This from a short story I’ve read a few times from the Penguine Japanese parallel texts collection of short stories. (for those who have the book, it’s the story「黙 市」
Some people may not like this style of writing, but whenever I encounter long, windy sentences like this, I just get excited so I thought I’d share a good one.
For a small amount of context, the speaker is reminicing about a time in high school she had when going to a traditional Japanese garden she lived by. She goes with 3 friends (double date), and while they are all into the garden (and it’s attention to details), she’s disappointed that she is unable to be as genuinely thrilled as they are by what to her has become common place.
「六義園と言えば、そばに住むようになって三年ほど経ったその頃には、なかに入ってはじめて見ることができる庭園の手入れの行き届いた芝生の明るさよりも、塀際の、伸びるままにまかせている雑木の暗い木立しか、思い浮かべられなくなっていた。」
The reason I bolded one part is because I like the grammar in that part especially. I like it because it explains the “why” of the following sentence without using だから or ので or more obvious versions of “because”. Rather, the speaker implies that living there for 3 years would almost naturally have this effect of indifference on someone.
