小川未明童話集 - Ogawa Mimei’s Collection of Children’s Stories (Beginner Book Club)

No problemo! :slight_smile:

I in the end still didn’t manage to finish reading the Golden Wheel and populating the sheet even though I planned to, whoops!

We’ll take a break wherever you think is best :smiley:

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Hello and welcome to week 6!

This week, we will tackle a very short story (even shorter than the shortest ones we started with), and because we should have some Ogawa Mimei skillz under our belts by now, I thought we could start another (longer) story this week as well! I checked that story and I think I found a nice breakpoint. Please check out the OP or the week’s thread where I added the exact line at which we will stop this week.

Also please make sure to clearly indicate in the discussions which story your question or comment refers to!

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Hello all,

there has been a little bit of discussion in the Week 6 thread which could lead to some adjustments in our schedule, and I would like to find out what is best for everyone.

The issue is that this week we are reading a full story and a small bit of another story, which makes for a bit of a weird experience. Of course, we cannot fix this issue for this week any more, but in the schedule we have three weeks (wek 9 - 11) where we plan to read two stories like this:

week 9: start of first story
week 10: end of first story + start of second story
week 11: end of second story

Those two stories are 14 and 15 pages, respectively, therefore I did not want to read them in a single week. But this week showed us that spreading a story over multiple weeks’ threads is a bit awkward, and touching upon two stories in one week (and thus discussing two stories in one thread) is also awkward.

Before I present some ideas on how to mitigate this, here is some background information:

  1. There are a lot of Ogawa Mimei story compilations, and I’ve selected one of them (the ebook that is available on Bookwalker). The physical books are different compilations, therefore some stories are missing in them (but luckily they can be found on Aozora).
  2. We are not reading the stories according to the ordering in any of the books. Instead, I ordered the stories such that the number of pages per week would be low at first and increase over time.
  3. Because of 2. I think that reordering the current schedule should not matter at all (it’s random anyway and not following the editor’s arrangement).
  4. We are not reading all of the stories in the ebook because the schedule would have become too long (and thus the people who didn’t read with us or dropped out would have to wait too long until the next book starts).
  5. I decided to not include 5 stories from the ebook into this book club. One of those stories is not available anywhere else (not even on Aozora :thinking:) for reasons unbeknownst to me, so I’d like to exclude it altogether because it is so inaccessible. Still, there are 4 stories left. (Their lenghts are 7, 8, 8, and 12 pages). Those stories are not available in either of the physical books, only in the ebook and on Aozora. (That’s why I excluded them in the first place.)
  6. There are two more ebook compilations available as it’s a three-volume series. (I’m speculating that those three volumes cover all Ogawa Mimei stories, but I haven’t checked yet.) I was thinking if a bunch of people are interested, we could form a spin-off book club where we finish the first volume and then maybe even tackle the two other volumes until we run out of steam :blush: (Of course we should only decide this near the end of the current club. I’m just including this information so that you are aware of this possibility.)

There were some discussions in the week 6 thread, e.g. to set up one thread per story and use it over two weeks, but this leads to other negative side-effects (confusion and stuff) so we didn’t find a good solution. That’s why I am setting up a poll in the hope that it will clear up things.

Which book are you reading?

  • The Bookwalker ebook
  • One of the physical books
  • No book, just Aozora

0 voters

What is your opinion regarding the current schedule?

In the current schedule, we will spread two of the stories over two weeks each, and we will have one week where we read the end of one story and the start of another one.

  • I am fine with the current schedule.
  • I do not like to spread a story over two weeks.
  • I do not like to read two story parts in one week.

0 voters

What is your preferred way of modifying the current schedule?

(Note that some of the options will shorten our schedule by 1 or 2 weeks while none of the options will make the schedule longer.)
Please tick as many boxes as you agree with.

