あん 👵🏻 (Intermediate Book Club) ・ Starting 24th of June!

[snowwater]

Join the Intermediate Book Club Here!
View this book on Natively!

Welcome to the あん Book Club!

View the nomination post here!

Where to purchase

Digital: Amazon ・Bookwalker
Physical: Amazon ・Verasia ・ CD Japan

Schedule

Tbd!

Vocabulary

Tbd!

Trigger Warnings

Death, disease, disability, crime

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.

Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice

• When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

• Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Proper Nouns

Feel free to add to this as new characters / places get introduced throughout the book.

Example:

Name	Reading	Notes
千太郎	せんたろう	Main character
吉井徳江	よしいとくえ	Main character
ワカナ	わかな	Main character

Resources

Tbd

Membership

Will you be reading with us?

• Yes
• Yes, but I might start late
• Maybe
• No

Which version will you be reading?

• eBook
• Paperback

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to be notified when weekly threads get posted!

[snowwater]

(I will reserve this reply slot for polls or anything else )

[2000kanji]

For the next 33 hours (until 2023-05-21T15:00:00Z) the Amazon price is reduced to ￥1,485 - still much more than the paper edition which costs ￥491.

I am a little confused about the author’s name. Why does ドリアン become Durian in the English translation? Apparently the author has used two other names: 助川 哲也 (Tetsuya Sukegawa - his birthname?) and 明川 哲也 (Tetsuya Akikawa).

[snowwater]

Also if anyone else is in Europe and prefer to buy the physical edition from Verasia, they are currently in stock (I asked them about it since the book was out of stock for a while, and new copies arrived yesterday).

Hmm, good questions about his name though - I will try to look it up and see if I can find some info. I wonder if ドリアン → Durian was just some kind of stylistic choice.

[Mithrillion]

Whoa, the ebook is expensive! So I just bought a secondhand copy for ¥380, it should arrive in a few days~
I prefer using ebooks, because it’s easier to look up words, but this did not seem a very difficult read, so hopefully the physical copy will suffice.

[enbyboiwonder]

@2000kanji

Why does ドリアン become Durian in the English translation?

A durian is a type of fruit, and it’s spelled ドリアン in Japanese

They look like this:

[ekuroe]

I really thought the English translated name was a typo at first because ‘there’s no way Dorian would be translated to a spiky fruit known for being stinky’

[snowwater]

I had the same thought, though I did suspect it was due to the fruit since it’s the only thing that seemed to make sense!

I tried to investigate a bit more on the name, and here’s what I’ve found so far:

早稲田大学時代には劇団を主宰し、卒業後は雑誌ライター、放送作家などを経て、1990年、東欧革命取材を契機に「叫ぶ詩人の会」を結成し、同会長となる。芸名であるドリアン助川として「言葉の復権」をテーマに、世の中の森羅万象を激しいロックに乗せて叫ぶ、独自のパフォーマンスで話題になる。
1995年10月、現役高校教諭の後藤鮪郎が出演していたラジオ番組の後を受け、相談番組『ドリアン助川の正義のラジオ!ジャンベルジャン!』のパーソナリティを担当。また、並行して若者の人気を集め、海外のアーティストを紹介する『金髪先生』（テレビ朝日）などに出演するようになる[1][3][5]。

Easy translation

Under his stage name, Dorian Sukegawa, he has become a hot topic for his unique performance, in which he shouts out all things in the world with intense rock music under the theme of “restoration of words.”
In October 1995, he was in charge of the personality of the consultation program “Durian Sukegawa’s Justice Radio! Jean Berjean!” At the same time, he also gained popularity among young people and began appearing in programs such as “Kondo Sensei” (TV Asahi), which introduced foreign artists.[1][3][5]

放送作家時代は本名の助川哲也、この名での著作もある。叫ぶ詩人の会結成後に威圧感を与えがちな自らの風貌を自虐的に捉え、[要出典]ドリアン助川の名を使うようになる。活動の拠点をニューヨークに移したことを機に、芸名を「TETUYA」に改名した。改名の理由は、前述のラジオ番組に出演以降、助川が街を歩いていると、番組を聴いていたリスナーから声を掛けられ、「悩み相談」を希望され、嫌気が指した事で番組降板を希望していた[9]。しかし、渡米後も舞い込んで来る仕事は「人生相談の仕事」しか来なくなったため、「ドリアン助川」という芸名を捨て、「明川哲也（あきかわ てつや）」を使っていた[3]。にもかかわらず、結局はイメージを変える事が出来ず、2011年11月に元来からの芸名である「ドリアン助川」に戻した[10]。

Easy translation

When he was a broadcast writer, his real name was Tetsuya Sukegawa, and he also wrote under this name. After the formation of the Screaming Poets Association, he began to use the name Dorian Sukegawa, masochistically criticizing his intimidating appearance. After moving his base of activities to New York, he changed his stage name to “TETUYA”. The reason for the name change is that after appearing on the radio program mentioned above, when Sukegawa was walking around town, a listener who was listening to the program called out to him and asked for “consultation with troubles”, and he was disgusted with it, so he left the program. [9]. However, even after moving to the United States, the only work that came in was “life counseling work”, so he abandoned the stage name “Dorian Sukegawa” and used “Tetsuya Akikawa” [3]. Despite this, he was unable to change his image in the end, and returned to his original stage name of “Dorian Sukegawa” in November 2011.

So… yeah, not sure why he chose the famed Durian fruit after all, but he sure seems to have a bit of a… complicated relationship with his names @2000kanji I guess this also explains the choices between the 3 names he’s used so far.

[snowwater]

Just a heads up that I will probably start a poll to decide the schedule by the end of next week, since my book is arriving Thursday evening I saw most people actually plan to read the paperback, so I’m curious if our editions will be similar/the same or not.

If anyone already has the book and had the time to take a quick look, you’re always free to post a schedule suggestion, but we will probably decide based on majority vote in the end (I do remember people rating it as fairly difficult in the nomination post, so I’m guessing we might go at a ~15-20 pages a week post, but we never know!)

[NicoleIsEnough]

@snowwater

I do remember people rating it as fairly difficult in the nomination post, so I’m guessing we might go at a ~15-20 pages a week post

The usual weekly amount for this club is about 15 pages, so that would actually be quite fast! If you suspect that the book is harder, you could introduce a ramp-up phase that would bring us to cruising altitude in about 3 weeks. But this of course also depends on the book and its chapter structure.