How about something like this in English as a sense of what’s being said in Japanese?
“a weekday where the curtains are closed, (I’m in my) room, with my body stiff from tension/nervousness”
I feel like these points specifically are tied back to later with the “rules” section, but that can be me over-analyzing.
(I don’t have much experience reading outside of manga, so I’ll admit I’m just figuring without yet much practical experience in this kind of text.)
I would say the 精一杯 mostly modifies the 気持ちを込めて and not necessarily the 呟.Meaning with all her might she put her emotions into the mutter. But yeah that she can only mutter that one word tells us a lot about her current state, so I don’t think you were far off.
This happens to me aswell. But that is the great thing about these clubs sometimes I do not notice that I read over something and someone else asks a question about a phrase and that gives me a chance to revisit it and really try to dive deep into it.
I’d break it down as something like:
こんなふうに → in this manner
カーテンを引いて、部屋で、身を硬くしている平日に → feeling stressed in the room with the curtains pulled shut on a weekday. I think the whole thing is modifying 平日 and causing everyone some confusion.
見るものではなかった。 → didn’t expect to (shouldn’t) see (just saw @Shadowlauch’s link)
去年、までは。 → at least, until last year
I’m not gonna try to assemble it into a sentence, but I think she’s lamenting that she’s reached this state of hiding in her room feeling stressed. this fits with the surrounding sentences as well - the sentence before tells us she’s not used to hearing these sounds when she should be at school and the one after is about how she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s in the house watching TV.
that aside, we know the curtains are shut right now because she says so explicitly in the opening sentence of the chapter (カーテンを閉めた窓の向こうから。。。).
But can that structure really be used in the past tense?
I was more inclined to go with @seanblue’s explanation
Edit: changed the wording a bit in light of the discussions below.
The car was always something she saw during the holidays. It wasn’t a thing something seen on weekdays that is making her tense while sitting behind the curtains like this. Until last year, that is.
Oh, I totally agree with that.
I took this to be a stylistic choice. So far, I get the impression that the author sometimes just states things that will become clearer through flashbacks or later parts of the story. For example, later on a sound that she is waiting for is suddenly mentioned (その音を待つ on p. 31 in the Bunko version) out of the blue (as far as I can tell) and it only becomes clear later what sound that is and why it is stressful. So I thought that here she is giving an example of what she dreams of and we will later learn why this is her dream.
It was something I liked about the part that we read so far by the way: the structure with all the flashbacks filling in the story as we go along.
genuinely confused as to why people think she’s seeing a car. I’d understand if the verb was 見える or 見ている but it doesn’t make sense as it stands. (not trying to single you out specifically)
ものではない isn’t a really a specific structure as such. もの has a lot of meanings (or perhaps, covers a lot of different words), “thing” is really just the tip of the iceberg. I think the relevant ones on jisho are 5 and possibly 6. afaik if it’s used to mean a concrete “thing”, it’ll usually be written as 物
Noun
5. reason; the way of thingsNoun
6. used to emphasize emotion, judgment, etc.; used to indicate a common occurrence in the past (after a verb in past tense); used to indicate a general tendency; used to indicate something that should happen
you can use verb/adjective+ものだ to say what something should be like, if you negate it you say what it shouldn’t be like. you can extend it to the past to say what it should (not) have been like.
For what it’s worth, I did interpret it similar to how the link explains. I thought of it as “something one doesn’t do” or “something that isn’t done”, so perhaps not as strict as the link explains, but similar idea. I mostly just wasn’t sure how to connect the previous part to that grammatically. (Perhaps it’s been too long since I’ve formally studied grammar. 
)
I also don’t focus on strict translations when translating whole sentences because it’s annoying and time consuming, so don’t take my translations too literally. 
Because the previous sentence (ミカワ青果の車は、こころにとって、小学校の頃から、夏休みや冬休みに見かけるものだった。) mentions that since elementary school she would catch sight of the car during summer and winter breaks. I took that literally and thought the following 見る was relating back to that. If not about the car, how do you interpret 見る here? Is it referring to her situation as described in that sentence?
