You mean Week 2 here. And maybe it’s better to always mention the chapter too? “Chapter 1, until the end of part 6”. Makes things clearer in each thread
Oh man, I just realized I won’t be able to come to the next 3 reading along sessions. I’d forgotten I’m gonna be on vacation. I’ll try to keep up with the book club goals… or read ahead a bit…
Even if I already watched the anime, it was long enough ago that most of the story feels fairly fresh now that I’m reading it. It seems like I pretty just remember characters and very major events… so that’s kind of nice, actually, since it makes reading the book now a more enjoyable experience than I’m guessing it would have been otherwise.
As for this week’s reading, while not much has happened yet, it’s nice to see Subaru try to be useful in other ways after realising he doesn’t have any of the stuff he mentioned earlier, even if the results kind of wary. I personally also like books that take time to let the characters interact and stuff before more dramatic things start happening(and just to be clear since I said I already watched the anime, that’s just an assumption from me, I’m not saying they will, I’m just guessing that they will), so it’s in my opinion pretty nice that much of this week’s reading was interaction between the characters
There’s also something about having narration that makes me like things more(maybe I just prefer reading over watching, I guess), and I’m pretty sure the anime didn’t have as much of that
Yeah, there’s a lot more nuance with narration. With animation, it’s a bit more simple and straight-forward, while with narration you get a lot more of a feel for why the characters do certain actions or gestures. I’m very much enjoying the book so far myself, even if I’d already seen the anime.
There’s a friend of mine that recommends me some anime and I’m like “oh, the light novel it comes from is in my to read list”, and he never understands why I would read something before watching.
Maybe it has something to do with me missing 90% of everything I watch because I’m not really good at noticing stuff that aren’t actually written down in front of me.
I actually plan to use this vacation as a way to get back on track with my reviews and lessons as well as my reading. Hopefully I can weave these in while sightseeing
I’m starting to think I might actually finish this book
Last sentence before the end of the part 6, right after the girl Subaru is with names herself as Satella そんな二人のやり取りを眺めながら、銀髪にもぐり込むパックがふと一言、「──趣味が悪いよ」 とだけ呟いたのは、スバルはおろか少女にすら届かなかった。
Ignoring the relative clause, I’m assuming this reads something like
“The simple remark Puck muttered, “That [her] hobbies are bad,” didn’t even reach the girl, let alone Subaru.”
I was thinking おろか was 愚か for a second, but it’s actually 疎か right? I don’t really understand what part of speech this word is. It’s affected by スバル right? But it doesn’t seem like a noun or particle. Jisho lists it as an “expression” which is like mega useless. Does anyone know what this word is and how it works?
And just to confirm the は in スバルは is the contrastive は right?
Yeah, it is 疎か. Somethingはおろか means that what is being stated afterward goes without saying for the “something”, and is used to say it’s also true for something else (in a greater degree). In this case, it means that it goes without saying that Subaru didn’t hear what the cat said, and that even the girl (who was closer to the cat, thus more likely to catch it) didn’t hear it. Here is a dictionary entry with an additional example:
I also found this page which compares it to “let alone”, which is pretty close in meaning, I think. There are some more examples in there.
There is also a Japanese explanation if you’re interested. It’s more detailed, since it doesn’t just give you an English “equivalent” and actually explains how to use it and all.
I found a glossary of terms but I’m still not sure I get everything: goo国語辞書 凡例
At point 5, they include this:
So it’s a hint that it’s the type of conjugation. Clicking the link at part 1 （「記号・約物一覧」参照） I found these explanations:
［形動］形容動詞
［形動ナリ］形容動詞ナリ活用
［文］文語形
Not sure what a “nari conjugation” is supposed to be, but it might be something related to classical Japanese grammar. Leaving that aside 文語系 is “literary form” from what I can tell, so that might be the meaning of 文.
I hope I’m even looking in the right place, it took me a while to find that help page and it seemed to have the info I was looking for.
Huh, so I guess it’s a nominal adjective then. スバルはおろか seems like such a weird phrase. I guess I’ll just have to take it as like a set construction or something, though that’s not super satisfying.
Fundamental maybe? Honestly, the simpler the question is in Japanese the harder it seems to answer lmao
I did learn this as a set phrase when I was preparing for the JLPT meaning something like “not to mention … needless to say … not to speak of … not only …”. It’s a contrastive construction. In this case
スバルはおろか少女にすら届かなかった
Puck was in Satella’s hair so Subaru couldn’t have heard him. but not even she heard him even if she was near. The whole phrase is to say that he spoke it so softly that no one heard him. It’s like “ok, so if Subaru didn’t hear him that’s understandable, it’s expected, but not even she heard him, even though he’s sitting in her hair” or something like that. That’s how I parse it.
Somewhat, yes, but that’s still relevant today. For instance 静かに (because なり活用) but 堂々と because たり活用. That being said, that last one is tagged “トタル“ as well, so I don’t know.
I also learned はおろか as a set phrase from a JLPT book, but obviously that’s a simplification.
Well, by now it is mostly a set construction indeed, but it’s standard anyway. Trying to think of the grammar, I thought you could replace おろか by もちろん. I checked he dictionary and lo and behold, we get this example sentence:
酒は勿論のこと、タバコもいけない
Not exactly what I had in mind, but the first part definitely act like a noun phrase, same as おろか, I think.
Managed to get through this part in a single day as well, somehow. I think it took around 2 hours though… I do think it felt a little bit easier today so that’s something! Still not much to say about the story. There are some differences from the anime so far: The lesser spirits scene happens differently and at a different time in the anime, I’m sure there are others but it’s been a while since I watched the anime.
I’ll keep trying to catch up at this pace (one per day), but I’ll probably take Saturdays off to read 本好きの下剋上 so won’t be reading any tomorrow.
or read ahead a bit…
