I’m reading along (I’ve read no further than the end of this week’s section)
I’ll catch up soon (I haven’t yet finished last week’s section)
I’m reading ahead (I’ve read beyond the end of this week’s section)
I’ve read this book already but I’m here for discussion
I have no intention of catching up or the club has already finished, but I’m using the forums as reference
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Vocab Sheet
Anybody should feel free to add to the vocab sheet. Read the guidelines on the first sheet- even if a word is not yet included you can use the spreadsheet as a tool to get help.
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 need to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as such.
Discussion Questions
Feel free to use these questions as a framework or a starting point for responses. I also encourage people to post their own discussion questions!
What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!
What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
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?
Like last week, we see more themes that we have seen in other Murata works: a kid pressuring another kid to have sex with her for all the wrong reasons; kids attributing all sorts of feelings and motives to an inanimate being.
Not much to say other than that. Let’s see how this develops!
I second this, better late than never. ^^"
I moved across the globe and didn’t have much time/energy for the book club, and after settling in I finished another novel first.
But now I’m here, and plan to catch up asap.
Yes, similar motifs all over again. But still, I enjoyed reading this section (because of the simple style, I guess), I did it one sitting.
Just finished this week. Her only other work I’ve read is コンビニ人間。so I have less experience with her themes. But enjoying it so far even if it’s distrurbing a bit. How do you guys say the grade school ‘boyfriends’ name?
I possibly should have known what to expect, but this section suddenly got rather um explicit. (Probably quite good that this book is in Japanese, as it has plenty of NSFW material)
My general sense of discomfort at the young age of the protagonists was made extra acute when our two characters suddenly start playing ‘doctor and nurse’ [to use an English euphemism]. I’m still thinking that they are 12 years old. Although this seems shockingly young, in this part of world, ~2% of 15 year olds report onset of sexual activity at 12 years or younger. So uncommon, but not rare. I’m guessing that might be even smaller in Japan. I also rather suspect that Murata is quite deliberately trying to shock us here…
[Not sure what the 読み方 is of the names in this chapter, みずうち(水内) and さかぐち（坂口)?]
Some further discoveries in this section of the first chapter. We discover that most of the narrator’s peers have ‘ficto-sexual’ relationships. (This is a new term to me - discovered in an interesting interview with Murata about this book. (Haven’t read it all, as I was worried that it may contain spoilers). It sounds as if this sort of relationship is quite common in Japan, and also that Murata herself has had these…)
We meet the narrator’s friend who seems to have same sex leanings from his shared anime attraction (though is ultimately enticed into a sexual relationship with the narrator).
And then of course there are the fumbling, extremely unromantic explorations.
Apart from Murata’s apparent desire to explore transgressive and non-standard desires and sexuality, it struck me from this first section that her character is exploring the nature of instinct and (obviously) sex drive. How much of our behaviour is instinctual, a product of our evolution, versus how much of it is socially conditioned and constructed. In a world in which the social norms around sex have radically deviated from the ‘natural’, will people still be drawn (by their biology) towards the urges and behaviour that our species has traditionally exhibited. I suspect that idea will emerge more as the book goes on…
Way late, but my plan is to finish the book until the end of the month, so here goes
Of course there are many Yours are definitely very plausible, as is さかくち.
Actually I didn’t perceive that as “fumbling” - I was quite amazed how much of a scientific approach they chose, and how they tried to explore everything that was to it, in a very cool, unembarrassed way.
Interestingly enough, the world she is sketching may be far from the “natural” of our ancestors, but it seems to be pretty close to the current Japanese “everyday”. Maybe that’s why she writes it in this way: To expose the Japanese to that what is unspoken but still so normal?
Also joining late, but also roughly aiming to finish at the end of the month.
I have slightly forgot where week 1 ended/week 2 started, so putting thoughts for these bits together.
みずうち(水内) and さかぐち（坂口) were also my guesses, seems just as OK as any.
The themes about these relationships and the あっちの世界 are interesting/unsettling. Slightly hard to put my finger on where exactly it crosses the line from harmless, but this world definitely feels far over the line.
That said, I can also see how it’s an exaggeration of modern Japan, where I can see a type of this also commonly existing. In modern Japan though, I feel like there’s also a heavy commercialisation of it (e.g. idol meet & greets), which at least in this world we seem free from. Or perhaps we just haven’t seen yet.
I’ve also found it interesting that largely this sexless-ness appears to mainly have been driven by societal shifts vs anything else. There are a couple of mentions of in vitro developing/becoming popular due to war, but it doesn’t feel like a forced thing, but a gradual societal shift.
If this were a western sci-fi, I’m almost certain the trigger would some big bang, whether it was war, government coersion/control, resource scarcity, etc. And can’t see it being set up just as something people gradually shifted into. (But as @NicoleIsEnough 's link, maybe this is more realistic)
Yours are definitely very plausible, as is さかくち.