Informal Nisio Isin Bookclub 👩‍💻👩‍🎨👩‍🎓🧙‍♀️👩‍🍳 (Reading クビキリサイクル)

Japanese Language Reading
#6

Yes! I figured we could aim to finish at about the same time as the intermediate club finished コーヒーが冷めないうちに. That should also be around the time the next Murata club pick finishes up as well, which I’m guessing will be about 20 weeks. That would leave us at a pace of about 27 pages per week in my version (which sounds a bit aggressive, but I guess I was probably averaging more than that by doing Murata+Your Name at the same time).

By the way, what version do you have? I have the softcover that starts on page 6 and ends on 553. If we don’t have the same version I’ll try to just write a schedule based on chapters. And would you be ready to start this weekend? I was thinking we could start by reading the preface as well as chapters 0 and 1 (16 pages total) to get used to the style, and keep the reading around or under 20 pages/week until 殺人出産 ends.

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#7

27 pages, eh? That’ll definitely be more than I’m used to, but I’m willing to give it a try. The version I have is the e-book, which looks like it might have the cover for the hardback? I’m not 100% on that.

#8

It’s a push for me as well, but 頑張りましょう！ If it seems impractical we can dial it back a bit. I’ll do the schedule by chapters and add ending sentences if/when we have to split chapters. It looks like chapters range from ~1-30 pages but there may be some longer outliers.

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#9

Alright here’s my proposed schedule!

It starts off with a 16-page warmup, then keeps things capped in the low twenties for the next month or so while we finish 殺人出産. There really aren’t any natural breaks within the chapters, so rather than pick an arbitrary stopping point I combined weeks at a few points. The epilogue is a big jump in pace but it’s only a week and we can test our ability to handle the Advanced Book Club pace. One nice thing is that the book seems (expectedly) dialogue heavy, so the pages themselves aren’t too dense.

Let me know what you think!

Week Start Read Up To Pages
1 18 Jun サヴァンの群青 ２ 16
2 25 Jun サヴァンの群青 ３ 22
3-4 2 Jul サヴァンの群青 ５ 43*
5 16 Jul 集合亡算数 ０ 15
6 23 Jul 集合亡算数 ２ 24
7 30 Jul 集合亡算数 ３ 23
8 6 Aug 首斬リーコ ２ 22
9 13 Aug 首斬リーコ ３ 29
10-11 20 Aug 0.14の悲劇 ４ 48*
12 3 Sep 首斬リニコ ０ 27
13 10 Sep 首斬リニコ ４ 29
14 17 Sep 嘘 ０ 22
15-16 24 Sep 鴉の濡れ羽 ０ 67*
17 8 Oct 鴉の濡れ羽 ２ 33
18 15 Oct 分岐 ０ 33
19 22 Oct まつかなおうぎばなし 19
20 29 Oct End 44

*Divide by 2 to get pages per week

We could also consider modifying a bit when we see the full schedule for the current intermediate pick and the next Murata pick come out.

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#10

This looks like a pretty reasonable schedule to me. I’m willing to give it a go. :smiley:

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#11

Big week! First week of クビキリサイクル and last week of 殺人出産. I can’t decide which to read first!

  • I’m Reading Along
  • I’m Catching Up

0 voters

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#12

Started reading the book last night. Despite the vocabulary not being all that challenging, I had a bit of trouble piecing some of the sentences together. Hopefully it’s just a case of me not being used to his writing style, and my troubles will lessen as I make my way through the text.

On a slightly different note, the presence of a character list intimidated me. I have a feeling I’m going to be referring to it a lot just to check the furigana for names. :laughing:

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#13

Just finished up chapter 1 last night!

The preface was really difficult for me. I think book beginnings in general tend to be difficult for three reasons:

  • You have to get used to a new author’s style (or even just a new book’s style like in 殺人出産)
  • Intros seems to be written in a more dense, “literary” style. (This was definitely the case for Your Name as well)
  • You haven’t built up any mental context yet for anything that’s going on. (Like who the heck is talking in all those quote blocks in the preface, or what they’re even “philosophizing” in relation to, if that makes sense)

That being said Chapter 1 is way easier. The first 5 or so pages were still a bit slow due to points 1 and 3, but by the end of the week’s reading it felt like decently smooth sailing. I might go back and reread the preface again to try to understand it a bit better.

