🔆 光の帝国 👑 Week 2

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Welcome to :bright_button: 光の帝国 :crown: week 2

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Week Start Date Chapter Percentage 文庫 pages
Week 2 Aug 15 all of 二つの茶碗 and 達磨山への道 26% 37-78
Week 3 Aug 22 all of オセロ・ゲーム and 手紙 40% 79-118
Week 4 Aug 29 all of 光の帝国 53% 119-152
Week 5 Sept 5 all of 歴史の時間 and 草取り 67% 153-192
Week 6 Sept 12 read until sentence ending in ５分間を」ちょうだい。 82% 193-233
Week 7 Sept 19 finish 黒い塔 and 国道を降りて 96% 233-272

Discussion Rules

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  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
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I finished 茶碗 today during commute. Another excellent story albeit feeling totally different to the first one.

This time the power seems to be seeing the future. Or at least a possible future.
It’s a little eerie thinking about how much is predetermined and how much the people still have their own mind/will in this world. It sounded to me like she and her dad could “only” see a highly likely future, but not with 100% certainty. Though, I’m really interested on how others interpreted that part.
I did quite like the setup with the store and the interaction/story time between the proprietor lady and our two business guy protagonists.
I find it a little strange that her father needed to head back to 常野 and would have liked a little bit more information on why…
Another tidbit of information that made me smile a little is that our mystery origin place of power people is in 宮城県 :joy:.

I’ll probably finish the other story tomorrow during my commute back. Will write my thoughts about it then.

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Finished 達磨. While not necessarily bad I didn’t like this one as much as the first two. Especially since no 常野 person seems to be directly involved this time around.

It feels to me like the author was enamored with the 万葉集 poem and put a whole short story in the books setting around it :smiley:. It has a certain charm, and it feels to me like we could interpret a lot of things into the story. For example his lack of wanting to commit to a fixed relationship stemming from the experiences from his father and the suspected infidelity regarding his mother. In cosmic fate resulting in him loosing out in his love life.
But honestly speaking I couldn’t feel for the protagonist. He just reaped what he sowed. I think that was the biggest deterrent for me to thoroughly enjoy the story. The lacking empathic connection.
I also wasn’t a fan of the ending implying he will even lose his friendship over them starting to date. Come on, get over it. Be happy for them instead, it looks like they’d be a great little family!

But I am for sure interested in others thoughts on this story. I think each person can get different focus points out of this one.

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二つの茶碗

Not much to say for this one. Interesting that some 常野 mingle more with regular people. The first chapter, we had a husband and wife and kids all with apparently the same ability. If these abilities are hereditary, the parents might have been cousins or something. :sweat_smile:

達磨山への道

I actually liked this one! I thought the setup with the mountain climbing and learning more about what went on before and with his father throughout was nice as well.

I think we learned quite a lot about the 常野 through this outsiders’ perspective. Not only are they magical, but the place they live (that people apparently get lost into?!) also has some magical aspects; or maybe it’s like a rift in dimensions or something sci-fi like that. And some generations ago, regular people knew about the 常野; or at least protag’s grandfather did.

I also appreciated protag being such a heel right through the end. Losing his gf made him realize he did actually like her, but didn’t heal him of his character faults. Quite a bit more realistic imo. His contemplating what he might do to their future daughter, on the other hand, was quite ominous. Let’s hope he actually works on himself in the meantime.

5

:scream:

Glad to read another perspective on the mountain story. :clap:

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二つの茶碗

…Huh. now that I type that title out, I realize I should probably keep that second cup in mind; I admit I didn’t think much when the narrator bright it up at the end of the story. :thinking:

Anyhow, not a bad little story. The 常野 characters felt pretty peripheral, but I can only assume it’s setup for some later events. I wonder why in the world the dad was so busy he left his elementary-age daughter and (it sounded like) never really saw her again, except for presumably for her engagement and marriage?

Makes me wonder if 常野 is in some sort of/preparing for some sort of crisis, what with the family from the first story also moving around quite a bit. Could be unrelated, we’ll see.

Do we know for certain that the dad could see the future as well? I thought it was just the daughter.

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1st story

I enjoyed this story but it was somewhat forgettable for me. I kind of guessed what was going to happen at every step and so when I came here to write this post I had to read what you all said to even remind myself what it was about :sweat_smile: Lightly charming, but not my style ultimately.

2nd story

I quite enjoyed this one. Our MC feels like something of a selfish and self-centered person who is getting a face slap awakening - quite fun! I also found the backstory on this magical place interesting as it opens up more possibilities of a fantastical land that regular people can wander into.

I took that line as him assuming he’ll one day meet her, and then what is he supposed to do? Like he’s placing importance on the vision meaning there will be some important event, like when his mom got into an accident. I certainly hope he’s not planning anything ill intentioned!

I liked the ending because it was so dramatic and I’ve known people like that, haha. ‘OH WOE HOW CAN I POSSIBLY BE FRIENDS WITH THEM NOW!’ :rofl: When I was ~16 my crush started dating one of my best friends and it hurt but I rolled with it and stayed friends with both. But I think because I had to swallow my pain and jealousy in a similar situation, I relate to it a bit more?

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reply 達磨山

I’d prefer that version as well! Not the daughter’s fault, after all. (Not that it’s anyone but his, but still.) I’ll have a quick re read when I’m back home over the weekend. :slight_smile:

reply 二つの茶碗

There was a part about how they found the shop to begin with. I’m unsure if the sign of the shop appeared in his dreams, and then his daughter had a waking vision when they got there, or if they were following his daughter’s vision from the beginning. Cannot check the book at the moment. :thinking:

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I remember a scene where they arrive at the shop and she looks into her father’s eyes and says she can see a person in these eyes. And then she says she only understood later what it means. I took that to mean the father can also see the future. It wasn’t made as clear as with her for sure.

