おばちゃんたちのいるところ 👻 (Intermediate Book Club) ・ Week 10

[Phryne]

Week 10	7 January 2023
Story	10 and 11
End page	179
Page count	5+11
Last week	Click!
Next week	Click!
Home Thread	Click!

Vocabulary

おばちゃんたちのいるところ 👻

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

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.

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

• I’m reading along
• I have finished this part
• I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
• I’m reading this book after the club has finished
• I’m no longer reading the book

If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have read this part.”

[pm215]

Story 10: the listed inspiration sources are 四谷怪談 (Wikipedia claims it as “arguably the most famous Japanese ghost story of all time”; the English WP article has a plot summary) and a rakugo 怪談市川堤.

Story 10 spoilery stuff:

The common point in the above two stories is exactly what the short story notes in its first two sentences: a woman’s face is disfigured, she dies and becomes a ghost, and curses or haunts the man who was her lover.

Having the story take the form of an essay column is an interesting choice. I feel like this is definitely a rather Japanese style of essay (though I don’t think it’s full-on 起承転結), which kind of meanders along and doesn’t give you any signposts about where it’s going until the end. My guess is a real-world Western version of the essay would probably have led with the paragraph about seeing the Avengers movie.

[pm215]

Story 11:

I liked this one. Unlike almost all the others, this one isn’t inspired by a specific rakugo story or folk tale, but just by the general yokai type the zashiki warashi house spirit.

The hotel’s style is 昭和モダン which is apparently a pre-WW2 (1920s/30s) mixed Western/Japanese style. I found an article with some photos of various hotels that have preserved something of the style – I think it looks pretty elegant.

I wonder whether the author had a particular hotel in mind (the Imperial is the most famous example of demolishing an architecturally important hotel to build a modern one with more stories, though it’s not the right dates) or just the general Japanese propensity to undervalue their architectural heritage.

[omk3]

I read both stories today, and while the first one was significantly shorter, I felt it was also much denser in writing style, and it took me about as long as the second one.

I enjoyed the second story a lot, once I finally understood what was going on. We finally get our 汀さん’s point of view. We’ve seen him as Shigeru’s boss and as the sales assistant for the incense sticks. Now he’s a talent scout for the living and dead alike. I liked how he commented that women tend to underappreciate their powers. I love the idea of being scouted for exactly what I’d be best suited for in the afterlife. And reading a book in an elegant hotel lobby doesn’t sound bad either.

The first story was also very positive. Suffering from severe allergies as a superpower. I can definitely see it. Things that make us unique are superpowers, even if we sometimes suffer from them. What a positive, empowering view!