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Yeah. I went back after I was done with the rest of the reading and read the beginning again to see if it explained why, and I had just missed it the first time through… At first I thought it was going to be a little kid’s misunderstanding, like, their mom yelled at them once, so he thought he thought she hates them now, but leaving them alone to the point they’re running out of food? Seems a lot darker than the stories up to now (which only sort of got dark-ish once the consequences from dagashi kicked in.) I’m hoping there’s some explanation of her behavior in the second half of the story. In a more adult story, I could see it being a mental illness or something, but in a book for kids, that doesn’t seem likely.
I actually really enjoyed how this chapter seemed to pan out (for now). It’s yet another take on the overall idea of the book and I like the fact that it’s a bit darker, particularly its placement in the book. In story collections like this, we often end on a positive note. And while this may still be the case (obviously, if the story has a somewhat happy ending, which I’m expecting to be the case at the moment), I think the fact that the author (or editor I guess) decided to finish on what seems to be the darkest of all the stories is quite interesting to me.
I was also a bit taken aback at the beginning though. I actually reread because I was suddenly doubting that I read right, being that it seems a bit left field from what we’ve read before. Nevertheless, it actually made me quite excited about reading the rest now, so we’ll see.
I was also surprised by the placement of this chapter (and like you, I kind of like the decision). I found the severity of the situation pretty shocking though, in the sense of how it compares to the other chapters: we’ve gone from “scared of swimming” and “entitled arsehole” to “verbal and mild (?) physical abuse and neglect of small children”. Like, damn, we turned it up a notch here.
I am fascinated to see how the chapter pans out next week. Are we going to get a sensitively handled exploration of the reality of these kinds of situations, or are we going all Hansel and Gretel up in here?
I hope to all that’s holy it’s your former suggestion. I want to think with the way some of the other stories have been handled this one will have received a good amount of attention and care to end well.
I am honestly more worried about the impact of the page count. Its quite short, so I’m not sure how this kind of topic can realistically be discussed in that small a window.
But I guess we’ll find out soon.
But before we find out, I have a couple of questions
Page 121
ぜったいに勝手に外に出るなって、ママからいわれているし。
I worked this out myself but I feel like this happens so often when I type up these questions that I’m leaving it here in case it helps anyone else.
The なって part is a combination of な negating the dictionary-form 出る, which creates a very terse, impolite command (something like “don’t you dare”), and って acting as a quotation particle.
Page 122
ママにいわれてきたとおり、まずドアにチェーンをかける。
(1) what does とおり really mean here, and (2) this is him sort of hearing his mum’s instructions in his head, right?
I have literally no idea what Beniko is going on about here. She didn’t ask the girl’s name, okay. Then she says “it’s different when it’s an adult, if the other party is just a wee child who still can’t read their letters…” and then I’m just totally lost.
Page 129
なんだ、そんなことかと、翔平たちはほっとしかけた。
With a sigh of relief they… commence? Challenge? I can’t think what makes sense in this context (where they’ve just been told the rules about being polite to the tree.
Page 130
すると、気の葉っぱがざわりとゆれ、炎のように大きくもえあがったように見えた。
What’s going on with ざわりとゆれ? I’m guessing ゆれ is the stem of ゆれる, to shake, but the closest I can find for ざわり is ざわめく (to rustle), which makes sense in context, but I don’t understand why it would end up as ざわり?
とおり can be used as a suffix that means “in that way”, “just as” (bunpro link, jlptsensei link). So in this case, it means “In the way mama had told him to”
Not sure what exactly you mean with “hearing mum’s instructions in his head”; my understanding is simply that he’s following the instructions he had heard before.
What I understood from this part was that Beniko decides that she’s going to show the children how to use the magic tree, since they are small children that can barely read.
So after the part you figured out, comes ただおわたしするってわけにはねえ
ただ => Just
おわたしする => formal version of 渡す, to hand over / to give. I believe this is created by お + stem of verb + する. Can’t find any resources to back this up at the moment, though.
って => quoting particle
わけには => abbreviation of わけにはいかない (cannot afford to)
So, it is saying “I cannot afford to just hand it over”; she can’t just give them the candy without explaining how to use it.
Hmmm I think I had this figured out when I read it, but now I can’t for the life of me remember what ほっとしかけた means exactly =._.=
My interpretation when I ran into that one, is that it was yet another one of those onomatopoeic expression that are hard to parse. So ざわ is the sound for rustling, then you add り with adds a sense of softness or slowness. So a “soft rustling”. Then we add と which if I understand correctly makes the onomatopoeia a quotation.
In other words, ざわりとゆれ, it shook with a soft “zawa” (rustling).
(I think @carvs mentioned these rules in one of the first threads for this book. Tofugu also has an article that explains those)
Aah, I see - thank you! I just couldn’t match とおり with any particular definition, so I was simply guessing from context, like ‘he could hear his mum telling him to put the chain across’. Him actually doing the action ‘in that way’ makes a lot more sense
Oooh. I mean, I got that that was what she was doing, but not from this sentence I thought this sentence related much more to the thing about names than it did, heh. Also did not realise おわたし was from わたす.
Oooooh. reads article. edit: in fact, reads carvs’ post, which is a super helpful summary!
Gah, I didn’t twig that it was し + かける. Was trying to look up しかける
やった！