Book One Chapter 17: 青豆：私たちが幸福になろうが、不幸になろうが Haruki Murakami's 1Q84

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Chapter 16, about 18 hours behind schedule, apologies!

First things first: refer to Hashing out the details for reading Murakami Haruki’s 1Q84 (Intermediate/Advanced Book) for links to the threads of the 前編 for book 1.

We started on a two week per chapter schedule, but decided to speed up towards the end of the 前編, so we will go ahead with a one chapter one week schedule for the next 12 chapters as well.

Thread schedule

Book One Chapter 13: 青豆：生まれながらの被害者 Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
Book One Chapter 14: 天吾：ほとんどの読者がこれまで目にしたことのないものごと Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
Book One Chapter 15: 青豆：気球に碇をつけるみたいにしっかりと Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
21-02-2021: Break
Book One Chapter 16: 天吾：気に入ってもらえてとても嬉しい Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
Book One Chapter 17: 青豆：私たちが幸福になろうが、不幸になろうが Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
Book One Chapter 18: 天吾：もうビッグ・ブラザーの出てくる幕はない Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
Book One Chapter 19: 青豆：秘密を分かち合う女たち Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
Book One Chapter 20: 天吾：気の毒なギリアーク人Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
04-04-2021: Chapter 21
11-04-2021: Chapter 22
18-04-2021: Chapter 23
25-04-2021: Chapter 24

Warnings (read please!)

This story contains themes of an adult and/or sensitive nature, including cults, sex, murder, and sexual abuse of children, both mentioned, and graphic (though not until Book 2, in the latter case).

Our character's journey so far.

The friendship between Aomame and the police officer Ayumi, and she gets another shokc as she becomes aware of another big difference between her old world, and the parallel dimension: there seem to be two moons in the night sky!

第１７章：青豆：私たちが幸福になろうが、不幸になろうが
Let’s start off with a rough translation of the title:

Chapter 15: Aomame: Will we be happy or unhappy? (Here’s a test to see if any of you read my attempts at translating the title, though I guess the extra long blurry text will tip of some of you :stuck_out_tongue:: I’m not sure what this なろうが grammar means exactly, does anybody know?

Now, poll time:

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading book, but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’ve finished this part
  • I’m no longer reading the book

0 voters

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I don’t think it’s a separate grammar point - I think in the chapter itself it makes sense as the が of contrast. Its part of a longer sentence - the way I read it, both parts are parallel/equal contrasting points to the rest of the sentence you don’t see here in the title.

Speaking of, I’ve been enjoying seeing the title show up in the chapter, often enough not how I thought I’d see it. :slight_smile:

The end of this chapter though. Oh man.

I did try googling なろうが, unsuccessfully. Googling the whole sentence gave me a blog post analysing the story, which was fun. I managed to stop reading before I spoiled myself much, but the person who wrote it has a similar theory about the 2nd moon’s appearance @Hijiki wrote about last week.

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3

Finished this chapter late yesterday, here to give some of my thoughts.

I’ve been dying to find out how 青豆 ended up working for the old woman as an assasin, and I finally got my answers. I was expecting a slightly more exciting and off-the-wall reveal than just them idly chatting and sharing secrets, but I suppose 青豆 can’t just keep arriving to wild conclusions by doing little bits of research at the library :sweat_smile:

The end was heartbreaking, but the final line is so intriguing! Is it possible the little girl has also escaped from the same commune ふかえり has? Does the commune even still exist in some capacity (I may or may not have zoned out halfway through 戎野先生’s chapter long monologue :sweat_smile:)?