I almost asked about this as well.
Reading it, I took it that she only hears the music and announcement over the speaker. However, I’m also a bit over my head here, so there could be small bits or nuances that I’m completely missing.
…there’s a small opening where she could see outside.
The manga doesn’t show Kokoro looking out, but does show what I take to be her closing it more:
Not that I’d use the manga to try and figure details of the novel, as the manga leaves out various bits. Just thought some people might be curious to see how it was adapted here.
Yep, that’s how I read it as well.
I am also a bit confused by this, but this is the only interpretation that makes sense to me. Because if this is what goes together
then it would mean a weekday whose body is stiff 
That would mean that the car was visible, which is not what we are wondering about here. It has undoubtedly been visible on weekdays for the past umpteen years. What we are learning here is that Kokoro is not supposed to see the car on a weekday (while being in her room, with a stiff body).
Therefore 見る.
喜多嶋先生はキレイな人で、短い髪が活発な印象だった。それに目がとても優しい。好感を持ったけど、この人が今はもう卒業して、あの学校の中学生でないことが場違いに羨ましかった。
Normally I’d take 場違い to mean being out of place, but that doesn’t really make sense here. I guess that’s not surprising since here it’s being used as an adverb (I think) instead of as an adjective. So if my interpretation that it’s an adverb here (with に) is correct, how would I translate it? Something like “inappropriately”? I suspect “out of placily” isn’t gonna work. 
Two examples from this week:
カーテンの布地の淡いオレンジ色を通し、昼でもくすんだようになった部屋は、ずっと過ごしていると、罪悪感のようなものにじわじわやられる。自分がだらしないことを責められている気になる。
テレビがついていると、観てしまう。
観てしまうと、何をしたわけじゃないのに、一日何かして過ごしたような気になる。
The thing that’s bugging me here is that in both these instances (and one I’ve seen past this week’s reading), I feel like it would normally be 気がする, not 気になる. I’m not sure I’ve seen 気になる used like this much. So how exactly does this difference in wording change the meaning or nuance of the sentences? Rather than having a feeling that these things will happen, she’s just worried that they might happen?
It feels more natural in English to say “unexpectedly” (but still with that feeling of it not being the right sort of feeling to have). Maybe “oddly”?
Nice discussion you have here.
I’ll just mention that when I read I interpreted 見るものではない as a variation of 見られたものではない
ok after having slept, I realised missed/misread a few posts and maybe started overthinking things while I was trying to explain. let me rephrase what I said, I don’t understand why everyone started discussing things as if she’s literally seeing the car (truck? whatever) at the moment of the sentence (or over the course of this time period).
in other words, this, I agree with:
but I think the discussion of how she can see the car doesn’t make sense since she’s not looking at the car and the カーテンを引いて is describing how her weekdays are passing, not the state of the curtains when she looks at the car
I think I got a bit confused with discussion of もの as well. 見る talking about the car makes sense but I think もの is nominalising the phrase/talking about the situation, not about the car
no it doesn’t. the whole verb phrase (which has its own subject) modifies the noun
so ［こころが］カーテンを引いて、部屋で身を硬くしている as a whole modifies 平日 - こころ is sitting in a room, curtains drawn, feeling stressed. in this case it at least, it’s unambiguous that she’s the subject because it’s from her point of view and because weekdays can’t feel stressed. I took the liberty of adding the implicit subject and deleting a comma to try to make things clearer.
I think 気がする is a neutral way of saying something is creating a feeling/mood, but 気になる implies some sort of stronger, more personal emotional investment.
