I read ahead to the end of the chapter so I’m going to avoid commenting too much on the story in case I give any spoilers. I will say I continue to enjoy this story in particular, and feel very connected to this lady’s difficulties.
Some words I enjoyed this week from my highlights I made:
斜め読み - a great word for
skimreading
ひきつけ - I nearly glossed over this word but was glad I looked it up. It seems a very simple word for something that is much longer in English!
川の字 - probably my favourite phrase of the week!
堰 - my favourite new kanji of the week
Also, something strange going on with discourse on Safari for iOS. Wasn’t able to format this like I wanted to…
Finished this part, it was really great! I’m hopeful for the Natsumi’s future. I’m also happy that she ended up meeting with the writer. And I hope that she makes peace with her husband.
I think that I’ll start reading the final part right away, I’m too curious
I’m really glad Natsumi was able to meet with Prof. Midzue, and I understood that it was because Kizawa-san arranged the meeting? I could have got that wrong though…the meeting with him seemed to snap Natsumi out of rut (or 被害者意識 - great word!).
If that’s the case, it means Natsumi was mistaken about Kizawa-san coming down to the materials department to gloat about still being a Mira editor. This mistaken interpretation falls in line with Natsumi’s musings about changing her (mistaken?) perspective on her current life situation after listening to Prof. Midzue, and talking about how “morning” and “evening” don’t come to where we are on Earth, rather we go to them.
I like the common theme among the three stories so far, where the characters have doors open just by changing their perspective. It reminds me of an expression I once heard. Something like “you don’t see things how they are, you see things how you are.” (possibly related to the two invisible eyes explanation? I didn’t really understand that part too well)
But it also seems to me that in addition to the character’s change in perspective, they are possibly aided by a little “magic”: of Komachi pointing them to a paradigm-shifting book, but also by serendipitous encounters with a wise acquaintances who seem to know some of the answers they need to hear (Kiriyama-kun for Tomoka, Yasuhara-san for Ryo, and Prof. Midzue for Natsumi). One could say that these acquaintances are everywhere and we only need to be open enough to listen to the wisdom they have learned and apply it to our own situation. Then it would not be so magical. But Komachi is a definitely a strangely, magically intuitive person.
And, as others mentioned, I also enjoyed learning the expression 川の字で寝る! When writing the kanji 「川」the middle stroke is the shortest, just like a kid sleeping in the middle! I tried to search for other Japanese expressions like this, but could not find any. And the only one I could come up with in English was “U-turn.”
Looking forward to reading the rest of Natsumi’s story.
Thanks for your thoughts on the story, I enjoyed reading them. I’m not sure that she is Prof Midzue. I think the term 先生 is used with her as mark of respect for her status as an author, rather than her having a teaching role.
The one that comes to mind is 大の字で寝る - sleeping spreadeagled looking like the 大 kanji.
Oh you are right about 先生. Now that you mention it, I now recall seeing the term used for doctors as well.
Midzue being a female author makes sense too. Especially with Natsumi’s insistence that Midzue would have something to offer a younger generation.
Incidentally, I may have missed the use of 彼女 in describing the author, but I notice proper names are more favored over pronouns in Japanese vs in English. I’ll find myself reading for some time before I realize the character is not the gender I assumed.
I can have the same issue. It’s easy to miss obvious clues about the character’s gender that would be obvious to a native speaker. In this case the big clue being that みづえ is a female name!
I don’t think this is quite right – みづえ先生 is visiting the publishing company’s offices because she has a (business) meeting with Kizawa; but because she is in the area she has stopped in on the way to ask Natsumi to lunch (as a personal thing – Natsumi is meeting her in her lunch hour and the bill won’t be going on expenses).
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