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 (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?
Participation
Will you be reading along with us this week?
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I have finished this part
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0voters
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We are on to a new story. Heads up - I found the beginning of this story very confusing (I’m hoping it makes more sense when I re-read it). But hang in there - it gets easier.
Thanks for that. I read the first half today and was getting a bit despondent in that section, it was good to have your heads up. Does get much better after that initial page or so, back to the same difficulty level as the previous story.
Just past half way though this week (42% on bookwalker):
それから共同バズも、毎日は沸かすことはできません。
I was stuck trying to understand why they were unable to boil the communal bus every day - until I realised バス can also mean bath!
lots of tricky words here, but a striking image
incidentally, シャーレ (Petri dish), comes from Schale - German for shallow bowl
and the final attempt at finding an analogy
冬の噴水の底に沈んだコインが一粒の水しぶきとぶつかった時つぶやく音、メリーゴーランドから降りた後耳の奥にあるかたつむり管の中でリンパ液が震える音、恋人からの電話が切れた後受話器を握った掌の中を真夜中が通り過ぎてゆく音……。
I’m left thinking that it is a kind of creepy tinnitus…
I also found this section hard work. I came away with the same impression - that the context of a “sound” had been introduced, but the significance/nature of that sound is yet to be revealed.
Even though I found this section hard, I also really enjoyed the language and analogies. The sections you picked out were the ones that really struck me as well - especially the one about the fluid moving in the cochlea after getting off the merry go round.
Also - I love that there are two spellings for the word ドミトリイ in my dictionary, and neither of them are the same as the one in the book!
Whoooa, what a crazy dreamy intro after all the immediate physicality of 妊娠カレンダー!
I enjoyed how this section was basically like: I’ve been experiencing this strange sound, it’s sort of like this or that except not actually, it’s like all these other things that are sort of not sounds, definitely not sounds, not even remotely like sounds, ANYWAY
I’ve only just started the いとこ section, but I like that it started with the same convention–“verb phrase stated as if we’re already aware of this thing even though we’re not, was at such-and-such timing.”
It is partly a function of Japanese grammar (with the key clause at the end of the sentence), but there is a long list of features in the job advertisements that I thought were associated with the dormitory (and didn’t fit with what we had been told about it) - only at the end there is the qualification that the dormitory has a phone-number only listing.
(It reminded me of the long list of memorable features of 二階堂先生 in the first story (none of which he actually had)).
There is a very strange description by the sensei, that I still find pretty baffling
What I have to explain to you is the exterior, like the skull. But the essence of the problem is hidden within, underneath the cerebrum, cerebellum and pineal gland.
I’m not sure if I am reassured or not to see that the narrator also finds this explanation impossible to understand
Interesting words
賄い (I have encountered this in the title of the Netflix series, but in kana, not in kanji)
御用聞き (took me a while to work out that this refers to door to door businesses
頭蓋骨
Thank you so much for the subdivision of the chapter - it really made my reading go smoother!
先生の電話
The whole skull section was completely baffling for me as well. What I understood for it was mostly the “hidden within” part, which I assume means that the real issue with the dormitory is something implicit that he didn’t mention to the narrator
嵐
It seems the theme of this story is related to ‘sound’, while the first story was ‘taste’. The descriptions are also quite vivid in this section, though perhaps less abstract than in 音について, as we know that she is talking about an actual 嵐.
One thing that caught my attention about the narrator’s personality in this part was her passivity towards the concept of moving to Sweden - she mentions it as a very abstract concept, but shows no interest in learning more about the place/culture, nor looks forward to going there. A thought that ran through my mind: perhaps the whole section regarding the storm represents her actual emotional turmoil on embarking on an unknown journey to another land?
I thought this was a deliberate trick of the prose. I felt like we were supposed to think it was describing his old student residence - and be wowed by how amazing it sounded. I was certainly sucked in - especially the sound proof piano room!
And then the twist - this was not his old residence. His old residence just gets a name and a phone number. I found this part quite funny, I hope it was intended that way.
We might do the same in English. “What can I say about my colleague? Intelligent, funny, erudite, generous - these are all words that have never been used to describe him…”
Does this help? The things he’s just been describing are really only superficial stuff, like the skull on the outside of the brain. The true essence is the deep stuff, the really deep stuff. The cerebellum, cerebrum and pineal gland are deep, but the medulla is really deep, the core of the brain.
Interesting theory!
I don’t know what the meaning of the storm is, but I was reminded of some of the way that the weather was described in the first story, with wintry weather outside the windows contrasting or complementing the strange psychological microclimate inside the 三人 household
Re, the brain parts bit,
New life goal: grow up to be a kindly but weird old person who occasionally alarms and confuses people with statements like this.
I didn’t know the word 漂う before I started reading this book, but with four appearances in the last story and two more already in this one, it feels like an old friend.
I’m enjoying this new story~ I knew absolutely nothing about it besides the title before starting, and I mean I still can’t say I really know what the story’s about. I understand what’s happening, but have no idea what to expect… I think I’m used to reading stories with very defined goals. Reading something where you just move from one scene to the next is almost disorienting in a way.
In any case, I quite like the descriptions, especially of いとこ. He sounds cute~ I love the descriptions of his smile. It made me smile to see the main character helping him settling into life in Tokyo, the budget shopping, all that. I sure do hope no harm comes to him in this sketchy sounding dorm. Narrator, I am begging you, protect this man.
It showed up as a new word in one of my anki decks like a couple days before we read it in 妊娠カレンダー! I love it when that happens, I’ve actually been seeing my N1 vocab all over the place in this book. This chapter I was so excited to see 名残 (remnant), just learned it last week.
Oooo this motivates me to finally start with the N1 tango book I’ve got in Anki! I stopped bothering with JLPT vocab once I passed the N2 a year and a half ago but it sounds like it might be useful to pick up the habit again
13 short stories, so easy to dip in and out of, and also written by an Akutagawa prize winner!