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Spoiler Courtesy
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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 (psychiatrist for 姉)
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?
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I like this word chromosome in Japanese - 染色体. I didn’t get it at first but then realised it’s very similar to the English word chromosome. Chromo - as in colour, soma as in body. Bodies which take up stain and can be seen under a microscope. It’s fascinating when a modern word like this is represented in kanji expressing the same concept, rather than in katakana as a loan word.
the yellow juice splattered forcefully on the knife blade, board and on her fingers as if it were a living thing?and the skin made a regular pattern, as if it were human epithelium under a microscope
And later as the globs of disintegrating grapefruit slip down 姉’s throat…
The words 陣痛 is interesting. Meaning labour pains. That first kanji usually means army camp. I asked chat GPT about the origin of the word and this is the answer I got:
Summary
The Japanese word 陣痛 (jintsū) refers to “labor pain” or “contraction pain” experienced during childbirth. It is composed of two kanji characters:
陣 (jin): This character means “battle formation” or “camp,” but in the context of childbirth, it metaphorically refers to the “labor” or “battle” of childbirth, suggesting a strenuous, difficult process.
痛 (tsū): This character means “pain” or “ache.”
Together, 陣痛 literally translates to “pain of the battle” or “pain of labor,” signifying the intense pain and effort involved in childbirth. The term plays on the metaphor of childbirth being a “battle” or a “struggle” that women go through.
The word is relatively modern, and its use can be traced back to the development of medical terminology in Japan during the Edo period and Meiji era, when Western medical terms and concepts began to influence the Japanese language.
So. I was pretty irritated to discover that the promotional blurb used everywhere this book is sold online was basically a big spoiler. Yes, it was very intriguing and it worked to get me interested in the book, but when I read this far and realized that it was the moment the whole story was building to, I was miffed. I’m very spoiler-averse so I usually take precautions, but I don’t usually expect a single-sentence blurb to contain the crux of a story! Dangit!!
I’ll be back with other observations as I reread this section. I’ve just been waiting this whole time to whine about this
I had something of a similar sentiment, except having read through to the end of the story, I think there is considerable ambiguity about whether there is poison in the jam, or what impact it will have. (And of course, the story ends with that unresolved). And so although the blurb does reveal a key plot element, I’m not sure that it is much of a spoiler. But I suspect that we will discuss more of that below. Meanwhile,
三十周
There are some creepy and definitely strange expressions in this week’s diary entry as the story takes an unsettling turn.
I found myself puzzled by 妹’s actions. At the end of the previous seek she remembers vividly being told about the dangers of American grapefruit, but then watches silently as her sister consumes the homemade jam
This week, she tries to very gently suggest to her sister that perhaps eating so much jam might make her feel unwell, maybe it is time to stop. But she is aware that her tepid warning isn’t really heard by her sister
私の声は、姉の舌がジャムを溶かすと雨の音に紛れてしまう。
She seems to have a grotesque and (mmm ‘unhealthy’) fascination with watching her sister digging in to the jam as if it were curry rice, and with her sister swelling before her eyes
And then in the concluding sentence of the chapter, she seems to be wanting to make sure that the grapefruit she is buying for her sister are American (ie containing the worrying fungicide PWH)
Incidentally, I’ve searched and haven’t been able to find any corroborating information on PWH and damaging effects in pregnancy. I am assuming that the author made this up, but perhaps there was concern about it in the 1980s. There are no published articles on dangers of grapefruit consumption in pregnancy. (There is a little bit of (not very strong) evidence that fruit like grapefruit may contain natural protective effects against environmental genetic toxins: Evidence of Some Natural Products with Antigenotoxic Effects. Part 1: Fruits and Polysaccharides - PubMed
interesting kanji
籐 (I don’t know the significance, but I was interested to see that this kanji overlaps in components with 藤, which is a level 22 one that I at least sometimes can remember)
匙 (interestingly, there is lots of reference to スプーン, but I only found one reference to 一匙 in the story. I think I have seen this before in cooking instructions, but only in kana eg 大さじ, and 小さじ)
She imagines that she were herself pregnant, and suggests that it isn’t something to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ about, even if the child had a large facial Haemangioma, or were missing a brain, or were conjoined twins…
妹 seems obsessed with the fungicide in the jam, and her previous ambivalence takes on a more malign air. The translucent golden jam, reminds her of a vial in a chemistry lab, and she imagines again, that steeped in this jam is a chemical that will destroy the chromosomes of the unborn fetus. In the next sentence, she grabs the pot by the handles and tells her sister to ‘eat up.