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達磨山への道

Wow, what a wonderful story. :open_mouth: I really felt immersed in climbing the mountain with them; the wind and the 熊笹 being the only thing you can hear as you climb and climb… It was so interesting to see 常野 interpreted here as (if I’m not mistaken) a clan/large family of people instead of the country that’s seemed to be hinted at so far.

I was wondering at first if 泰彦’s father might’ve been 常野 himself or a descendant of one, and his trip to the mountain was more of a family tradition type thing, but as the details came to light, it seemed pretty clear that wasn’t the case. He had returned with his son in an attempt to see that shard of the future one more time… I wonder if you need two people there for some reason for it to work? 泰彦 questioned why his father brought him at all last time, and every time someone’s seen something, there were two people there. (We only have a sample size of two, granted.) Also very possible he wanted to pass the knowledge of the mountain onto his son as well. :thinking:

I’m not all that familiar with the 万葉集, so I’m afraid possible intended meanings of his father poring over it and other collections of poetry goes over my head. Glancing at the Wikipedia article for it, I see

The Man’yōshū comprises more than 4,500 waka poems in 20 volumes, and is broadly divided into three genres: Zoka, songs at banquets and trips; Somonka, songs about love between men and women; and Banka, songs to mourn the death of people.

Which stands out to me as a potential mirror of the life journeys both father and son take here. The poem we’re given I had to look up as well. I didn’t realize it was from the 万葉集 at first and was really wondering if I was tired enough that standard Japanese was becoming incomprehensible to me. :rofl:

ささの葉はみ山もさやにさやげどもわれは妹思ふ別れ来ぬれば

A breakdown in modern language is given here:

笹の葉は、この山にさやさやと（心乱せというように）風に吹かれて音を立てているけれど、私は妻のことを一筋に思っています。別れてきてしまったので。

Which yeah, seems pretty legit for both father and son, so a great pick here.

Regarding the ending… I was wondering as I read if he was going to consider murdering his friend to avoid the glimpsed future, and if he did so what would happen. (Given 泰彦’s personality, it didn’t seem entirely unreasonable.) If this is the kind of future vision where it’s already set in stone, that could mean 克也 and 藍子 have already gotten together at this point, unbeknownst to 泰彦。 After fully finishing the story though, I think I’m leaning more on the side of suicide. Or perhaps… If we consider that 泰彦 only cites part of the poem, specifically

さの葉はみ山もさやにさやげども

at the end and then says he can no longer hear anything, perhaps it’s not an indication of suicide, but of his acceptance of the future he guesses at. :thinking:

Anyway, great to read others’ thoughts on this story; there was a lot to dig into, and it’s always so much fun to see what stood out to others.

11

OK maybe y’all knew this already, but I came across this the other day: 常野物語 - Wikipedia (TLDR: It’s a series :rofl:)

二つの茶碗

This was a truly magical story, like a fairy tale. I also liked her background story a lot, with the father showing up with her one day at the restaurant, and being hired on the spot, no questions asked! Imagine how this would be nowadays… :rofl: Sometimes I think it’s a bit sad that now everything is so regulated and that these kinds of miracles are now impossible…
(now don’t get me wrong, I think many of the modern rules do make a lot of sense :rofl:)

達磨山

Another very interesting story. I thought it was quite gruesome that the father’s friend got run over while taking a walk (trying to elope?) with his wife.
When he met the girl, I was sure she resembled his ex-girlfriend, so my first assumption was that she was pregnant, and when he didn’t reassure her of his love, she decided to leave. But the twist with the name was also an interesting one. I like a lot how 恩田陸 weaves these discoveries into the story so casually; just because the friend walked ahead, and because his backpack bounced, and because he had written his initials on it… It all gets a really nice an natural flow.
For his contemplations about the girl, I also took that to mean that he’s wondering how to behave once he meets her, not what he should do to her. And for his character, I think realizing that he loves his ex is already a change for the better… so there is a chance he can learn from it.

12

Yeah, I was aware it was a series but figured since this was all short stories it would be fine as a one shot book club. Not likely to be any major cliff hangers :crossed_fingers:

Her writing style is just so satisfying. I think I’ve only read one book by her I didn’t like and iirc it was her debut and sometimes authors need time to find their style.

13

I might be confused since it is a while ago that I read it but I interpreted the eyewitness testimonies as them having some kind of physical argument before the accident happened. Could totally be that that is not the case which would change the scene. I should probably reread that part when I have some time.

Yeah I found that out while looking for buy options for it. Wrote about it in the home thread even

14

Ah I think I forgot that in the meantime :woman_facepalming: Might need to reread as well…
It seems your memory is much better than mine, no matter the book :sweat_smile:

See? :rofl:

Oh yes absolutely - I was more thinking that maybe some people like it enough to continue. :grin:

15

I read this thread again today because I wanted to refresh my memory, when I remembered something on reading this sentence. One of my Japanese language partners told me that another German language partner of hers had celebrated his 50th birthday and threw a big party for it, and that his ex-girlfriend (of long long ago) attended the party as well (he is married now). I think she told me about it because she wanted to test my reaction on this - I told her that I don’t think it’s super common in Germany but still perfectly normal. She was surprised and said that in Japan it’s outright unthinkable to meet again with your ex, let alone expose your current partner to your ex… so with that in mind, it would rather be the „normal thing“ to lose your friend if they start dating your ex?