  • I do not want to modify the current schedule
  • I would like to split one of the stories and read it over two weeks (that would be 7 or 8 pages per week). The other long story should be dropped.
  • I would like to move the two stories to the end of the schedule and read them in one week each (that would be 14 and 15 pages per week)
  • I would like to move the shorter story to the end of the schedule and read it in one week (that would be 14 pages per week). The longer story should be dropped.
  • I would like to replace the two long stories (in weeks 9-11) with the three shorter ones from the ebook (that would be 7, 8, and 8 pages per week) although these stories don’t appear in the physical books.
  • I have a different idea (please explain below)

0 voters

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Thank you, @NicoleIsEnough, for setting up this poll and for taking the time to provide so many well thought out options. I voted for my strongest preference only, but I just wanted to say that I’d be perfectly fine with any of these schedules, including the current one.

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Big thanks for running the club and organizing the poll, Nicole :slight_smile: .

I also promise I will try to make my posts not contain spoilers if it can be avoided and be more thoughtful about my grammar suggestions.

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This week, we will finish our currently ongoing story. Also, this week will mark our book club’s half time - great job so far, everybody! On top of that, we have reached our cruising speed, so there should not be too many surprises going forward (she said :upside_down_face:)

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Hello all,

not much has happened to the “How to proceed with the schedule”-poll over the weekend, and anyway the overwhelming majority voted for moving the stories to the end of the schedule and reading them in one week each, so I’ve closed the polls and adjusted the schedule accordingly.

@Marusiaside I noticed that you’d prefer to have one of the large stories split up over two weeks - you (and anybody else who would prefer to tackle those longer stories at a somewhat slower pace) are invited to just read the second-to-last story over the course of the last two weeks, and drop the last story altogether. This way we can even have two alternative schedules in one :exploding_head: :sunglasses:

This also means that we will finish one week earlier than originally planned :upside_down_face:

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I decided to post here, instead of in the respective thread, because we might see it in future stories as well.

In 月夜と眼鏡 there was a sentence where the word ようす (likely 様子 in kanji) was used and we couldn’t discern whether it meant “appearance” or “circumstances”. I saw it in other stories later and recently in books as well. I have the impression that’s a minor grammar point, kind of like 感じ - everyone uses it, but it’s not featured in grammar guidelines.

From context, to my understanding 文 + ようす means something along the lines of “giving the appearance of”. Might be worth keeping an eye :wink: .

Here is a sentence from 赤いカブトムシ by Edogawa Ranpo (kanji added for clarity):
男は、別に怒るようすもなく、大笑いをして、それから、ふっとマジメな顔になりました。
The man, not appearing to be especially angry, exploded in laughter and then, suddenly made a serious face.

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Yes, I’ve seen it described as being one of those hard to translate words and I’ve always been surprised that it doesn’t have it’s own section in my grammar dictionaries. I think it often becomes part of the verb when you translate to English as in your example (so for example appears, seems like, sounds like, etc) and “a sign of …” is also a good translation sometimes. Or it just becomes an expression (like what’s happening, what it’s like, how it is going). Some of my Japanese dictionaries (the 大辞林, for example) list six possible meanings, so there seems to be quite a bit of nuance.

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I’ll probably skip this week’s story because it’s not included in my 2013 book. But I’m almost done reading the stories not included in the book club (13 in total) and will probably post very short summaries/impressions for anyone interested.

I’ve mostly listened to the audio versions on YouTube while reading along (and sometimes without reading). It’s very relaxing doing that while taking a bath or before going to sleep. I don’t really listen to audio books usually, but these 20 minute-ish fairy tales are perfect for my attention span.

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Oh I thought it was? (My secret informant told me it’s on page 38…) Am I wrong here? Or do you have a different 2013 book? :dizzy_face:
(Next week’s story is not supposed to be in your book though…)

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I’m curious, out of all the stories you’ve read, what percentage would you say isn’t sad? Among the 7 we’ve read so far we’ve had 2 sad ones and 2 probably sad ones if you read between the lines, by my count.

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Oops, by this week, I meant last week, i.e. the current one (大きなかに).

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Hmm, maybe 2/3 of the ones I read don’t end on a positive note and the other ones are still somehow bittersweet. You definitely don’t get a real happy ending very often.

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Ah, gotcha! If you ever feel like it, you could read the Aozora text, but be warned that we found at least 3 typos in this week’s story (didn’t happen for the other stories, interestingly). OTOH you will be rewarded with quite some strong images that were of course hard to understand (if at all) :joy_cat:

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I’m still baffled how that happened in a single text right?

