch up soon
  • I have no intention of catching up or the club has already finished, but I’m using the forums as reference

0 voters

Live Reading Sessions

The next live reading session will be 2021-01-24T03:00:00Z If you haven’t already, join the Japanese Book Club Discord. When the time comes to start, just enter the コンビニ人間 voice channel.

For live readings, we will take turns reading as much as we feel comfortable with (up to ~1 page), then go back and translate a section of our choosing together. Expect sessions to take anywhere from 1-2 hours, but feel free to join late or leave early as your schedule allows. We will be starting promptly at the designated time. Please post any questions regarding live reading session logistics in the Discord channel or on the home thread.

Vocab Sheet

Anybody should feel free to add to the vocab sheet. Read the guidelines on the first sheet- even if a word is not yet included you can use the spreadsheet as a tool to get help.

Discussion Questions

  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!

  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?

  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?

  4. What ultimately drove Keiko to leave her job? For those who haven’t read the end of the book yet, what do you think she will do from here?

4 Likes

Well this was…surprisingly sad to read?

Plot stuff

I mean…this could be a big chance for her and all that, but…I don’t have a good feeling about this somehow. I guess I’m still worried she’ll absorb too many of Shiraha’s personality traits.

It seems to me like she’s mainly going along with the expectations of everyone around her, plus the fact that she didn’t feel comfortable around her coworkers anymore. So what’s next? New konbini? Self-pity with Shiraha? Buying a motorcycle and riding off into the sunset? Probably not that last one lol. I still feel like I have no idea what’s coming now.

Well, it’s midnight but I’m still wide awake…guess I’ll keep on reading :grin:

8 Likes