獣の奏者 (Kemono no Souja) Home Thread

Japanese Language Book Clubs
1

獣の奏者 Home Thread

This is the home thread for 獣の奏者. While this book club isn’t part of the intermediate book club, that is the general demographic that I’m targeting with this book club. The first two books in the series form a single story, so we’ll be reading both books as part of this club.

This is a fantasy series, so while the pace will be similar to other books from the intermediate book club, the content may be a little more difficult.

image

Where to Purchase

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4062764466/
Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00AJCM55W
Bookwalker: https://bookwalker.jp/de0139431d-2a67-42a4-8e12-290ac8098a0f/

Summary

10-year-old Elin is a young girl who lives with her mother in Aluhan territory in the small village of Ake. She has a big love for animals, especially the Toda, dragon-like creatures used in the war. Her mother Sohyon was originally of the Ahlyo, an ancient clan who have members with green eyes, and is rumored to follow in the ancient ways, practice magic, and hide in the mist. But despite her genealogy, they stay in the village because Elin’s late father was the son of the village chief and Sohyon is the head Toda doctor. But one night, the Kiba, the Aluhan’s strongest Toda, mysteriously dies.

(From Wikipedia. Don’t read more if you don’t like spoilers.)

Sample

Check out the first several pages here to gauge the difficulty:
https://viewer-trial.bookwalker.jp/03/8/viewer.html?cid=0139431d-2a67-42a4-8e12-290ac8098a0f&cty=0

Discussion Threads

Book 1 (闘蛇編) Discussion Threads

Prologue, part 1
Prologue, part 2
Prologue, part 3
Prologue, part 4
Chapter 1, part 1
Chapter 1, part 2
Chapter 1, part 3
Chapter 2, part 1
Chapter 2, part 2
Chapter 2, part 3
Chapter 3, part 1
Chapter 3, part 2
Chapter 3, part 3
Chapter 4, part 1
Chapter 4, part 2
Chapter 4, part 3
Chapter 4, part 4
Chapter 4, part 5
Chapter 4, part 6
Chapter 4, part 7

Book 2 (王獣編) Discussion Threads

Chapter 5, part 1
Chapter 5, part 2
Chapter 5, part 3
Chapter 5, part 4
Chapter 5, part 5
Chapter 6, part 1
Chapter 6, part 2
Chapter 6, part 3
Chapter 6, part 4
Chapter 6, part 5
Chapter 7, part 1
Chapter 7, part 2
Chapter 7, part 3
Chapter 7, part 4
Chapter 7, part 5
Chapter 7, part 6
Chapter 8, part 1
Chapter 8, part 2
Chapter 8, part 3
Chapter 8, part 4
Chapter 8, part 5
Chapter 8, part 6
Chapter 8, part 7
Chapter 8, part 8
Chapter 8, part 9
Final Chapter, part 1
Final Chapter, part 2

Schedule

We’ll be following a new approach for this book club. Rather than reading a roughly even number of pages every week, we’ll be reading one chapter per week regardless of length. The shortest chapter is 10 pages, while the longest is 24 pages. The average number of pages is 17. I figure those that usually just keep up with intermediate book club will just have to plan their schedule a little more carefully (getting ahead and catching up as needed), while those who can read more per week may simply have weeks with more free time.

