Lost three days to a migraine and lingering headache, so I’m behind on my manga of the week. I don’t want to push another week out so I’ll plan to finish both volumes next week.
I am so glad I swapped books for Jan and Feb. I’m reading a book I got probably a decade or more ago “Breaking into Japanese literature” which has several short stories from Natume Souseki and Akutagawa Ryuunosuke. I can’t say I care for them much, but what’s been really interesting is how language has changed since the early 1900s. Words like ここ、もちろん, etc used the kanji, and 入る was 這入る – I’d guess that the first characters pronunciation (は) eventually got absorbed into 入 over time, thus 入る vs 入れる pronunciation differences.
The story choices are, uh, interesting for a book geared at introducing people to literature. Several trigger warning apply.
Other than that, Persona 3 released on PC and I’ve been playing the female route in Japanese. sadly the quick save feature doesn’t work in the middle of dialogue, only in the overworld.
Curious what those are - feel free to put behind a spoiler or toggle of course! I don’t know Souseki to be very problematic (by reputation, only read one thing by him) but Akutagawa is…interesting. I can’t say I enjoy his writing at all, but I don’t avoid it entirely like Yumeno (another classic author).
Yeah it’s mainly Akutagawa. I’m finishing up “in a grove” and it’s got rape, murder, and attempted suicide.
Souseki read more like Edgar Allan Poe, which does still have sensitive content ( depression, suicide) but somehow feels less…direct I guess?
Edit: should add at least in “in a grove” the rape is not explicitly described, just stated to have occurred. I just find the choice of content to be an odd choice to introduce people to Japanese literature.
I think Re:Zero has made me give up reading Light Novels lol
I just really like the anime and reading it makes me just want the anime version. I want to read the novels I have, but I bought this volume to prove I could in fact read a volume of Re:Zero. I just like the idea of finishing a book with an ending that doesn’t require that any and all reading time going forward will be just this series.
I am enjoying Re:Zero, don’t get me wrong, its just White Rabbit has does such a good job adapting the books that I don’t feel like I am missing out by waiting. Thats just me though. Maybe I will go back to read volume 17 when I have time but I would like to read more self contained stories.
Unfortunately suicide is a super common theme in classic Japanese writing. I actually accidentally read Akutagawa’s own, real, suicide note thinking it was just a short story titled ‘suicide note’ (遺書).
I’ve read a lot of classic literature by this point (it’s free on the internet, so why not) and dark themes abound, although there’s also heart warming stuff and thoughtful things without darkness. I wonder if the editors were trying for a holistic view of Japanese literature when picking the stories? ie, a bit of everything? Or they just went by popularity / things that are required reading in 国語 classes.
That sub chapter of Re:Zero 16 was just them EATING x______x for 11 pages. For which I spent 3 minutes on each page just begging for something, ANYTHING interesting to happen. It was just “You look cute in this Yukata!” “Let’s eat!”
So we went from getting closer as a group. Barging in on a meeting, and eating. GAAAAAH!
I sorta ended up going down a rabbit hole reading about 万葉仮名 and the 万葉集 more generally today. Very cool stuff, and adjacent to japanese reading, but I did not actually read any of it in japanese (even a modern jp translation). Eventually, that’s something that would be cool to try reading, but beyond me for the time being
Read:
ホリミヤ ch 101 - all the chapters recently and after this are short, but this one is normal length for some reason
Word of the Day:
唇「くちびる」ー lips (also related: 唇音「しんおん」ー labial sound, and 唇歯音「しんしおん」ー labiodental sound)
I support this motion 100%
Hey everyone has to start somewhere! I bet you make it to fun stuff sooner than you think, you got this!
With two new manga on my “start reading sometime” list, I randomly picked a different one and started reading it today. I was looking for something to generate frequency lists from and landed on a series called 「ひよ恋」, then decided I’d read that.
30th jan we’re almost in february, when did that happen???
weekend exhaustion shaken off, back to 蟲師! chapter 1 of vol 4 is an odd story but the art is as always lovely. not sure i liked the ending, but i see what it was going for. plus, we finally get an explanation of how ginko has been getting his letters!
words that stuck out: 拒絶反応 (きょぜつはんのう, (organ) transplant rejection, strong reaction against), 密室 (みっしつ, locked room), 手立て (てだて, method, means). also shoutout to 数多 for the reading only (あまた)
This week was a bit of an up and down, but in the end it turned out quite okay.
Finished Tuberose Age32 (welp, NOT my favourite book, sadly), continued a bit with 1Q84 (until Ch. 15) and started Flesh&Blood Vol. 11.
And! I reached the break-even with my yearly reading goal, i.e. if I read in each subsequent month as much as I have read in this month, then I will make it. (And in case you didn’t notice, there are still two days left in this month! )
In other words, 834 pages down, 9,166 pages to go!