Ah, thanks! (also to @omk3 and @pm215 ) This makes much more sense now.
I also found the grammar point in the 日本語文型辞典 where they also point out that it’s pretty common to leave out the verb and just end on the とは, like in our case.
Job talk - not directly related to the chapter
In Japan it is pretty normal to join a company and stay there all your life.
Also, for office and factory jobs, they don’t have clear-cut job descriptions or education like e.g. in Germany and probably in other countries as well. Everybody starts together at the same age and with basically the same salary, and they might also rotate jobs inside the company, and then they all get promoted at the same time with roughly the same salary increase, so that at some point you have a, say, 50-year-old manager and a 50-year-old cleaner / facility manager, and their earnings are not very different. The company trains them according to their very specific needs, and so it is rather difficult to switch companies at a higher level because there is no common “base education” for a certain job, and so if a person does switch, they will usually start again from the bottom in the new company, together with the graduates, and at their salary. So this system of course prevents anybody from switching companies
Disclaimer: This is what my Japanese friend (a middle-aged salaryman) told me anyway.
He is currently working in Germany for his (Japanese) company, and shortly after he came here, one or two people quit (because that’s what people do in Germany, and also from what he tells me, I would quit that company as well ) and he was really frazzled because he had no experience with this happening.
I suspect it’s less frowned upon when people fail their exams than when they fail to find a job, but that’s just my speculation.
This chapter was about getting to know 光太’s family, so there was not much action this time around (ok apart from a short sex scene ). We learn about the father who is dead, his 8-year-old sister 芽々 and his mother who quit her job to care for a grandparent with dementia and exhausted all her strength in the process so that she is now weak and sick and just recovered from pneumonia. Also, we meet his girlfriend 恵 who already secured a full-time job in a travel agency.
光太 has not yet agreed to the host job, but he sees that he has no chance because they don’t have money. So although he firmly believes that he is not suitable to do the job, he sends 雫 a message and tells him that he wants to meet him once again.
I don’t know exactly why, but I find his writing style incredibly pleasant to read. I mean I have quite a few unknown vocab, and sometimes I need to think about some of the sentences, so it’s not that I need not put in any effort at all. But somehow the whole story pulls me in and just flows for me.
How do y’all perceive this?
Also, one small remark because it is so cute in my opinion:
In a society where you don’t have western cutlery but instead kanji, what do you do? 川の字
I just came here to post that I finished chapter 2
How adorable is this expression? I loved it!
Right, so our protagonist has it tougher than I initially thought. Not only is he put in the position where he needs to provide for his family instead of looking after himself, but his sister is incredibly young. He needs to be a sort of father figure, and that’s extra tough on a young man trying to figure out his own life. Meanwhile, it’s only natural that he’ll fall out of sync with his girlfriend, now that she has a steady job and he has a million financial and family troubles, plus soon a job far removed from the world they normally inhabit.
I always tend to think of the darkest possible possibility, but for an instant I worried that he might (want to) push her out the window when she was telling him off about his sister. Thankfully, they just had sex instead.
I thought that was pretty sad as they seem to have had a very good relationship so far. But I agree that it would only be natural for them to become tense if too much piles up…
You two completed chapter 2 already? I’m still setting up my kindle over here lmao. I don’t know if I have that type of reading speed in me either, we’ll see
No worries, everyone reads at their own speed. I’ll be reading different books for different book clubs in the coming days, so I thought I’d read as far as I could today.
I just finished chapter 1. Wow I really like this writing style. So many unknown words, but it’s absolutely grabbing me. If I wasn’t so busy today I’d just keep reading more Maybe I’ll have time tonight, I could totally binge this and it’s only 154 pages on my iPad (おいしいごはん was just about 100).
Will this be my style? Join late and then binge read? We’ll find out!
Watched some youtube videos where they most definitely did, and were extremely open about it and I gathered the girls expected it. There’s a whole ‘host’ side to youtube and I fell down that rabbit hole for a bit. I can dig them up if anyone is interested. That said it does seem like most host clubs don’t. I recall in Tales of an Osaka Love Thief (youtube, documentary about host clubs, a bit old now) one of the guys saying something like he wouldn’t sleep with his customers because then for them the anticipation was gone and they’d lost interest. I have other theories.
It’s a kind of special writing style and there’s a lot of unusual words and a heavy use of dialectical speech. Prepare to go a bit slower and be very impressed with yourself if you do not.
Read chapter 3. And here I’m stopping for the next few days, although I do want to read on
I was a little lost in the initial conversation with the customer, but I reckon it doesn’t matter much. The whole first day was a lot of fun to watch - the clothes shopping, the relaxing by batting balls afterwards, the back and forth of larger sums of money than our protagonist had ever gotten in one go. It all looks wholesome enough so far, but I’m sure we just haven’t seen the dark side of night life yet.
Finished chapter 1! Agree with everyone saying that the writing style is very nice, though I am also having to look up a decent amount of vocab.
I don’t really know much at all about what it’s like trying to get a job in Japan out of college/university so the discussion about that stuff has been really interesting! I feel like the situation has been set up really well so far to make us feel how desperate a situation this character feels that they are in, which I’m guessing our Kansai-ben friend is ready to take advantage of!
