Welcome to the Week 3 
国宝 (上) Book Club !
Start Date: 2025-11-28T15:00:00Z
国宝 (上) Reading Book Home Thread
| Week | Start Date | Pages | No. of Pages | % | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 2 | November 21 | 48–86 | 39 pages | 21% | Ch 2 |
| Week 3 | November 29 | 87–126 | 40 pages | 30% | Ch 3 |
| Week 4 | December 6 | 127–167 | 41 pages | 40% | Ch 4 |
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Once again a great chapter!
I found out that 国宝 was first released monthly in the journal, hence all the cliffhangers 
After 長崎弁, now’s the time to brush up our 関西弁 haha! Jitendex does a decent job for 関西弁, but I’d recommend getting 全国方言辞典 as well.
Edit: When re-reading my notes, I noticed that some small things happening in this chapter had a huge influence on some volume 2/下 events, so it made me appreciate this chapter even more 
The universal experience of 巣立ち. 
列車のなかでは、ガラス窓に顔をつけました喜久雄が、遠ざかっていくマツや組員たちに最後の最後まで手を振っております。ついさっきまで、生まれ育った長崎の町を離れることに何の感慨もなかったくせに、背後に遠ざかる駅舎が物悲しく映るのか、なぜか目頭が熱くなってくる喜久雄でございます。
喜久雄は自分がこのまま泣くのだろうと、額を冷たいガラス窓に押しつけますが、気分というのは天邪鬼あまのじやくなものでして、泣く準備をしたとたんに白けてまいります。
I found it moving that even if 半二郎 gives a lot of importance to acting, he also understood that acting isn’t all there is to life.
実は、明治三十七年生まれの花井半二郎自身は、「役者に学問なんか必要おまっかいな。そんなヒマあったら、一つでも二つでも先輩の狂言、見といたほうが身のためや」という先代の教育方針から尋常小学校さえまともに出ておりませんから、その反動と申しますか、そのために世間から受けた悔しさや惨めさを、四十なかばにしてやっとできました息子の俊介には負わせたくないと、教育に対しましては同年輩の他の役者の誰よりも熱心なのでございます。
That also explains the crazy consistency in the chapter lengths!
That explains a lot ! Including the chapter’s last sentence !
For me, all the dialectal parts (while hard at first) are a major appeal of this book. It’s clearly not something you read everyday, and I find it’s a breath of fresh air. Maybe by the end of the book we should run a poll to see which one every one prefers !
(by the way, if you use bilingual dictionaries, 研究社新和英大辞典 has more in depth explanations for the more obscure expressions. Now, I’ll go looking for 全国方言辞典)
I really enjoyed this week’s chapter. There are too many good parts to quote them all, but :
and on the whole the great hustle and bustle of 花井半二郎’s household
The only slightly less good part in my opinion is the quite obvious way 喜久雄 and 俊介 are set up as rivals. Though I guess that this obvious setup will get turned around
ha, don’t spoil 
!
I liked this chapter too! I’m starting to get hooked into the book ^^ I’m considering trying to read it faster than the book club to be able to go see the movie…
Chapter 1 was quite tiring, with the lack of context, lots of proper nouns (mostly without furigana how dare you) and trying to keep track of who’s who and who did what before the war. But afterwards, the difficulty got more normal… if you ignore the hougen and keigo narration. And there are still lots of furigana-less proper nouns, but I’m happy when I know some of the place names, and I kinda ignore the rest.
I’m also grateful that I’m already somewhat familiar with those dialects from reading other books (and watching manzai/spending time in Osaka, although modern kansai ben that I’ve heard isn’t quite as thick as what you see in books) (but when I went there and heard someone saying “わからへん” for the first time I was like omg they actually do speak like that!!) (also when I spent a couple of weeks in 熊本 I was like wth is this "けん” they end their sentences with).