Interesting word and expression
沈殿
つわりの間の不快な時間の沈澱を、勢いよく洗い流しているかのようだ。
?It was as if the dregs of our unhappy time with morning sickness had been washed clean away.
Incidentally, [bit of possibly unnecessary medical fact-checking]
姉 has gained 13 kg during pregnancy. Her textbook says that she should gain only 6 kilos. Actually, that seems (to modern eyes) like an abnormally small weight gain. There are modern recommendations that include a ‘normal’ weight gain through pregnancy of 12-18 kg if underweight (as it sounds as though 姉 was before). See https://www.thewomens.org.au/health-information/pregnancy-and-birth/a-healthy-pregnancy/weight-pregnancy. So she might still be OK (perhaps if she goes easy on the jam in the last trimester)
Also, I wasn’t really sure about the suggestion that 姉 would have a difficult birth because of 脂肪 in the 産道. (In case, anyone wants to know, (warning, medical details) there are increased rates of caesarean and assisted delivery with excessive weight gain in pregnancy. But that seems to be more associated with higher rates of diabetes, and with larger babies, rather than the suggested mechanism…)
Some interesting medical words
産道 (kanji are quite similar to the English birth canal
In these penultimate chapters, I thought it was interesting how Ogawa combines the uncertainty of the final stage of pregnancy with the heat of Japanese summer to create a stifling oppressive sense of foreboding.
And no matter how hot it is, 姉 keeps shovelling in the jam…
三十八周
And so we get to the final entry
What did others make of the conclusion? There is a nice symmetry to the concluding section
with a return to M病院, unchanged over a decade or more, with its incongruous mix of neatly clipped bright green lawn (presumably someone is watering it and mowing it in the heat of the Japanese summer), and the peeling sign and side gate hanging off one hinge. (Perhaps it is because it is set in the 1980s, but I was struck by the extraordinarily lax security that allows someone to walk up the fire exit and enter the newborn nursery…)
What do you think 妹 found in the 新生児室?
Kanji
剝 (interesting variant of 剥) - not easy to remember that the reading is は in 剥ぐand 剥げる but む in 剥く and 剥ける
釘 fairly common non JY kanji, but interesting to learning the reading
Wow, the last sentence felt really strong for me: わたしは、破壊された姉の赤ん坊に会うために、新生児室に向かって歩き出した。“破壊された姉の赤ん坊”, is she already considering the baby is “destroyed” because of the grapefruit jam? Is it a metaphor for something else? Whatever it was, it was definitely impactful! Really interesting beginning for this book so far.
This is the 4th book I’ve read/been reading with the IBC and the first one that isn’t a campy mystery. The writing style is so, so different. I love the challenge of working out all the metaphors! They’re kicking my butt tbh
Overall thoughts
Overall this story felt so… grim. In the first place I thought it was an interesting choice to tell the story of a pregnancy from the point of view of a person who’s detached from it, to the point that the prospective parents don’t even talk about it in front of her. Now that we’ve read it all the way through I think this was probably intentional to emphasize the unpleasantness of the pregnancy changes. The only time the narrative took even a mildly happy tone was when the sister’s morning sickness finally ends and they go through a comedic bit with throwing food around.
Grapefruit
The supposedly harmful grapefruit was interesting. I got the impression that the narrator began to see the “chromosome” as a kind of enemy that was hurting her fragile sister and was using the fruit to hurt it. Realistically any chemicals would also harm the sister, but with all the emphasis on chromosomes it seemed like the fetus was targeted specifically. What I couldn’t tell was if she really thought she could harm it or if that was just a comforting thought, that she could make all these scary changes go away with some jam. Either way, I loved the foreshadowing of getting that first fruit after an egg smashes over it!
Same for me. When 姉 complained so much about the pregnancy, as well as the child, followed by 妹s “eat up”, I thought maybe 妹 is trying to “help” the older sister? As in, she interprets the complains as a wish to loose the baby
Ending
I like open endings, and it felt really fitting for the story - but this also seems like the kind of story you can analyse forever if you want to I tried looking online for reviews or “explanations”, but I wouldn’t say that helped.
The way the family interacts, and how the pregnancy is depicted (especially from 姉) as not joyful is really jarring. But in a good way? It’s certainly interesting.
At the end, for a moment I thought the baby had died and 妹 had maybe killed herself to “go and meet the child she destroyed” but that is probably a bit much.
