狐笛のかなた (Koteki no Kanata) Home Thread

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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狐笛のかなた Home Thread

This is the home thread for 狐笛のかなた. While this book club isn’t part of the intermediate book club, that is the general demographic that I’m targeting in terms of difficulty and pace. There is only one book in this series. It’s written by the same author as 獣の奏者, which we enjoyed quite a bit in its bookclub.

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Where to Purchase

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4101302715
Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B01BHQQILA
Bookwalker: https://bookwalker.jp/decfc75d44-04b8-4ac5-8d1f-0e673b8ed994

Summary

I copied this summary from Amazon and haven’t read it myself, so I don’t know how much of the plot it gives away.

小夜は12歳。人の心が聞こえる〈聞き耳〉の力を亡き母から受け継いだ。ある日の夕暮れ、犬に追われる子狐を助けたが、狐はこの世と神の世の〈あわい〉に棲む霊狐・野火だった。隣り合う二つの国の争いに巻き込まれ、呪いを避けて森陰屋敷に閉じ込められている少年・小春丸をめぐり、小夜と野火の、孤独でけなげな愛が燃え上がる……愛のために身を捨てたとき、もう恐ろしいものは何もない。※新潮文庫に掲載の〈「児童文学」という魔法 宮部みゆき〉は、電子版には収録しておりません。

Sample

Check out the first several pages here to gauge the difficulty:
https://viewer-trial.bookwalker.jp/03/8/viewer.html?cid=cfc75d44-04b8-4ac5-8d1f-0e673b8ed994&cty=0

Discussion Threads

Prologue, Part 1
Prologue, Part 2 & Prologue, Part 3
Chapter 1, Part 1
Chapter 1, Part 2 & Chapter 1, Part 3
Chapter 1, Part 4
Chapter 1, Part 5
Chapter 2, Part 1 & Chapter 2, Part 2
Chapter 2, Part 3
Chapter 2, Part 4
Chapter 2, Part 5
Chapter 2, Part 6 & Chapter 2, Part 7
Chapter 3, Part 1
Chapter 3, Part 2
Chapter 3, Part 3
Chapter 3, Part 4
Chapter 3, Part 5 & Chapter 3, Part 6
Chapter 3, Part 7
Chapter 4, Part 1
Chapter 4, Part 2
Chapter 4, Part 3
Chapter 4, Part 4
Chapter 4, Part 5 & Final Chapter

Schedule

We’ll be reading entire chapters every week rather than a set number of pages. This worked very well for 獣の奏者, so we will be continuing that here. In some cases, we will read multiple chapters in the same week to keep at a reasonable pace.

Schedule
Week # Start Date Chapter # Chapter Title Page Count
Week 1 January 16th Prologue, Part 1 野火駆ける 16
Week 2 January 23rd Prologue, Part 2
Prologue, Part 3		 竹の灯火のもとで
雷の夜		 9
8
Week 3 January 30th Chapter 1, Part 1 年越しの市庭 9
Week 4 February 6th Chapter 1, Part 2
Chapter 1, Part 3		 野盗と影
梅が枝屋敷		 13
9
Week 5 February 13th Chapter 1, Part 4 とかれた封印 18
Week 6 February 20th Chapter 1, Part 5 野火と木縄坊 11
Week 7 February 27th Chapter 2, Part 1
Chapter 2, Part 2		 春望と盛惟
呪者と使い魔たち		 12
13
Week 8 March 6th Chapter 2, Part 3 光の筋を織る 15
Week 9 March 13th Chapter 2, Part 4 月夜の客 17
Week 10 March 20th Chapter 2, Part 5 畑焼き 11
Week 11 March 27th Chapter 2, Part 6
Chapter 2, Part 7		 乳姉弟
かなしい雨		 11
9
Week 12 April 3rd Chapter 3, Part 1 霊狐の女 11
Week 13 April 10th Chapter 3, Part 2 小夜、襲われる 17
Week 14 April 17th Chapter 3, Part 3 ふたりの少年 16
Week 15 April 24th Chapter 3, Part 4 街道の襲撃 10
Week 16 May 1st Chapter 3, Part 5
Chapter 3, Part 6		 うたがい
大朗、ふたり		 11
7
Week 17 May 8th Chapter 3, Part 7 野火と大朗 21
Week 18 May 15th Chapter 4, Part 1 小夜と小春九 9
Week 19 May 22nd Chapter 4, Part 2 野火の決意 17
Week 20 May 29th Chapter 4, Part 3 化ける 13
Week 21 June 5th Chapter 4, Part 4 呪いの力 20
Week 22 June 12th Chapter 4, Part 5
Final Chapter		 狐笛
若桜野を		 14
5

Read Aloud

We’ll be reading every week on Sundays at 9:00AM Eastern U.S. time. The next reading session in your local time zone is 2021-01-24T14:00:00Z.

Note that your read aloud time may change partway through the book due to daylight savings! In each session we will read the previous week’s section, discuss the contents, and ask questions as needed.

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Here is the chapter breakdown. 獣の奏者 book 1 resulted in about 17 pages per week on average, which was really nice. However, for 狐笛のかなた, it would only be about 12.5 pages per week if we keep reading one chapter per week. This would take 28 weeks to read the book. If we combine chapters enough to match the pace of 獣の奏者, it would take 21 weeks. That assumes we can find around 7 weeks where we can reasonably read two chapters in one week.

