あなたも殺人犯になれる! ❗ (IBC) - Week 4

[2000kanji]

You may also use the #names suffix in jisho which also gives the different writings for a name.:

むらさき #names - Jisho.org

[SeanBones]

Waaaaayyyyyyy late for this week’s reading, but I got there!

@pm215

The other opportunity for picking up clues to whether a character is male or female is their speech style. For instance on the first page of chapter six, Murasaki says 五回は同じことを聞かされてるわ , and that ending わ is often a cue to female speech in novels, as is ending のよ and わよ. (In the real world 女ことば is a much more complicated phenomenon than “women use these sentence enders and men use these ones” but in fiction it’s often a good guide. Akagawa in particular has a strong tendency to have all his female characters speak that way.)

This is really helpful to know! Thanks for sharing!

@Belerith

In other words, he’s different from those city boys.

#ImNotLikeOtherBoys

[NicoleIsEnough]

@Domjcw

Chapter 6

いくら担当編集者でも、かなわないよな。

By the way, this is Chapter 7 already

Chapter 6

@Sasabonsam

RIP 中島, we all knew it was coming but I thought you’d at least die on-page. Although I’ll hold out hope for him that we’re only meant to think he’s dead and he miraculously survives somehow.

I’m quite certain it will turn out that way. We learned way too much about that dude (and even saw things from his pov) for him to disappear so silently. Although it really needs a miracle for him to escape from the floating/submerged car with a serious gunshot wound…

Chapter 7

Haha the sensei being an alcoholic vamp is the thing I had foreseen the least
And the fiancé couple not being able to share a room is so Japanese Had to double-check but the book was actually published in 2000 so no excuses here…

@Domjcw

I wasn’t quite sure what the reason was that 七ツ谷むらさき took against 安楽深雪’s name and suggested that she needed a penname.

It’s the other way around:

あなた……その名前でこの間の新人賞に……」 → “Under this name the most recent newcomers’ prize [was received]”
「はい、そうです」 と、少女は答えた。
「ペンネームかと思ってたわ……」 → “I thought that was a penname”

@Akashelia

The sentence “いくら担当編集者でも、かなわないよな” translates to “No matter how much you are the responsible editor, it’s no match,” or more naturally, “Even as the responsible editor, you can’t handle everything.”

I took this sentence to mean “No matter how much you are the editor in charge, I can’t bear it.” [being fumbled by you]
See the respective last meanings in ikurademo - Jisho.org and kanau - Jisho.org . It must be the speaker (i.e. the driver) who does the かなうing as this is an internal thing, and the driver wouldn’t be able to express anything about somebody else’s internals in this way.
Or at least that’s my take on that sentence

[Domjcw]

The curious interaction with Murasaki and the reference to the prize is explained in chapter 10… (I’ve just gott to it)

[Akashelia]

Maybe consider saving this information for the thread where chapter 10 is live
Don’t know if it’s just me, but if I were to write in the thread for Chapter 2 “hm I wonder what this is about” I’m just reflecting, not asking for a real answer, if someone writes to me “you will find out in Chapter 7!” I think like that’s a bit of a spoiler

[Domjcw]

I think I was responding to my own question above. But I’ve blurred it anyway.

[Neba]

Noo, not the prettiest girl getting such a foreshadowing