My overwhelming impression was that this story was about several things. First, it seemed to be highlighting (exaggerating, grotesque, caricatured ) how disquieting the transformation of pregnancy can be - both physical and mental, and for both the pregnant person, and those close to them. The alienness of those changes is I think often outweighed by excitement at the prospect of the forthcoming arrival. But it may not always be, and there doesn’t seem to be much excitement in this 3人 household. The second thread seemed to be a pervasive sense of ambivalence and unreality. 姉 appears to have a long-standing anxiety disorder, but in the story, her physical symptoms - nausea and then obsessive appetite, seem to displace all else. But as 妹 notes in one of the penultimate entries, it is hard for any of them to imagine the newcomer to the household. The baby is a theoretical prospect, but 妹 can’t imagine him/her being held by 義兄 or breast fed by 姉. Perhaps that is why 妹 finds herself transfixed by the image of the fetal chromosomes, and obsessed with the idea that the grapefruit jam is going to somehow destroy the baby. She can’t believe that the baby is going to arrive, which might be why she fantasises about the baby’s destruction or death.
I wondered whether 妹’s feelings are related to the ambivalence that very small children sometimes have at the prospect of a new baby brother or sister arriving. They may be deeply excited by the prospect but also fearful at the same time - worried that they will be displaced in their parents’ affections. And of course 姉 is the mother figure to 妹, albeit 妹 seems to be doing a lot of the mothering to her ailing older sister during pregnancy. (義兄 seems to be a very peripheral and ineffectual figure through this story).
I’m not sure what the grapefruit jam represents, whether it has a specific allegorical meaning, or whether it is just a vehicle for 妹’s mixed feelings and 姉’s anxiety.
A detail from this section that I forgot to mention
I can’t recall exactly what the Japanese was (I don’t have it on hand at the moment), but when 姉 expresses her fears about finally having the baby and not knowing what to do with it, and 妹 comforts her by saying something like, “Don’t worry about. Babies don’t do anything, they just sit around and make fists.” That image made me laugh and has stuck with me.
Overall
This is an interesting thought. Certainly I don’t think 妹 reads as being particularly sinister or malicious otherwise, so this would make sense. She doesn’t say so directly, but she clearly is very worried about her sister.
This is an interesting take too! I can see that.
I though it was significant that 姉 and 妹’s parents are mentioned only once in the entire story, in a brief sentence that flatly states they died one after the other. That conspicuous void shows some of the outlines of the sisters’ relationship.
The last sentence of the story was an impactful twist for me. Throughout the story we don’t hear 妹’s feelings about 姉 directly, but we do see on multiple occasions 姉 doing things that could be harmful for the baby/not in the baby’s best interest by Japanese standards sprinkled throughout. When she starts making the grapefruit jam (with the egg residue not even washed off yuck) and letting her sister eat it so much, I was expecting that while she’s clearly doing it intentionally that she’d try to make the excuse that her sister was the one not being careful in the first place, so really it’s the 姉’s fault. So her clearly stating in the end that 妹 feels she was the one who destroyed the baby after that lead up made it feel that much more sinister.
Also I see the description of 妹 breaking into the worn down hospital to be a parallel to 妹 “breaking into” 姉’s body and baby with the fungicide. Yes you could blame the hospital for not keeping up with maintenance but the 妹 was the one who chose to sneak herself in.
It is a couple of week’s late, but I found myself inexorably drawn to making some グレープフルーツジャム this weekend.
It’s not loquat sorbet, but I did feel like 姉 when I was trawling the shops looking for some bright yellow American grapefruit and nothing else was going to do…
None to be found, so I used some pink South African ones instead
I’ve tried my Google foo and found this website that deals with concerns regarding fungicides in general, but in some questions American oranges come up (only skimmed the questions, though). And these questions are from around 2015, fwiw.
三十二周
That’s what big sister says, actually. 妹 says that babies are just soft, make fists and cry, while 姉 responds with lots of horrible things that the baby could be affected with, and that there is no choice for her.
Maybe you took the wrong turn at わたしの中から出てきたら? That’s actually temporal “when” here, not hypothetical “if”.
To make sure to get the Japanese view on that as well, I searched for the information and found basically the same numbers, so yes, the author overdoes this a bit (although at the time of talking about it, 姉 still has a few weeks to go, so a word of warning was not wrong in my opinion). Here is a page (sorry, it’s a diaper brand’s page but I figured this is better than some obscure other page ) 妊娠中の体重増加について知っておきたいこと | パンパース
If you scroll down a bit, there is a table (the numbers in the middle column being the BMI):
I tried looking online for reviews or “explanations”, but I wouldn’t say that helped.
It’s certainly interesting.
) 
