First I would like to determine a reading schedule. Looking at the ebook, it seems that there are no chapters or anything in this book? On the plus side, this means we are free to break it down into weeks however we like
As this is my first classical book, I have no idea what to expect (but I was told that it’s difficult…) Maybe the difficulty is not so much because of the grammar but because of the contents, though
Anyways, my proposal would be to rather err on the side of cutting the slices too small, and thus I was thinking of aiming for ~10 pages per week. (And if we discover that it’s really not that hard after all, we can still ramp up the pace at a later stage.)
What do you all think about this?
Hmm, that would make the book ~22 weeks long, which feels a bit much. 10 pages may be the safest bet for the first couple of weeks, but I sure hope we will ramp up the speed afterward (at least to 15 pages per week)
I’m not participating in this one, so feel free to ignore me, but we picked the page limits for classical book proposals to be similar to intermediate book club proposals. So I believe the intention was to read about 15 pages per week just like intermediate book club. It is the advanced book club after all.
I’m still a beginner but I will read the book regardless or at least try reading it. It will probably take me over a year to finish it but that doesn’t really matter.
Flipping through my paperback, there is a LOT of dialogue in this book.
Also, there are 10 pages of 83 footnotes (注解) at the end of my edition (pages 149–179 are different supporting materials for the book, including information about the author and book).
I see regular section breaks in the text. This is me skimming (so might have missed a break or two):
I somehow had in mind that our corridor for difficult books was 10-15 pages per week, but now I can’t find any reference to this, so I’m probably making this up
Anyways, 15 pages per week makes sense.
@daines Thanks for the page numbers! That explains why Bookwalker claims the book has 154 pages
That means we are talking about 144 pages, which could be divided into 9 + 9*15 pages, leaving us with 10 weeks of reading. Here are the page numbers for ideal breaks (i.e. breaks that allow us to strictly stick to these page counts) vs. the possible breaks as listed by daines, and their page counts:
Ideal break
Possible break
Page Count
13-14
15
11
28-29
32
17
43-44
40
8
58-59
53
13
73-74
72
19
88-89
90
18
103-104
105
15
118-119
117
12
133-134
127
10
148 [END]
21
(Note: I’ve counted the pages containing the breaks towards the preceding interval.)
It’s a bit more up-and-down but I think it would be helpful to stick with the breaks in the book…
What do you all think?
EDIT: I checked the breaks with my ebook, and I think the break on p. 117 is not a real one as a song is being quoted there, but I think it’s fair enough. Also, there seems to be one more break around page 61 or 62 or so, but that doesn’t seem to be helpful for a better breakdown either…
I have the blue and white wavy version, which has a different number of pages and possibly different breaks. I may have just been bad at finding breaks though. Can anyone confirm the last lines of the breaks I’m missing?
Break
Page Count
Last Phrase
15
8
二人の姿を隠した
40
25
東京に帰ったのだった
89
49
男は行商人かなにかだろう
109
20
松虫鈴虫くつわ虫 (after song)
127
18
ただならぬものが感じられた
141
14
あの声で歌い出した (before song)
142
1
墓参り一丁一丁一丁や (after song)
178
36
[END]
179
注釈 (28 footnotes)
182
解説：川端康成ー生涯と作品
194
「雪国」解説
201
「雪国」劇化
It looks like my version has far fewer footnotes. Would someone be able to post the footnotes from the other version at some point? I’d be curious about any additional information as we read.
あの声で歌い出した (before song - not a real break I think)
117
142
1
墓参り一丁一丁一丁や (after song - not a real break I think)
127
指しながら地の雪に立った
148
178
36
[END]
I suspect you have these breaks in your book as well? I’m assuming that your edition just prints a different amount of text on the page (but is identical otherwise)…
BTW Bookwalker states the book has 154 pages (without any additional material) and they say that they are determining this number by taking the amount of text of a “standard page” (ofc not really “standard” but the same across all books):
This amount is somewhat in the middle of both your books…
@catbus Could you please add your page numbers and page counts? Then we can hopefully see whether my proposed breakdown would still make sense somehow for your book.
Just as a quick note, for those who are interested but may not have the time to read the full version/feel that they aren’t ready to read an “advanced” book, an abridged version of 雪国 is available in the book Exploring Japanese Literature. It’s 65 pages long, has a glossary on the page and a facing English translation for reference. I’m not sure what was cut, but it looks like a good option for those on the fence, etc. (Note that Tofugu’s review posts a picture of the in-book summary of 雪国, which apparently spoils the ending, then warns you after posting the picture. :P)
Maybe this isn’t a great advertisement in an advanced book club thread, but just in case. I may see if I can read it myself since I won’t have time to read the full thing.
Thank you! The last lines were super helpful in determining the page breaks. All but one were at the end or start of a page, so they were easy to miss. Here is the completed table:
Interesting to note, that this book has only about 4k unique words (super low), but floflo is showing me only 62.5% known. Almost all 5k-6k books are mostly over 70%. Maybe there’s a lot to trash, though, I don’t know. Going through the list there seems to be quite a bit of words that are easy to guess.
Oh, how I wish I were far enough along in my Japanese to join you all with this. Reading the English translation earlier this year was a wonderful experience for me. Enjoy.
Thanks all for your votes! I’ve decided to follow the 11-week-schedule and I’ve updated the OP accordingly. I also added a link to FloFlo for those who are interested in checking out the vocab up-front (thanks @morteasd for the reminder!).
Also, I discovered that there are (at least?) two different Bookwalker editions out there (one with some footnotes, the other one without) - I’ve added the links to both of them to the OP just in case. The reading percentages are taken from the version without footnotes, though, so they might slightly differ for the other one.
The last question remains: When do we want to start reading this book? I’d like to discuss this in the book club thread, so please go there to vote for the start date.