So I started the first chapter, man this is tough. I struggled a lot on the first page and was really slow, but after that I think I got into the groove a bit and I’m speeding up a bit more.
I’m already noticing kanji that WaniKani doesn’t have, and then on top of that, the kanji that I forget the reading of. Luckily, reminding myself of the reading with the kindle dictionary is helpful, but then there are the kana only vocabulary that I don’t know. That’s a me problem for sure, I don’t know a lot of vocabulary in general.
Still not sure when I’ll finish the chapter though, ideally today, but also maybe tomorrow. If I can keep up a trend of getting used to it though, maybe I can do a chapter a day?
How many days would you think is a good time to finish this book? Don’t go easy on me just because it’s my first book, I need a benchmark to motivate myself and get up to standard.
That’s going to vary so much based on background. When I started reading books I had ~N3 grammar down and didn’t really traditionally ‘learn’ kanji past the first 200 or so. I had been reading the news for quite some time, so my vocabulary was very ‘news’ focused.
With that in mind:
My first book was a paperback translated Harry Potter. It was 502 pages, and this book in paperback is 208. It took me 112 days to read Harry Potter, so 4.48 pages per day. Harry Potter was much easier than this book, so let’s pull that number down to 3. So…69 days?
I suppose if a benchmark is helpful that’s definitely one! But if you finish the first chapter of this today you’ll already be blowing 2020 me out of the water.
I read Harry Potter last month, which was pretty challenging for me. After looking at the first few pages of this book, I was like nope, you’re not there yet. I guess I will be reading everyone’s comments in the meantime.
That’s a pretty long time to be honest, I’m going to aim for like less than 3 weeks lol.
On that note, how long would it take you to read this book right now comfortably? You said you could binge it, makes me think it’s a matter of a day or two haha.
That depends on time and enthusiasm really. I made that joke because the last book club book, おいしいごはんが食べられますように | L29, I read in one day. I had the day off work so I basically lounged around reading most of the day. That book is much easier than this one though, but my enthusiasm for this one is also high. I suppose if I had equal free time it would take me 2-3 days, but sadly it is no longer the holidays and I have commitments on my time
Well there you go, I have a long way to go haha. That’s some great reading speed though, I’d be happy with it for sure.
Also is this book really that much harder? I kind of just joined this reading on a whim, I didn’t even read the summary for the book lol. Guess I got myself into something pretty hard, but if it’s interesting I’ll read anything!
My reading speed feels so slow compared to English I read a ~125 page English book during the holidays as well and it just took an evening. Like a lil bit before and a lil while after dinner. It will take me a lonnnngggg time to reach that speed in Japanese.
As for difficulty - it’s all relative. This is harder than Harry Potter (a children’s book, but extensive vocab and various different speech styles). I feel it’s easier then 半落ち (another current book club book). I think it’s harder than おいしいごはん. Easier than a book I read in December called 黄金仮面. 黄金仮面 and 半落ち are both easier than an essay I read called 愛と婚姻. And so on.
My only concern is whether you’ll be getting more enjoyment than frustration out of the book.
I finished chapter 2! Ahh I’m enjoying this. Last line was great. Also re: the sex scene
This has got to be the most unnerving way I’ve read a kiss described:
彼女の薄い頰の皮膚に内側から触れると、そのしっとりとした質感がまた僕を欲情させた
That bothered me too. I tried looking and it seems really uncommon. I did find an author (whos books have pretty poor ratings so gonna skip linking them here as that feels mean spirited) with that name born in the 60s, though. Maybe it’s an older fashioned name?
It’s late where I’m at so not sure if I’ll read on more tonight or not. I also have 2 upcoming book club assignments
It’s a bit conflicting, reading it isn’t an issue, it’s the fact that I don’t understand it all and picking apart most sentences is annoying. I guess if I didn’t need to search these things up as much, a chapter a day would be a bit easier, but I guess right now I’m just not willing to spend all my free time doing that.
It’s looking like I’ll save the end of the 1st chapter for tomorrow unfortunately. I ended up being busy tonight, where I thought I’d finish it up, completely forgot the day of the week lol.
For enjoyment, well it’d be a bit early to judge it this early, but it isn’t boring me so that’s a good sign.
This is a hard book to read as your first book in Japanese, and taking into account that it’s two volumes, a rather long one. If I was just starting out I wouldn’t worry how long it would take me to finish it (I still don’t), I’d just try and enjoy the ride and get the most out of it. If time is a concern to you though, you might be better off choosing an easier, or shorter book to start off. On the other hand, the only way to build reading speed is to read a lot, and reading something interesting beats reading something easy any day. If you’re willing to battle through it, you’re very welcome to ask any questions you like here. That’s what a book club is for: sharing thoughts on the story, but also helping each other out.
) and he was really frazzled because he had no experience with this happening.
Maybe I’ll have time tonight, I could totally binge this and it’s only 154 pages on my iPad (おいしいごはん was just about 100).
I guess I will be reading everyone’s comments in the meantime.
I read a ~125 page English book during the holidays as well and it just took an evening. Like a lil bit before and a lil while after dinner. It will take me a lonnnngggg time to reach that speed in Japanese.
