Yes it is ! I live nearby.
3 hours is…. Longish, on the other hand, it’s cold outside !
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Week 6 thread is up !
(I’ve had a rough 2 weeks at work, but things have calmed down and I intend to post more now 
)
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Week 7 is now up .
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The thread for week 8 is up.
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I finally watched the movie, on a snowy day! 
It’s a pretty movie, but it’s really mid compared to the novel.
It’s basically a trailer for the novel, I’m not exaggerating when I say that 70% of the story has been totally skipped 
So, I would honestly not recommend watching without reading the book first.
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And yet it’s still 3 hours long…?
I guess the book does pack a lot of story. I saw a review that said that the movie felt more like a bunch of disconnected scenes than a single narrative, and I thought yeah, that’s what the book is like. But if they also skipped most of the book then I can understand how it would feel even more that way.
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That’s exactly what it felt like for 3 hours
I mean the book is 800 pages+ and is mainly told through narration and not conversations. Honestly, everything I loved about the book wasn’t in the movie. For example, Tokuji is shown only once in the movie
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And the thread for Week 9 is now up.
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And finally, our last week. Thank you to all of you who read this book, either with the schedule, or at your own pace !
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Thanks for hosting!! I liked the book
Btw, could you add the weekly thread links to the Schedule table at the top?
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To all the people that managed to read through the book at roughly the advanced book club pace, what level in natively would you roughly rate the book at?
I’m just interested since it was at the limit of my ability (judging from me doing week 1) and would have felt more like work than enjoyment at the advanced book clubs pace.
It might be a good indicator to inform my next few purchases to pick books around levels that are challenging but still enjoyable for me.
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I’m not yet finished, but I would say it is about L40 if not higher.
E.g. 薬屋のひとりごと is L39, but it feels more comfortable to me, albeit also difficult. And it is definitely much more difficult that 香君 or 六人の嘘つきな大学生, both of which are L36
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I would put it around 38-40, but at the lower range. For example, the club started 2025 with 風立ちぬ, and that felt much harder to me. Natively also has 人間失格 at 40, and I remember really struggling with that (a while ago, though).
The main difficulty, IMHO, is the specialized vocabulary. The dialectal parts repeat a lot, and you get used to the flow…. I would say, on the whole, harder than your average thriller, easier than classical literature.
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I totally agree with Magyarapointe, the first chapter is daunting but as soon as you’re past it, it becomes more and more manageable.
Which makes sense since it delves into specialized territory (昭和+ヤクザ+歌舞伎) that most of us are ignorant about. So it’s clearly the 専門用語 and context that threw us off.
His other books are written in a similar style (looong sentences lmao), but none of them were nearly as hard as this one. So imo If you look each of these themes up, it’ll make reading it way easier! (it worked for me, so maybe it’ll work for you)
Just try reading what you want to read no matter what Natively says! 
If it’s too hard, you can always come back to it later #積読 
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That’s what I’m doing. I just don’t want to buy 5 books and have to shelf all of them. My next haul will probably contain a version of こころ for example because I’m interested in it. I prefer physical books over e.g. Aozora.
I also prefer to ramp up gently instead of running against a wall. That’s why I stopped 国宝. It’s not like I’ll never read it, just that it did feel too hard at the book club pace at the moment.
It’s not like I’m starved for stuff I’m interested in reading at my level you know. It’s more about maximizing my enjoyment of it. A little challange is also welcome, and natively helps to judge books roughly before buying them without having to read 10 pages for all of the ones I’m interested in, which is a ton.
It felt like 国宝 was a nice mark of: choose something around there but probably not much harder for my reading enjoyment. (Lower If interesting is always possible)
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Is anyone reading book 2? I’m halfway through it and getting a bit sick of kabuki tbh 
I hope the book picks up the pace again.
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I finished part 2! It did get more interesting, and I quite liked the ending. Towards the end, the book gets quite over the top when describing Kikuo’s acting. I have trouble imagining how any sort of acting could entrance people like that. And can the audience really see the intricate layers of emotions in his eyes from the back of the room?? Maybe I should try and go watch some actual kabuki after reading 800 pages about the damn thing.
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I am reading book 2 now and totally understand. 
I was very engaged at the beginning when 喜久雄 was struggling with his career and 俊介s comeback, but then the pace slowed down again once they both hit their stride with their careers and there are so many descriptions of their acting 
still going to push through and finish as I am seeing the movie soon, though
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Yess that’s exactly it. And then he played this. And then he played that… But it does get better afterwards.
@Magyarapointe fyi there will be a demo of kabuki onnagata in Paris in April! This is actually a European tour and will also take place in Rome and Cologne if anybody lives there!
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