雪国 - Snow Country ⛄️❄️ (Advanced Book Club)

Japanese Language Book Clubs
#14

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:

daines’ Page Number Break Page Count Last Phrase
5 7 Start
11 15 8 二人の姿を隠した
15 19 4 寒いところへ来るものか
32 40 21 東京に帰ったのだった
40 49 9 光の黒を強めた
53 65 16 開いているように見えた
61-62? 75 10 時のように、かぶりを振った
72 89 14 男は行商人かなにかだろう
90 109 20 松虫鈴虫くつわ虫 (after song)
105 127 18 ただならぬものが感じられた
117? 141 14 あの声で歌い出した (before song - not a real break)
117 142 1 墓参り一丁一丁一丁や (after song - not a real break)
127 154 12 指しながら地の雪に立った
148 178 24 [END]
3 Likes
#15

Remember floflo has the wordlist for this!

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.

3 Likes
#16

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.

1 Like
#17

Sorry for the long silence, I got swept away by real life :frowning:

I’d like to stick with my previously suggested schedule for a bit and see how this feels with your page counts added in (where (d) is daines’ book and © is catbus’ book):

Break (d) Page Count (d) Last Phrase Break © Page Count ©
5 [START] 7
15 11 寒いところへ来るものか 19 12
32 17 東京に帰ったのだった 40 21
40 8 光の黒を強めた 49 9
53 13 開いているように見えた 65 16
72 19 男は行商人かなにかだろう 89 24
90 18 松虫鈴虫くつわ虫 (after song) 109 20
105 15 ただならぬものが感じられた 127 18
117 12 墓参り一丁一丁一丁や (after song) 142 15
127 10 指しながら地の雪に立った 154 12
148 21 [END] 178 24

That still sounds quite plausible to me… and would be good for 10 weeks of reading.

One option could be to add one more week to split the 24 pages:

Break (d) Page Count (d) Last Phrase Break © Page Count ©
61-62? 9 時のように、かぶりを振った 75 10
72 10 男は行商人かなにかだろう 89 14

That way, we would stay below the 20-page mark no matter the book, except for the last week.

Which schedule would you prefer?

  • I’m all for the shorter schedule (10 weeks)
  • Let’s aim for the slightly longer schedule (11 weeks)
  • I don’t mind either way

0 voters

#18

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.

4 Likes
#19

Welcome to Snow Country Week 1 :slight_smile:

7 Likes
#20

Thank god this one isn’t a series. :upside_down_face:

7 Likes
#21

Yeah, gives you a break between Honzuki and Spice and Wulf, eh? :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

2 Likes
#22

Let’s see how the story evolves further! This week comes with a solid 21 pages, but it will get shorter again after that, so don’t worry:

2 Likes
#23

Here comes the next week :slight_smile:

For those of you who struggled with the amount of text (like, me :roll_eyes:): This week is only 9 pages, so you can safely catch up again and relax a little:

3 Likes
#24

I have entirely too many ambitions to keep on top of and the description of this book didn’t grab me, but I’m curious how people are finding it so far?

4 Likes
#25

I like the writing style. It’s much heavier than the light novels I am reading regularly. It makes me truly feel like I’m reading literature.
The setting is interesting, in an historical sense. It’s not a time period I am familiar with.
The main character though. Hm.
Overall, I’d say it’s not something that I would read on my own, but I don’t mind following along the schedule.

7 Likes
#26

And what time period it is, is it set around the time when the book was published or earlier?

#27

Here is Week 4:

@Aislin Sorry, nobody got back to you yet! The book was published in the 1930’s (as you might know already) and I’d say that it is set around that time, as they already have trains, cars, telegraph, electric light etc. So it’s not a medieval story or something.

3 Likes
#28

I was wondering if it isn’t a nostalgia callback (from the author’s perspective) to something like late 1800s, especially considering the rural and isolated setting.
But judging from your answer, it seems like there isn’t any specific timestamp to tell. :woman_shrugging:

Thank you!~

#29

I‘m not 100% familiar with when specifically all those things were invented, but late 1800s might be plausible as well. :woman_shrugging: I‘ll keep you posted if we learn more from the story.

2 Likes
#30

Let’s move on to Week 5:

#31

Ooops! I think I forgot to post the link to Week 6 when I created the thread :woman_facepalming:

Anyways, here it is:

1 Like
#32

Welcome to Week 7! This is quite a long week again, and it will get us way past the 50% mark:

2 Likes
#33

One more long week, and then we get a bit more breathing space:

1 Like