Only a day late finishing this reading! Got most of it done in the last 4-5 hours, these long reading sessions definitely go more smoothly than multiple short ones.
One part where I want confirmation on my understanding:
Page ?, 18% in the ebook
When the man’s talking about the fight with his lover, there’s a part where I think it’s saying something like:
She’d always had an academic/intelligence inferiority complex towards me, I had never noticed but she assumed I had.
I mostly want to make sure I’m not mixing up who has the inferiority complex and who’s noticing what.
Looking forward to starting chapter 2 tomorrow! I’d start it tonight but it’s already after 10, and I forgot to eat dinner because I was focusing on the reading.
It’s not obvious at all! Basically, he is sending some message to キノ (by thought). For suspense reasons, we don’t know until later (well, the next page I think) what it was about.
(No spoilers, sorry, I’m on my phone and it’s hard)
The ending dialog was a bit confusing for me too… Hermes asking out of the blue if Kino would marry that man, is he making fun or Kino ? or semi-joking ? Maybe I should read again that thread explaining that Japanese people don’t do sarcasm Almost everytime Hermes speak I’m not sure if he is joking or not…
And then, the man sending a message by telepathy to Kino, and later Kino explaining the message was “don’t get killed”, did it actually happened ? Or is Kino just guessing ?
My impression is just guessing, since I’m pretty sure the whole point was they couldn’t communicate. That said, @Naphthalene’s explanation of 思う still makes sense, since the man could have been trying to send a message. And Hermes even points out that they should have communicated more directly (or something like that), so I think that reinforces that the message didn’t actually get through.
There’s a からかう in there somewhere, so definitely making fun.
Maybe I’m bad at interpreting books, but my understanding is that Hermes wasn’t necessarily joking.
Let's see...
First Hermes asked, “Was that love-dovey?” This was a remark that looked like teasing (からかうような言い方).
But after that Hermes said in a serious tone (真剣な口調), “When I was watching you from the side I got worried that you might marry that man”. His worry makes sense because just before the man basically suggested that (to live with him), was very nervous when asking and and very embarrassed after the refusal, too much emotions for just a friendly suggestion. And then staring at each other for a long time…
After Kino denied that, Hermes run silent for a while, then muttered: “Nevertheless, to fall in love with Kino - what strange tastes this man has”. I interpret it that Hermes seriously thought that that man fell for Kino.
And then Kino started to explain that what happened in the end was a telepathic exchange.
I don’t have the book with me, so I can’t check, but the way I remember was
Summary
That what Hermès wants to say (“you got me worried for a second there”) is serious, the way to say it (talking about marriage) isn’t.
That being said, I might be biased by the fact that I don’t see the man’s proposal as a mariage proposal (or even asking to become his lover). He just wants someone around (which is understandable).
For some reason I always imagined herms as female. Was it ever stated otherwise? Or is hermes gender less?
I thought the philosophical message in this chapter was a bit weak too. What exactly was that message supposed to be? No one really wants to know the truth?
okay so my overall thoughts
[spoiler]I thought initially that the reason no one was there was because it seems like you have to pay the robots for service but since the robots took every job eventually people had to leave because they could no longer live their because they ran out of money.
I thought it was weird people would agree to share their thoughts like that and no one thought of the consequences. I also wonder why they didn’t just find a new country to live where no one would hear their thoughts.[/spoiler]
I’m pretty it was stated that everyone must be at least ten meters away from each other so that they don’t hear each other’s thought. That why Kino mentioned that the houses were all spaced.
I believe that they can still share thoughts. He kinda shares thoughts to Kino at the end. So they will still be able to share thought but not receive them. And he kinda likes the life he have where he does not work. He just wants someone to speak with I guess.
For the philosophical message, if there is one, I would prob be that knowing everything that the other person is thinking is not good. Sometimes things are best not known because people hide things in order to work properly in society. Without that kind of filter society cannot exist together,
Well, I’m super late but I finally had time to finish the reading for Week 2. I was pleased to find this half of the chapter easier to read. Maybe since I knew the context a bit and they weren’t talking about guns (since I don’t know much about that in any language anyway).
Hopefully I can catch up to Week 3 before it’s too late.
Also late to the party. I got my book last week and was too busy to read much after the prologue (and the lengthy gun descriptions weren’t helping!) but I managed to power through the rest of chapter 1 today!
Overall I like how it’s more thoughtful than I thought it would be, but they repeated some themes a bit too much imo (no people, so many 機械, “wouldn’t you want to know what other people are thinking.”)
And this episodic format is really refreshing! I was really intimidated with the jump from manga to light novels but this feels really manageable.
I think this is one of those times where it doesn’t translate that smoothly to English. I read it as “While watching the motorad drive away, he thought.” Just the verb to think, since theres no と before 思った. The author is just vaguely and mysteriously telling us that he actively thought something.
Sorry if this was already clear!
Yeah I finished chapter 1. The second half was a much easier and more interesting read. I suppose that more dialogue means shorter sentences and less complicated vocabulary.
I need to reread some parts and this thread to get a better understanding of the characters’ feeling but I think that I got 80/90% of the story.
Chapter 2 seems to be as long as the 1st one, I hope it will feel as rewarding as the 2nd half as chapter 1.
Almost everytime Hermes speak I’m not sure if he is joking or not…