Book 1 (闘蛇編) Schedule
Week # Start Date Chapter # Chapter Title Page Count
Week 1 January 25th Prologue, Part 1 闘蛇の弔い笛 16
Week 2 February 1st Prologue, Part 2 霧の民アーリョ 14
Week 3 February 8th Prologue, Part 3 母の指笛 20
Week 4 February 15th Prologue, Part 4 精霊獣せいれいじゅう 10
Week 5 February 22nd Chapter 1, Part 1 流れついた子 24
Week 6 February 29th Chapter 1, Part 2 女王の飛翔 14
Week 7 March 7th Chapter 1, Part 3 女王の乳タブ・チム 18
Week 8 March 14th Chapter 2, Part 1 蜂と竪琴たてごと 19
Week 9 March 21st Chapter 2, Part 2 夏と小屋 14
Week 10 March 28th Chapter 2, Part 3 天を翔ける獣 21
Week 11 April 4th Chapter 3, Part 1 神速のイアル 14
Week 12 April 11th Chapter 3, Part 2 真王ヨジェと大広アルハン 19
Week 13 April 18th Chapter 3, Part 3 幼獣の献上 15
Week 14 April 25th Chapter 4, Part 1 ジョウンの息子 23
Week 15 May 2nd Chapter 4, Part 2 入舎ノ試し 19
Week 16 May 9th Chapter 4, Part 3 ユーヤン 10
Week 17 May 16th Chapter 4, Part 4 王獣の笛 19
Week 18 May 23rd Chapter 4, Part 5 光リラン 15
Week 19 May 30th Chapter 4, Part 6 トムラ 14
Week 20 June 6th Chapter 4, Part 7 下から射す光 18
Book 2 (王獣編) Schedule
Week # Start Date Chapter # Chapter Title Page Count
Week 1 June 13th Chapter 5, Part 1 竪たて琴ごとの響き 18
Week 2 June 20th Chapter 5, Part 2 運命の曲がり角 13
Week 3 June 27th Chapter 5, Part 3 教導師たちの決定 22
Week 4 July 4th Chapter 5, Part 4 最期の便り 12
Week 5 July 11th Chapter 5, Part 5 傷 15
Week 6 July 18th Chapter 6, Part 1 不安の胎動 19
Week 7 July 25th Chapter 6, Part 2 飛翔 15
Week 8 August 1st Chapter 6, Part 3 霧の民アーリョの大罪 16
Week 9 August 8th Chapter 6, Part 4 野生の雄 14
Week 10 August 15th Chapter 6, Part 5 二頭の飛翔 22
Week 11 August 22nd Chapter 7, Part 1 真王ヨジェの行ぎょう幸こう 14
Week 12 August 29th Chapter 7, Part 2 ダミヤの誘惑 19
Week 13 September 5th Chapter 7, Part 3 襲撃 10
Week 14 September 12th Chapter 7, Part 4 治療 19
Week 15 September 19th Chapter 7, Part 5 闘蛇の印 17
Week 16 September 26th Chapter 7, Part 6 決意 19
Week 17 October 3rd Chapter 8, Part 1 求婚 25
Week 18 October 10th Chapter 8, Part 2 獣の血 17
Week 19 October 17th Chapter 8, Part 3 ダミヤの命令 11
Week 20 October 24th Chapter 8, Part 4 魔がさした子アクン・メ・チャイ 16
Week 21 October 31st Chapter 8, Part 5 露見 12
Week 22 November 7th Chapter 8, Part 6 逃亡者 12
Week 23 November 14th Chapter 8, Part 7 風の夜 12
Week 24 November 21st Chapter 8, Part 8 王祖の来し方 26
Week 25 November 28th Chapter 8, Part 9 虚しさの天地 9
Week 26 December 5th Final Chapter, Part 1 払ふつ暁ぎょう 6
Week 27 December 12th Final Chapter, Part 2 弦の調べ 26

Read Aloud

We will be reading on Sundays at 10:30PM Japan time (reading the previous week’s content). Here is the time in your local time zone:

2020-02-02T13:30:00Z (now finished)

Note that if you live in a timezone with daylight savings, your read aloud time will change partway through the book! In each session we will read the previous week’s section, discuss the contents, and ask questions as needed.

17 Likes
2

Are you interested in reading this book starting some time in the next few months?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Not sure

0 voters

Are you okay with the proposed schedule (in the first post), where we read one chapter a week regardless of length? The shortest chapter has 10 pages, while the longest has 24 pages. The average is 17 pages.

  • Yes, let’s read one chapter per week
  • No, let’s read an even amount per week by breaking in the middle of chapters
  • Something else (please specify)

0 voters

When would you like to start reading the book? Keep in mind that people may need time to acquire the book.

  • Mid January
  • Early February
  • Mid February
  • Early March
  • 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

4 Likes
3

I’m tagging those who showed interest in reading this book based on my previous poll in the intermediate book club thread.

@Ditto20 @Sylph @Naphthalene @NicoleIsEnough @Belerith @Kyayna @catbus @TamanegiNoKame

5 Likes
4

More tags since I can only tag 10 people per post.

@Airdramon @icefang97 @ekadish @brrricane @Myria

@twktg (even though you said you’d rather read it officially with book club)

@KazeTachinu (if you wanna just hang out :slightly_smiling_face:)

6 Likes
5

I preemptively liked the correct post :crazy_face:

3 Likes
6

Is there anything else you think I should add to the OP or another poll? I tried finding a good summary, but there’s so many fantasy things going on even in a summary that it seems overwhelming.

