嵐のピクニック ⛈️ Book Club ・ Starting Dec 14th

タイフーン

The narrator’s disappointment that the old man’s story’s ending wasn’t more edgy or avant-garde actually explains a lot of the story endings in this book. Including this one. Why’d the old man have to be found crushed in the next town!?

I liked the whimsey of taking a silly common thing like people insisting on using umbrellas in heavy storms and turning it into a magical secret, though. One particular intersection next to my apartment building gets extremely windy during storms, it would be nice to use it as an umbrella launchpad :slight_smile:

私は名前で呼んでる

I had to read this one twice because I struggled to follow what was happening the first time around, especially towards the second half. Definitely a bizarre story, though it clicked better once I realized that she was fully confusing the curtain for a real being and not just acknowledging that it kind of looked like a person. When she suddenly goes outside, starts skipping around and crying out 「シューダダダ」 (they’re shoes?? or is it a song?) I went back to being unsure.

I’m with @pocketcat that she might have been experiencing some kind of mental break. I think there was a real boyfriend and thoughts of him start to blur together with the imaginary friend until she’s fully thinking about it rather than him. She references interaction with a third person 彼女 when thinking about 彼, which she doesn’t do with the curtain.

She’s definitely talking about her curtain friend in the childhood memory when it appeared during the summer that both of her parents were gone. Maybe the simulacra problem she has gets worse as she gets more lonely. It might explain why a bad breakup would make her believe a building + window cleaning gondola was a giant friend.

4 Likes

Week 9

Start date 8 Feb
Story Q&A
PB pages 115-128
Kindle locs 996-1109
Total pages/locs 14・114
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1 Like

Week 10

Start date 15 Feb
Story 彼女たち
PB pages 129-140
Kindle locs 1110-1210
Total pages/locs 12・101
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1 Like
彼女たち

I was kind of confused at first. I was thinking those women were turning into werewolves, the way they had black-bordered eyes and were sniffing things upwind and all that. But then when I understood they were turning into the kind of (deranged) women their men were dreaming of, I thought it was kind of sad. And the violence at the end seemed so obscene!

2 Likes

Week 11

Start date 22 Feb
Story How to burden the girl
PB pages 141-154
Kindle locs 1211-1349
Total pages/locs 14・139
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Q&A

I was a bit confused with the last sentence: 彼女の答えは、もはや神の声です
Am I correct to assume the writer of the column (who is being interviewed) passed away?

人間袋とじ

I am so confused about the premise of this whole story! The girl wants to ‘freeze’ her toes together through frostbite? And then the guy gets obsessed with looking at them, as if they are going to explode? Now that I am googling pictures of frostbitten toes (ew, lol) I guess I can see it… I found the ending as confusing as @Cathm2, but I agree that it was probably his imagination.

I have no idea what to make of any of this and I am not sure I’d have any more of a clue if I had read this story in English :sweat_smile:

2 Likes

Week 12

Start date 1 Mar
Story ダウンズ&アップス
PB pages 155-176
Kindle locs 1350-1552
Total pages/locs 22・203
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How to burden the girl

This was wild, I don’t even know what to say LOL

Couldn’t put it down after starting, it was all so crazy. I guess the moral of the story is somehow related to how people will “fall in love at first sight” with the ideal of a person? And that the actual reality can be completely different then what you expect. I didn’t expect it to go in that direction, but I was so relieved when the MC just kicked her and ran away near the end. Did feel bad for his father in the end, but I can definitely understand the MC’s disgust/trauma from what just happened.

2 Likes

Week 13

Start date 8 Mar
Story いかにして私がピクニックシートを見るたび、くすりとしてしまうようになったか
PB pages 177-189
Kindle locs 1553-1661
Total pages/locs 13・108
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How to burden the girl

What the… The bit where she was bearing her father’s children all alone in the kitchen felt like it could’ve been part of Sayaka Murata’s most unhinged work (if you know you know) :face_with_tongue: I also liked the naïveté with which the guy professed his everlasting love to her before checking whether she’s cray cray.

2 Likes
いかにして私がピクニックシートを見るたび、くすりとしてしまうようになったか

I really liked this one, and thought it was a great ending to the volume! It had a lighter tone to it somehow, but what really fascinated me (and this also stands for other stories of the volume) is how the authors can take such mundane day to day situations and transform them into intriguing little plots. Who would ever think about a client who doesn’t leave a fitting room?

Thank you @Phryne for organising the club, I really enjoyed the different stories and hope it was also the case for you and the others who joined!

2 Likes

Thanks for joining! I still have four stories left to read myself, but I enjoy dipping in and out as I have time. They’re perfect little bite-size snacks :grin:

3 Likes