I love the inclusion of a character list! I think every Japanese book should have one by law. It would be embarrassing to say how far into 殺人出産 I got before I could stop flipping back to the early pages to search for character name furigana. Also, I’m pretty sure 玖渚友 (くなぎさとも)'s name was mentioned about 30 times in chapter 1 and it took about 20 times for it to stick (I don’t know why but I found the reading of this name to be particularly unintuitive).

I actually decided to SRS the character names! I did it once before for Yuru Camp since I knew I’d be with that series for a very long time. It might feel like a bit of a waste of SRS bandwidth since it’s so particular to this book alone, but considering that names might be among the most high-frequency and most difficult words in the book, I think it will pay off huge dividends in terms of smoothness overall.

I definitely enjoyed chapter 1. There’s not too much going on yet but I’m curious to learn more about 玖渚 and about why they’re on the island in the first place. I don’t know if you’ve seen 物語 but I was picturing the conversation happening in a similar animation style :laughing:. The one downside of reading in Japanese is that I can’t mentally match the snappy pace at which the back-and-forth is probably occurring.

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#14

Also I feel like the thread title is lacking a good emoji. Any ideas? (Sadly I could not find a guillotine emoji).

#15

@Belerith I see you lurking :eyes:. Want to hop on this train?

#16

Don’t tempt me :eyes:

How did you know :eyes:

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#17

Week 2! Reading all of chapter 2 (of this part), stopping at chapter 3.

  • I’m Reading Along
  • I’m Catching Up

0 voters

#18

Sorry I’ve been a little slow on クビキリ. This week’s been unusually busy, plus I’m in the middle of moving (hence why I still haven’t commented in 殺人出産).

#19

Oh man I know how tough moving can be on Japanese learning! It took me months to claw my way back on top of my reading and SRS after I moved in March.

This week’s reading was kind of tough. I’m hoping I start getting more used to it soon! The biggest issues is that it’s just a vocabulary gauntlet. I think I’ve come across sentences where I don’t know a single word. I’ve managed to hang on so far though!

I had some notes with thoughts that I had throughout the reading but alas I don’t have them on me when I sit down to actually post. I like the characters so far- I’m a bit of a computer nerd so I actually found the dated conversation about operating systems and computer hardware enjoyable. I like Kunagisa as well (although I thought I was misreading something when ahe called herself “僕様ちゃん“. Is she serious or is she just teasing our protag?)

There was also a short story referenced in the conversation with 深夜 which was pretty cool. Again I don’t have my notes but I think it was called something like “There are Dead Bodies under the Cherry Trees”. If I weren’t so busy with this I would have tried reading it in Japanese! But in English it’s a quick read. Very surreal.

#20

Next two weeks are combined for a total of 43 pages, which should provide for a bit more flexibility. I’ll try not to procrastinate!

  • I Just Moved so I’m a Bit Behind
  • I’m Reading Along

0 voters

#21

One reason this book will take me so long is that it keeps sending me on little tangents. Last week was the Motojiro Kajii detour, and this week I’ve decided I need to learn how to play Shogi!

#22

Hope things have settled down a bit! This week’s nice and short. I’ve definitely gotten more comfortable with "である” grammar over the course of the book so far. I’ll admit I’ve cheated a bit by glancing at the English translation now and then to confirm my comprehension–this is a lot harder than Murata! It’s definitely getting smoother as I go, though.

  • I’m Catching Up
  • I’m Reading Along

0 voters

#23

More interesting things I’ve learned about from this week’s reading: the origins of photography and of perspective in art, as well as the artist Gustave Courbet.

I love that we’ve gotten such in depth introductions to each character. I’m not looking forward to any of them getting murdered, or being a murderer! (although some already seem a bit insane)

#24

@softlyraining I hope all is well! We’re definitely missing you in the bookclubs but I totally understand that life gets in the way.

Anyway, on to week 6. It’s really flying by.

  • I’m Catching Up
  • I’m Reading Along

0 voters

#25

I’m sorry for not responding! I finally have internet again. Things were kind of dicey with the move, but they’re finally starting to settle down. I’m impressed with how well you’ve been keeping up on the reading! I’m…very far behind. :sweat: BUT, I’m going to try and get myself going again. It might be hard for me to catch up completely, so I hope you don’t mind if my responses are all on past sections you’ve already read through.

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