List of chapters + page counts
Section Chapter Start Page # of Pages
Prologue 1 12 16
2 28 9
3 37 8
End 45
1 1 50 9
2 59 13
3 72 9
4 81 18
5 99 11
End 110
2 1 112 12
2 124 13
3 137 15
4 152 17
5 169 11
6 180 11
7 191 9
End 200
3 1 202 11
2 213 17
3 230 16
4 246 10
5 256 11
6 267 7
7 274 21
End 295
4 1 296 9
2 305 17
3 322 13
4 335 20
5 355 14
Final 1 369 5
End 374

Based on the page counts, what does everyone want? Please give some specific suggestions on which chapters to combine if you can. The goal would be to avoid too many back to back short weeks, but also to avoid too many back to back long weeks. Right now I see five easy combinations, which would bring us to 23 weeks and about 15 pages per week, and I’ll adjust that further based on everyone’s feedback.

How many pages per week on average should we read?
  • 12.5 pages (exactly one chapter per week)
  • 15-17 pages by combining chapters
  • 18-20 pages by combining chapters
  • 21-25 pages by combining chapters
  • Something else

0 voters

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Are you interested in reading 狐笛のかなた, assuming we start sometime between December 26th and February 13th?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Not sure

0 voters

When would you like to start reading the book?
  • Between Christmas and New Years
  • Early January
  • Mid January
  • Early February
  • Mid February
  • Later (please specify)

0 voters

Would you be interested in doing a read-aloud session each week, where we take turns reading the previous week’s section, discuss the story, and ask each other questions?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Not sure

0 voters

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Okay, this should be my last post to kick off the bookclub. Just tagging everyone who previously indicated they were interested in reading the book.

@Belerith @catbus @Kyayna @Sylph @brrricane @Naphthalene @NickNickovich @KazeTachinu @mrahhal @Kyasurin.

Obviously anyone else can join too, but I didn’t want those who expressed interest before to miss the post. (Also, hi yukinet, but I can’t tag more than 10 people in a post and you already voted anyway.)

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For the 15-17 pages, I think it would make sense to combine these chapters:

Prologue 2+3: 17 pages
1.1 + 1.2 or 1.2 + 1.3 (22 pages) (maybe?)
2.6 + 2.7: 20 pages
3.5 + 3.6: 18 pages
4.5 + Final: 19 pages

This would leave us with 23 weeks.

For the 18-20 pages, we might consider combining

Prologue 2+3: 17 pages (for a ramp-up phase)
1.1 + 1.2 or 1.2 + 1.3 (22 pages)
1.5 + 2.1 (23 pages) or 2.1 + 2.2 (25 pages, but maybe better plot-wise?)
2.5 + 2.6 (22 pages)
2.7 + 3.1 (20 pages)
3.3 + 3.4 (26 pages)
3.5 + 3.6 (18 pages)
4.1 + 4.2 (26 pages)
4.5 + Final: 19 pages

This would set us at 19 weeks.

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Thanks! I think it might be good to split the difference and take your second suggestion, except for the 26 page combinations. I think chapter 4 could become a bit overwhelming if we have 26 pages (4.1/4.2), 20 pages (4.4), 19 pages (4.5/final).

Either way, 19-21 weeks instead of 28 weeks would be an improvement for sure.

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Nice, thank you for the tag Sean, and thank you for the scheduling suggestions Nicole! :slight_smile:

I voted for combining chapters considering the way the short chapters in 獣 leave me wanting to read more, but I’m not too fussed either way.

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I’m going to be positive and aim to start the book with you all; haven’t been able to participate in any book clubs since, like, June or July due to work, but I want to start the new year off on the right foot.

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I put a tentative schedule in the OP based on a mid-January start date and a 15-17 page per week pace. The result is 21 weeks with an average length of 16.7 pages. If any of the schedule seems too clustered with heavy weeks, I can probably split one of those double chapter weeks into two separate weeks to make it 22 weeks instead. Doesn’t matter to me.

We’re going with January 16th to start because the mid-January start was the most popular choice and the two next closest choices were early January and early February anyway.

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Looks great to me, thank you! Now all there is left to do is to wait for a suitable BookWalker sale :money_mouth_face:

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The book is currently on coin sale on BookWalker. 45% coin return until 2020/12/7 09:59 so for most people that is until 2020/12/6
Basically, all the books on BookWalker are on coin sale. They are celebrating 10th anniversary.

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Thanks for the information! That was… expensive :sweat_smile:

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It looks like 6 of the “Yes” votes (out of 8 total) for doing a read-aloud session are already participating in the 獣の奏者 read-aloud. Are all of you okay if we stick with the 8:30AM Sunday Eastern U.S. time? @yukinet, @Bethie5, @eefara, @Sylph, would that time work for the four of you?

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What time would it be for you?

17

The current time works for me, yeah. ^^

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18

That’s fine with me.

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Yeah it’s fine for me

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I’m not all here these days and I just realized how close this is to starting…I’ll put it on my calendar so I don’t forget :sweat_smile:

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Hopefully I don’t forget to make the first chapter topic Friday night. :sweat_smile:

By the way, for weeks that cover two chapters, I’m trying to decide between making two topics or one. Anyone have a preference? I was thinking two separate topics if only for consistency and keeping topic titles short, but I wanted to see if people thought that was reasonable.

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Hm, interesting thought! I was automatically expecting one topic per week since e.g. in Hakase we also had one topic per week even though the chapters were spread out over two weeks (so the situation was the opposite of yours). But that’s of course not a given :woman_shrugging:

1 Like