キノの旅 Week 1 Discussion

I don’t really imagine voices :sweat_smile: it takes too much conscious effort.

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It’s a different style, but I think perhaps a similar level of difficulty?
It’s a bit hard to compare something I read a year ago with something I’ve just started. :sweat_smile:

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Weapon Details

So the hammer is this part

image

In this picture it is already “activated” (I think the proper English word is “cocked”). In this state, if you pull the trigger, it hammers (!) onto the bullet and sets off the explosion so the bullet gets fired.

I don’t think the gun is actually tied to the holster, it’s more that there is this thread (that is similar to a small latch) that can be pulled tightly over the hammer and prevents the gun from slipping out.

I’m thinking of something like this, just more primitive:

image

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Oh, I imagined that would be it! It is somewhat explained later, which is why I could kind of figure out it was a gun part. I still probably misunderstood the whole holster thing anyway :joy:

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So I finished the prologue, and it sounds interesting. To be honest I didn’t get too much into the anime right from the start so I directly dropped it. But this might be something that’s better read than watched, especially that it’s highly acclaimed. I think I’m gonna join this book!

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Grammar question!
I’m reading on Bookwalker, the sentence shows on page 21 for me:
So Hermes says 「町に入っても、誰も見かけなかったりして
And this is his “prediction”, since then it says そして、そのとおりになった。

However I don’t get why he is using して. I would expect something like したら(どうしますか) with an implied “what are we gonna do if it turns out like this?”
I don’t see how this is conveyed by the て-form. Am I missing something?

You probably know that ~たり~たりする can be used to make a list meaning “things like ~ and ~”. Apparently ~たりして attached to something can mean “maybe, It could be, it is possible that…” in a subtle, implied way.

http://maggiesensei.com/2013/09/29/how-to-use-〜たりtari-たりしてtarishite/

I think most of this page just talk about the list thing, but there’s a bit in it about たりして. It’s on 6), if you’re interested.

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That’s good to know, thank you!

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I love those books! Still need to read 5+6 (plus the two side stories). If you’ve got any questions, you can always ask me!

As for Kino, I’ll probably start reading tomorrow.

If anyone hasn’t watched the anime yet, I recommend the old version. The new version is not bad, does not quite capture the feeling in the same way and has some questionable directional choices. Also like the style of the old show much better. But both are worth their time.

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Great!

Ohh great so you’ve read up to 4! I’m just about finishing with chapter 3 of vol 1, moving slowly because so little free time but I’m definitely planning to continue all the way. I fell in love with the covers at first (the beautiful beautiful covers). Planning to watch the movie after finishing the first 2 volumes.

I’m still thinking if I should pause for Kino or not…

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Small guide to which chapters of book 1 are covered in which anime adaption:

2003 series:
人の痛みがわかる国 = Episode 1 / Chapter 1
大人の国 = Episode 4 / Chapter 5
コロシアム = Episode 6+7 / Chapter 4
平和な国 = Episode 12 / Chapter 6

2017 series:
コロシアム = Episode 2 / Chapter 4
レールの上の三人の男 = Episode 5 / Chapter 3
大人の国 = Episode 11 / Chapter 5

I just read the prologue and the dialogue is almost or exactly the same as in the new anime adaption – I guess same will be true for the epilogue. So far it’s pleasant to read. Sometimes the philosophical questions might seem a bit pretentious – and sometimes they are –, but there are also some stories that are quite thought-provoking. Think of The Little Prince – the vibes are kinda similar. Kino is an observer and mostly does not take an active role, instead the reader gets to witness the unusual and sometimes customs of different countries through Kino’s eyes. Sometimes it has some surreal or fable-ish vibes. I quite like that. It’s not that Kino doesn’t have emotions, but the way the stories are presented is often non-judgmental, so even the more controversial customs don’t seem as black-and-white as you’d expect.

@mrahhal: Yes, the covers are beautiful, I love both the older and newer versions, though the really pretty 角川文庫 version is probably my favorite.

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That said, I genuinely don’t understand the phrasing of the sentence. I don’t know how you’d call that the hammer biting the cord. That gives me the mental image of you pulling the hammer back, putting the cord inbetween the gun and the hammer, and then disengaging the hammer to catch the cord. But that makes no sense to me because it wouldn’t be very secure… I think. I don’t handle guns.
:woman_shrugging:

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For any of the people who didn’t know that part of a revolver was called the hammer in English, a related bit of vocabulary!

Very Western Specific Vocabulary

If you’ve ever watched any Westerns at all, or, uh, played Overwatch, you’ve probably seen this pose:
image
accompanied by a series of shots. This is called “fanning the hammer”!

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He is also shooting from the hip.

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I got through the prologue okay, but I’m struggling a lot with the start of the first chapter. This is my first time reading a non manga book in Japanese, so the big block of prose at the start of the first chapter is intimidating. I think I just need to tackle it with my computer open next to me to look things up.

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It takes some getting used to, and tends to get easier after the start of each book. Ask any questions!

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Thanks! I’m really struggling with the first paragraph of the first chapter, partly because it really requires me to hold a picture in my head, which is hard when I’m going slowly.

Is 緑の海 a literal green sea, or is it a sea of grass? This was really confusing me the first time I tried to read it, and it definitely makes more sense as a sea of grass, since it talks about knee high grass later in the paragraph.

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Yeah it’s a sea of green, not a green sea, in this instance. It’s referring to the grass. It made me do a double-take too when I kept reading :wink:

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In that same opening paragraph it says 風の通り抜けるさまを示すように… I assume this さま is the same one I see in dictionary entries all the time (meaning “state; situation; appearance​”), but what is the difference in nuance with using that compared to say こと?

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To make it more annoying to read, I think…:upside_down_face:

(I will leave the real answers to the grammar geniuses)

In my brain, it seems like the difference is perspective though. The koto would be from the perspective of the wind causing, the sama turns it into the state that the grass is receiving from the wind…not sure if I am just imagining it though…

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