Alright so I’ve finished the reading for this week! Might have taken me most of the afternoon to finish the reading from where I left off yesterday, but I did it. First impressions are good, I think I’ll be quite interested to see where it goes from here
And I have a few more trouble sentences:
「お母さんはお母さんなりに、精一杯、気を遣っていたんだと思う。」
Not sure on the なりに bit
「こころは会う時もあれば、会わない時もある」
I think I have a rough sense of what’s being said but I’m just not sure on the grammar since it is using a conditional for the first ある (and it’s possible that my sense is wrong). I think it means roughly “there are times when (the teacher) meets with Kokoro and times when (they) don’t”
「東条さんの家は、こころの家とほぼ同じ間取りの家が東条さんの家仕様になっている、という印象だった。」
This one had a lot of 家s and I got a little confused especially at the 東条さんの家仕様になっている part
「遅いから何してるか見てやろーよ、と、横の個室から、彼女が身を屈めて自分を覗こうとしていたんだということを、後から、偶然様子を見ていた別のクラスメートに教えられて、恥ずかしさに顔が真っ赤になった。」
This one was just long and confusing. I have a rough gist from later sentences I think but still a little confused on the specifics
「東条さんが、本当は先生たちから、自分に会ってくるように、話を聞いてくるようにと言われているかもしれないことについては、―そう言われてるのにもかかわらず、彼女がそうしないでいる可能性については、考えないようにする。」
Yeah I’m just not sure at all on this
I’m starting to get the hang of this-- basically, since Japanese doesn’t have to include the subject in a sentence, it’s basically never written unless the subject is changing. I.e., if there is no subject, it’s the same as it was in the last sentence. Also 自分 is my own/her own/his own, etc. “One’s own” is a misleading translation, because it makes it sound like it relates to the speaker’s (whatever), but really it’s the subject’s (whatever). This one throws me often, too.
I figured this was the " to fit, to suit, to match" meaning of 合う。
Wait, I thought see was looking at the car. Isn’t that why she closes her curtain-- so the people who come to shop at the car, which is in the park behind her house, don’t see her???
I coincidentally started to learn this one after seeing it in an (unrelated) manga recently. Not enough to be able to explain it, though, but I notice the sentence in that manga, and the one here are similar:
Manga: 「お兄さんなりに気を使ってくれたのかな」
Novel: 「お母さんなりに…気を遣っていたんだ」
BunPro points to this Maggie Sensei page on なり:
You use this expression when maybe what you did was not good enough for other people but you did your best to some extent in your own way.
Ever notice how typing あう seems to return either 合う or 会う based on the one you don’t want?
BunPro links to an article on も…ば…も.
～も～ば～も is used to express (usually) two states, situations, or actions of people or things. It highlights two things from among other possibilities, such as in “There are people who like baseball as well as people who like basketball.”
In this case, I think you have it right: there are times when they meet, and times when they do not meet. This doesn’t quite match the “among other possibilities” mentioned on that site, though. I still have much to learn.
(That’s as far as I’ve read, so it’s the limit that I can reply on!)
Ah right, after checking in the book it looks like I’d mistyped 会う as 合う - oh kanji
漢字が好き時もあれば、漢字が嫌い時もある 
But thanks, that all makes sense - I tried googling for that structure but couldn’t find anything on it. Sometimes these things can be hard to find
this is potentially a really dumb question, but i’ve reread the first few pages for the third time now and i’ve confused myself with my own misunderstandings.
how long has Kokoro actually not been going to school now?
as far as i understood, she graduated from middleschool and the day before yesterday went to look at a new school, she wants to join this school.
are her stomach aches a new phenomenon, starting after the viewing, or has this been going on for a year already?
her teacher 喜多嶋, is the teacher of her old school or from her new school?
心の教室 is the name of the classroom of her new school or from her old school?
as you can see i might be in over my head here, coming straight from the absolute beginners bookclub, i’m going through the chapter again and marking everything i don’t get, i hope you don’t mind me asking questions about the context.
I think the answer to at least some of those are “read and find out” (in future I may use the shortened form of RAFO)
the stomach aches don’t seem to be a new phenomenon but more details are RAFO
喜多嶋先生 is a teacher at the new school
心の教室 is a classroom at the new school
This has been the most difficult part for me. I keep feeling like I’m missing something, as I’m half-reading/half-deciphering. Finally I “give up” on the “missing” part, and move on, and later the hole gets filled in for me.