Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!
Spoiler Courtesy
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
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This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
Proper Nouns
Name
Hiragana reading
Notes
Kindle location first mentioned
小川 洋子
おがわようこ
the author
cover
二階堂
にかいどう
doctor (?family doctor for the main character)
22
Discussion questions
What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
Did you spot any interesting kanji this week?
Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?
Participation
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I enjoyed the image of 妹 ‘playing house’ while cooking her meals out in the garden as the dusk falls and the stars come out. And then this wonderfully vivid image of her wrapped in the smell of cooking food, staring up at her sister’s room, swallowing mouthfuls of darkness along with her stew
I liked this one too and had it highlighted to discuss. I agree it could be a lonely image but she seems to be having fun. There’s a nice outdoors/camping vibe to this scene. It can often be fun when life disrupts your normal rhythm and you end up doing something like having to cook in the garden.
I noticed that the chapters often finish with with quite a profound image like this.
噴水式の歯ブラシ
I had no idea what this was referring to. I found things for sale on the internet called water flossers in English, that work like the picture below. I think I would still like to brush my teeth with toothpaste!
Thanks for sharing this, I’d got the gist from the story but that adds a lot more detail.
You picked out the same one as me again! Love the idea of puppies popping out of their mother as easily as peas popping out of a pod!
十九週
So my internal connection of our narrator to the コンビニ人間 main character continues. Now she is in a supermarket, following the manual and making sure she says what the company tells her to say!
Lots of words I liked in this section and picked out to go back to:
野菜の切り屑
Like this word for scraps
文句
Glad I looked this one up, couldn’t get the sentence to make sense with its normal meaning “complaint”. There is a second meaning - phrase, words, expression
縮れ毛
I couldn’t guess the meaning of this one - it’s a nice word meaning curly hair, kinky hair, frizzy hair
I think this is one of my favourite sections so far.
The image of 妹 and 義兄 trying to reason with 姉’s sudden craving for loquat sorbet was hilarious - and 妹 could obviously see the funny side of the three of them vainly heading out in the rain in search of the mythical sherbet.
Thanks for that link! Super interesting! The tiny bamboo basket for putting on the head of the dog-shaped sake bottle…
十九週
I quite enjoyed this section, and also I’m trying to puzzle why the author chose to devote so much space to it, since it doesn’t appear to move the plot forward. The whole environment and all sorts of tiny actions are described in minute detail.
For me, it’s effective as a breath of fresh air after so many sections cooped up in that claustrophic house, and it gives me a little more insight into what kind of person 妹 is. She scrutinizes the things and people around her, but neutrally, without malice. She follows the script of her work to a T and does a good job, while also not caring about the work one speck more than she is required to.
Curious to hear what other folks think about the purpose of this section.
二十一週
I was so relieved when 姉’s つわり finally came to an end!
I even enjoyed her sort of rude, sort of desperate response to 妹:
「お願いだから、その甘ったるいおもちゃみたいな〝コロワッサン〟という言葉は、もう口にしないでほしいの」
What a great phrase
I also got a kick out of the way that 妹 doesn’t just say, “No, we don’t have anything in the pantry,” but instead she list of motley items they have, and also hides the two remaining croissants.
二十三週
There’s something particularly apt about the fact that 姉 is obsessed with a food that 妹 isn’t even sure exists. Biwa sherbert sounds really tasty, though!
Super useful, thanks for sharing! I was really lost trying to imagine the objects just by reading the description.
十九週
I think it was an important section to deepen 妹’s character. We see her interactions at home with the older sister, but this also shows us how she sees others and gives a new depth to her character. I liked the choice of her working with food - perhaps this gives some insight to why she compares so many things with food descriptions or why she observes certain details (such as the tongue and way of eating of the elderly lady). I am not sure how this section may move the plot forward, but I believe that the climax of the story will be strongly connected to food, and it might be that details introduced in this section will appear later on.
Cheek is a tricky word in Japanese. It’s not a WaniKani kanji but it seems to be coming up a lot in this book. I realised one of the reasons it’s tricky is because there are two kanji that can be used to show it - 頬 and 頰.
In fact the physical book is using 頰 and the digital version is using 頬 for this book!
Here’s an example - first picture is Bookwalker edition, second is physical edition (with the same front cover):
Nice find! Also interesting to see them using a separate inline image to render the character in the eBook. I’ve noticed they sometimes do that for 叱・𠮟 as well.
Mmm, your blown up examples were helpful. With small font and my eyesight those two look identical. (peering squinting over glasses at computer screen from 10cm away…)
I also found it interesting in the audiobook it’s read ほほ (instead of ほお), which reminded me of the word to smile, and it turns out this kanji is a variant of 微笑む:
Just to add, I think these are two different kanji, rather than the same kanji rendered differently in different fonts. That’s based on my dictionary showing this:
My copy of Kodansha kanji learners course listed them together, the one in print as the traditional form and the other as the simplified/ standardised form.
The kyūjitai form 頰 was added to the Jōyō kanji list in 2010. This character form remains in common use.
As far as I know, sometimes Kanji variants are in a different unicode code point, but sometimes not even in a standard font and needed to be displayed as an image. Sometimes a code point and a font can have multiple variants depending on the language tag.
That being said, it’s probably also dependent on encoding.
Well that perhaps makes sense - the traditional form for the print version and the simplified/variant form for the more modern digital version!
Thanks, I didn’t know this word kyūjitai. That’s an interesting concept to consider - whether two kanji that look different are different forms of the same kanji, or are they different kanji! 旧字体 and 異体字 seem useful language for describing variants.
This sentence stumped me, “What do you mean your feet are blurry?” But apparently ぼやける can be used with feelings too, not just physical things, and this particular sentence is a contrastive one, with ぼやける marking the unclear element and くっきり marking the clear element.
That’s interesting that it can be used for feelings as well. I wonder here if it is referring to the physical though, rather than to feelings. She is sat outside in the darkness, and I think it could be read that her own hands and feet appeared dim or blurry due to the low light. In contrast the crape myrtle, bricks of the flower bed and the twinkling stars stand out clearly.
