Just making sure I’m understanding this –
The whole scene with 紫苑 and 沙布 is happening four years after the opening scene with 紫苑 and ネズミ?
Yup there’s a big timeskip, Shion lost most of his high class friends when he harboured Nez but Safu’s stubborn and stuck with him.
Are you near pg 70? Cause you’ll really hope 4 years have gone by when you get there.
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I very much look forward to knowing what you’re talking about!
Edit: I think.
Wow, that’s interesting
If you don’t mind, if you intend on mentioning plot details that happen later in the book, could you please cover them with spoiler tags as that a group of us a going through this book together? I’m not too sure if others may not be too keen about reading plot details before they’ve reached that point in the book–we are currently reading chapter 2 right now.
I didn’t consider these things spoilers. You hear everything I’ve said by chapter 2. Possible exception of the breathing mention, but that’s implied.
I was joking about the use of the same damn phrases CONSTANTLY, cause of who Shion is as a person.
I’m only bringing this up because the time to bring up plot elements is later in the week when we’re supposed to have a discussion. As for me, I don’t really mind it, but I can’t speak for anyone else going through the thread looking to ask questions about grammar or vocabulary they come across in chapter two.
I am not sure what happen at page 20 to Shion’s father. I understood that His wife hate him because he was killing animals and he got punished or something like that.(last 4 lines of page 20).
Thx in advance
EDIT: Just read the next page and was wondering, was he part of a hunting club? Hunting fox maybe? Hunting is illegal so he was hunted???
I don’t think I saw any mention of his father in that section; I’m pretty positive it was just Shion noting how crime in No. 6 is very low and even hunting is illegal for all but a couple hunting seasons each year, and even then only hunting enthusiasts participate. He mentions that the vast majority of citizens don’t understand the logic behind hunting, and that his mother is one of them. The last line on page 20 may have been something his mother once said, or it could just be Shion’s summary of the general public’s opinion on hunting:
罪もない動物たちを殺すなんて、かわいそう。残酷だ。ひどい…。
“Killing animals, who never did anything wrong…the poor things. It’s cruelty. Horrible…”
(It’s not the best translation but you get the idea 
)
Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think Shion’s father is mentioned until page 28-29, and it sounds like his main fault was that he was an alcoholic.
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And in response to your edit: I think on page 21 Shion is saying he’s surprised that in a society where even shooting animals is frowned upon, someone could shoot a human. He mentions the hunting club when he wonders if Nezumi’s gunshot wound might have been a stray bullet fired by one of the club members - although the way he says it makes it sound like he doubts that’s actually the case.
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I was mixed up. 母さんは彼らを嫌う. I tought彼 was for boyfriend. Then I saw punisment sowehere so I was really confused thx a lot.
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Ahh that makes sense. Yeah I think the 彼ら in that sentence refers to the hunters. I almost never hear Japanese people use 彼 to mean “he/they” in normal conversation but every now and then TV and written media like to remind me that it has that meaning as well 
That’s my understanding.
My attempt to interpret/analyze the section on p.28 about the cherry cake and Shion's father, starting with 「母さんは、ぼくの誕生日には必ず」
On my birthday, without fail, my mother baked cherry cake. This was because, on the day I was born, my dad bought cherry cake.
I had heard from my mother that my father was a person who was careless with women and money; who, loving alcohol more than women and money, was one step from alcoholism, a hopeless man. > It seems that the three (pieces of?) cherry cake(s) that man bought on drunken impulse were so terribly delicious, my mother still is reminded of them when September 7 comes around. Because my parents separated two months after eating that cherry cake, I have no memory of my one-step-from-alcoholism, hopeless father.
I like how this short anecdote tells so much about their past and Shion’s mother’s feelings here. I get an ironic tone here–Shion’s mother bakes cherry cakes every year not because it’s super delicious, but because of the memories connected to it. We learn that his father was out drunk on the day Shion was born, on a whim bought three pieces of chery cake and came home (which must have been more than Shion’s mother expected of him at that point), and that was likely the best memory Shion’s mother had of the three of them together.
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Man this was all going so well, and then I hit p61… which has completely roadblocked me for like 2 days now. Is this page like way harder than everything else all of a sudden? I read these sentences over and over and have to look up 80% of the words and just have no idea what he’s talking about. (Other than like “no regrets, I’d do it all again.”)
I’d try to help, but it’ll take another, hmm, three hours to get there from p.57.
Oookay, page 57, my pitiful grammar knowledge strikes again. (Well, after realising I was looking at 進む rather than 進める [derp], I think I’ve got it after all.)
「進まなかったんじゃなくて、進めなかったんだ。」= “It’s not that I didn’t continue, it’s that I couldn’t continue.”
That’s correct, right?
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That’s pretty much how I understood it, when I read that passage.
Pg 61 is conditional central, but it seems like you’ve got the main point: no regrets.
He’s mostly thinking the same thing in different ways: if he could go back to that night, would he do things differently? Would he call the police etc? And he decides, no he wouldn’t. Despite everything he would do it all again. No regrets.
I won’t claim to have understood every sentence, but that’s the gist I think.
@Caracal: Yeah, I agree. I think he’s claiming his grades weren’t good enough to continue.
By the way, what’s the situation starting from Mon? In terms of an ‘official’ position, we’re beginning chapter 2?
I thpught we were officially starting chapter 1 last week, this week is chapter 2, next week is chapter 3?