Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: セーラー服と機関銃

This is pretty useful! Thanks for showing us. Did it take too much trouble?

Nope! Especially once I started doing just the last phrase per page.

Here’s an important question for people with a physical copy of the book: Are you reading with the dust jacket on or off?

All Japanese books I’ve ever bought have a dust jacket and personally I really hate the way it slips around when you’re holding the book open. Does it bother others as much?

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It does bother me sometimes, but I’m afraid what’ll happen to it in my room if I take it off. So the dust jacket stays on.

Usually I read with the book siting on a flat surface/my bed, so the dust jacket’s not as annoying that case.

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Grammar question, page 7, 3rd sentence.

In 「わすがに湿気をおびた土の匂いがした、」does わすがに apply to 湿気をおびた or 匂いがした? That is, “slightly damp” or “slight smell of”? Since "「おびた」(帯びた) means “to have a trace of; tinged with,” I’m guessing the correct translation is “slightly damp”?

I think you’re right. That whole phrase わずかに湿気をおびた is describing 土, right? Then that 「slightly-dampness-with-tinged-earth」is what the smell is of. So completely: the smell of slightly damp earth. That’s my understanding at least.

I mentioned this in the old thread briefly – of course people should be able to discuss the language at any time. I went ahead and edited that into the OP. If that weren’t the case, some people would legitimately get stuck! And that’s no fun.

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I’d really like to push for deadlines for each chapter instead of this “pages a day” thing. There are two reasons:

  • Physical and ebook owners will always end up at the same place, not having to worry about page boundaries.
  • We’ll always start discussing at a real “cut-off point” – never in the middle of something that’s happening.

We could potentially base the deadline on the “5 pages a day” vote. “A chapter a week” is easiest, but we could also check the average length of a chapter and divide that by 5 to get the number of days to spend on each chapter.

How about it? I think it’d be a lot easier.

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I think was the consensus earlier. A chapter per (week) is fine in no.6 because each chapter is similar in length, but that’s not true of all books. In キノの旅 for example it would mean a reading speed of anywhere from just over 2 pages to just under 10 per day depending on the chapter.

I’ve added Amazon UK links, as well as links to the original 単行本 version. I personally prefer the look of the 文庫本, but hey – if there are options, people should be aware of them!

Just for reference regarding chapter length:

1 = 36, 2 = 41, 3 = 50, 4 = 43, 5 = 33

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Hmm. Maybe that could be solved by some math before each read session. In books where the chapters are odd lengths, we could have a fluid deadline for each, or we could read 2-3 chapters a week depending on length.

BY THE WAY is everyone aware that NO.6 is a BL (that is, yaoi) story? Because I sure as heck didn’t know! I’m sure @anon75098302 is very acutely aware, and perhaps @Iwasneverhere, but how about everyone else?

I mean, I’ll read it if everyone else is doing it, but I am a wee bit miffed over being so handily tricked into reading about boys smooching. I’m gonna have to buy another book and read in parallel so I won’t have to say “well, the first full Japanese novel I read was about bishōnen”…

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I was under the impression it was an SF-ish novel focusing on two boys with the romantic part only hinted at. Does that make it yaoi? Possible mild spoiler: It’s certainly in evidence in the first chapter, but there’s nothing explicit so far.

I’m with you for the future, though. I’d prefer to read more non-anime / manga type things.

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ラノベ are nice because they’re fairly easy to read and often have furigana (although NO.6 doesn’t seem to). We could definitely choose something less manga-ey in the future, though, hahah. I’ll be on the lookout for novels I’d like to read for sure.

I also think we’re going to have to have a more rigorous voting process next time – one that starts with nominations, and that has tiered voting (doing sequential votes for only the most popular alternatives of the previous vote) so the votes of the people who voted for unpopular books don’t go to waste.

I actually didn’t know it was BL because it wasn’t the description and I’ve never watched the anime or even saw previews. It was nominated because some one else made a thread about reading it and that’s where I asked if anyone would like the idea of a book club. (I got the same idea when someone made a kino’s journey thread, but I finally decided speak up the second time) The person who was reading it said it wasn’t that hard, and @riccyjay said it could be a good starter. I also thought the first person reading it was male, so I wouldn’t have even guessed. It was up with every other book, no one influenced the vote, (or maybe that recent thread had something to do with it?), but you certainly were not tricked into reading it. I am sorry you felt that way.

I mean ship can’t be cannon in the first book anyway, so It’s not like they’re going to break out and start having sex at page 75. Maybe @anon75098302 can tell us when it would get uncomfortable for heterosexual males? I really don’t think it should be too much of a problem, and I apologize to any one this may upset. But I’ve read/watched things with lesbians in it, and it didn’t bother me so I don’t see why anyone should be that upset over this tbh. It has plot, it’s not going to be solely Yaoi.

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I was always under the impression that this is what we planned to do. But it does make the most sense so I agree with you.

Off! So agree! I have a giant pile of those things on my bookshelf.

And that annoying weird like “strip” that they always add around the outside of the dust jacket too arrg

I like this for people who do longer reading sessions less than once a day as well. I like the idea of a weekly goal and a weekly discussion.

Oh, don’t get me wrong! It’s not that kind of problem, hahah. I’m mostly just not interested in or enticed by BL, a feeling I’m sure I’m not alone in having.

There’s also the aspect where BL sub(?)plots tend to feel tacked on just to appeal more to a certain demographic, which I’ve noticed can cheapen the rest of the story. NO.6 may very well not have that problem – I don’t know; let’s see!

Don’t worry, that was 100% a joke. Of course I wasn’t tricked into doing anything. :grin:

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