7

Well, at least it will give people a fair idea of what to expect. Maybe the first few pages instead?
In any case, if either of those is overwhelming for someone, it shouldn’t stop them from participating, but at least they can make a more informed decision when voting in the other polls. :thinking:

8

I posted a link to a 試し読み on Book Walker. All the summaries seem to either talk about the kingdoms and politics and animals, or contain spoilers. I think I’ll grab half the summary from Wikipedia and use that.

2 Likes
9

Ooh nice, thanks for the tag. :slight_smile: And the organisation. :stuck_out_tongue:

Just reading through the chapter titles, I was reminded again what wonderful things you can do with Kanji. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
10

That seems nice. Not sure for the reading aloud because i’m busy but the pace is good since i’m already reading somethong else in japanese.

5 Likes
11

Thanks for creating the thread and everything, I’m excited now :star_struck:

I voted a bit later because I’ve got a busy few (maybe a lot of) weeks coming up (which is why I’ve been largely absent from literally everywhere and reading ahead for literally everything), so I voted for a later start, but if we do end up starting earlier, I’ll do my best to keep up :muscle:

Seems a good few people are still happy to read this too, so yay :smile:

5 Likes
12

Cool to see you’ll finally be tackling this lovely series! I’ll make sure to follow this thread and maybe comment every once in a while. :>

8 Likes
13

Cool, hope to see you around then. Also, the post where I tagged you was meant to have a smiling face, not a frowning face haha. I was writing this up somewhat quickly last night and messed some things up. :sweat_smile:

4 Likes
14

I’m super excited to read something by this author! I put January or February for a start date, but really I’m up for reading whenever is convenient for everyone else.

I don’t think I’ll be doing read-alouds because I will not infrequently be working weekends. I’m also going to school part-time, so weekend free time is usually homework time.

Thanks for tagging me, Sean!

6 Likes
15

Looks like we have 15 participants so far. The poll says to start mid-January, but I’d like to start at the end of January instead. Since the new intermediate book club book is starting mid-January, I don’t want to conflict with that too much. That way anyone reading both will have a couple weeks to acclimate to 氷菓 before starting 獣の奏者 with us. So if there’s no objections, we’ll start Saturday, January 25th.

7 Likes
16

Why are you making me wait to read T.T We should start reading tomorow at a pace of 50 pages per day. Seems easy right? :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

3 Likes
17

Sure, if it was in English!

2 Likes
18

Sounds good to me!

Just to let you know, I will try to read ahead for a bit because I will be at language school from mid-January to mid-February, and I don’t think I will have enough spare time to read a book in parallel (not to mention two…). But I will hold back my questions until it’s the official time. Sorry and I hope that things will become more normal from mid-February.

But first I need to catch up on Kitchen…

4 Likes
19

Is it ok to sign up as a low-participation stalker? I mainly plan to read 氷菓 but it seems too good to pass up getting to learn this author with others (I even had 風と行く者 on my list before 氷菓 book club came along). The 5 book 獣の奏者 set is on sale on both Amazon and Bookwalker (bookwalker 30% off through 12/12). I’m sure it happens all the time, but I’m going to dive in and buy them. えへへ

Thanks for hosting this! I am excited about this author!!

Edit: Do I have book club phobia or something? All this other stuff I wrote seems unnecessary but I'll leave it anyway

Experienced folk: If I’m currently reading ペングインハイ (generally easy reading) on an 8 pages a day schedule (finishing in time for 氷菓), and it’s not really killing me…although some days get really late. Would it be possible at that rate to keep up with both clubs? 氷菓 and 獣の奏者 are more difficult from what I can tell >_<

Also, I tried to keep up with コンビニ人 and had to abandon due to personal life-craziness/misfortune/some really lovely things too. I set it in the back seat of my reading since I had other things on my self assigned list–and wanted to be in book club “life” soooo I really would like to try both this time, but don’t want to be a dummy and bite off more than I can chew and I hate quitting things even more…but I already own both…or will. Argh. Any advise/wisdom is great.

2 Likes
20

Seems like a good idea to me too! :slight_smile:

I’ll be kind of indisposed for most of January anyway.

2 Likes