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.
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.
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).
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?
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0voters
If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have read this part.”
I didn’t like this one at all. Massively overlong setup that was just not enjoyable to have to read through, in order to get to the last few pages.
The original rakugo is (apparently) a parody of a well-known play, and seems to me to be largely a setup for multiple bad puns (including a cat pun!) at the end, and it’s still a much better story than this one IMHO.
I totally agree with you. This story was the most boring one so far, whereas I liked last week’s story most. At the end I was so bored by all those descriptions of jealousy that I overread the gist of the story and discovered it only in the English edition of the book.
I loved the deadpan reasonable-ness of この世には、投げていい物と投げてはいけない物がある。 It reminds me of something you see on Reddit relationship threads sometimes: when someone says “they get so angry they just can’t control themselves”, there’s always someone who asks “be honest: do they break their own things too or only yours?”. Turns out those irascible people are often more in control than they like to admit.
I thought the story was enjoyable enough, but maybe that was mostly because it was quick and easy to read lol
I too enjoyed the story, actually. The deadpan descriptions of the jealous rage were darkly funny, and the use of あなた had me intrigued. I never expected it would be a recruitment ad for the afterlife
I finally got myself to finish it… It was so boring and exhausting… After seeing @omk3’s comment about it being a recruitment ad for the afterlife, I got interested again and pulled through, but I regret it. I hate that woman so much, it made it difficult to read, though it being in second-person was in itself interesting. I’m glad it ended up being the type of second-person where it’s actually first-person in disguise and the narrator is talking directly to the character who is the “you,” rather than where “you” is the POV character and you’re sort of “living” the story through them (even if it’s an actual character and not a reader-insert, since I don’t read those). I generally like the latter type because it feels closer than a close third-person POV and it doesn’t seem to get obnoxious as easily as first-person POV can, but not with this type of character because looool