In the book I’m reading now I don’t think I’ve seen a single one, but now that I think about it, it could’ve been as you said in the story thread that 大きなかに was written before the orthography reform in Japan and they simply messed it up a lil bit.

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Week 8 is here, and we’re back to our one-story-a-week schedule :tada:

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As promised here are my short summaries/impressions of the other stories from the 2013 book:

てかてか頭の話
A guy visits a barber and insists on having an excessive amount of hair oil applied and consequently melts in the sun on his way back. (Yes, the guy melts, only leaving behind a stone)

なくなった人形
A girl gets her beloved doll stolen by a young beggar girl. Although this makes her very sad, she decides not to be resentful and not tell the police about it.

小さな草と太陽
A bittersweet story about the short, but vigorous life of a small weed compared to the long and slow life of a tree.

はてしなき世界
A baby boy hates his mother’s apron because it means she has to work and can’t tend to him. After turning into a young men, he discovers a stone he used to have as a kid. I didn’t quite get the connection between between past and present, though, but I only listened to the audio version and was mildly distracted.

三つのかぎ
The men each find keys in different places, then use it do open a golden chest. As it turns out, there’s a message from a princess in the chest promising the ones who open it wealth, land and even marriage. Unfortunately the princess is long gone, so there’s nothing to get for the men.

兄弟のやまばと
A mother of two mountain doves tells her sons that towns are dangerous, but the two of them get curious as they grow up. Eventually a town dove reassures them that humans won’t hunt them there. They then visit the town, but return after a while and talk about a red sky and everything burning down. At first I thought this was a reference to war, but since the story is from 1926, it’s probably about one of the big fires that happened in the Japanese cities.

時計のない村
A straightfordward, but nice story about a village where two rich people bought the first clocks. Everyone started using these two clocks as an orientation for all their meetings etc., but it led to small conflicts when it turned out the clocks didn’t display the exact same time. Instead of letting them repair, the rich people decided to throw them away and go back to the village’s old lifestyle without clocks – a lifestyle that’s way more relaxed.

月とあざらし
A mother seal is searching for her children and asks the wind for help. The wind can’t find the children either, but decides to bring a present from a faraway country to cheer up the seal.

砂漠の町とサフラン酒
A woman is kidnapped and taken to a faraway desert country where she has to assist in saffron wine making. Out of desparation she kills herself and her blood mixes with the wine, making it irresistably delicious. When traveling men the come to the city and drink the wine, they find themselves addicted. They spend all the money they earn in the bars and eventually stay there forever, never returning to their families.

負傷した線路と月
A railway is hurt by a train and complains to the moon. The moon decides to look for the train to scold him, but soon realizes that the train can’t be blamed either.

糸のない胡弓 (3)
Parents bully their non-blood related son by sending him off to earn money with a kokyū (Japanese string instrument) without strings. The boy still manages to move bystanders to tears with his music and attracts the attention of a professional musician who then adopts the boy.

小さい針の音 (10)
A young countryside teacher receives a pocket watch as a farewell gift from is students before moving to the captial. There he manages to land a good job. At first he treasures the watch above all, but eventually sells it to buy a new, more fashionable one. More than a decade passes and he is now holds a high position and owns a very expensive platinum watch. But one day he finds out that one of his employees now owns the watch he had sold – and that it is way more accurate than his own expensive watch. He thinks back to his days as a teacher and questions whether his current job truly really contributes to society.

二度と通らない旅人 (11)
During a rainstorm in a cold night, a traveler knocks on the door of a family in a remote mountain village and begs them to let him stay for the night. Out of fear they refuse. They have a very sick daughter and despite the family’s cold treatment, the traveler leaves medicine for her that eventually saves her life. Years later the daughter is married with children of her own. The family still regrets their cold behavior and vows to be more hospitable to any future travelers in need. However, no travelers ever knock on their door again.

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Maybe the stone was actually hair-oil guy.

Turns out the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.

Or the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923?

Well. That feels kinda backwards to what one would typically expect from a fable…

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Beginner book club voting now

In absence of radish I (the much less handsome person named after a vegetable) am here to inform you guys that the beginner book club is now voting on what to read next. If you are interested have a look!

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