Week 2 この本を盗む者は 📚 🪄 (Advanced Book Club)

Note: This is posted early because @pocketcat will be out of town and computerless when it needs to go up.

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Welcome to week 2 of この本を盗む者は :books: :magic_wand:

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Discussion Threads and Reading Schedule

Page counts are estimates from a digital edition. Please reference the stopping points as there are few chapters.

Week Start Date Chapter Start Page Page Count
Week 2 Feb 11 through end of chapter 1 34 47

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!

Member List

Are you planning to read week 2 of この本を盗む者は :books: :magic_wand: with the book club?

  • Yes
  • Not sure
  • No

0 voters

Special Readings

This book has been noted as having irregular kanji and made up names. There is a wiki of these in the bottom of the first post in the home thread.

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Thoughts about the rest of chapter 1:

Well, it looks like we got all the stolen books back already, so I wonder where the plot is going to go now? I’m hoping for a different genre, because I think I had my fill of magical realism in this chapter – it was a bit too much “things happen for no particular reason and then it’s over” for my taste.

Given that the fox helped open the locker of books, that suggests he’s not the thief, but if so, who is he?

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My kindle says I have 2 hours and 11 minutes left of reading to finish the chapter, but also my brain is fried from work and I may not read at all today (just like I didn’t yesterday). :grimacing:

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Well, that escalated quickly. I now understand why in a lot of reviews people said this book required a lot of imagination to picture things.

I’m also very curious to see how things unfold as I did not expect chapter 1 to end this way.
But I disagree with @pm215, in my opinion the fox is likely the robber? It knew where the books were and probably released them to reverse the curse. Plus it knows how to lockpick which is a skill a thief is more likely to have (in novels anyway). Especially in Japan where even owning lockpicks is illegal…

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Maybe that’s why I’m having trouble. :joy: Multiple times I’ve found myself reading a scene, just to be confused because it seems like something unexpected is now happening or the setting has suddenly changed. (e.g. when 深冬 is getting pulled along by 真白 and passing by the Judo people, I didn’t realize at first that they were literally just passing by, so I got confused when they were suddenly in a different place already)

(Also part of my problem is that I don’t like fairy tales, so I’m bored out of my mind during those parts)

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There were definitely lots of times where it was describing something strange and I thought wait, is that a metaphor or is it literally happening? But yes, it’s all literally happening…
(Except in week 1 where I learned the expression 船を漕ぐ)

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Owning hairpins isn’t though :wink:

I liked this chapter! Imagining all the chaos was fun for me, and made me check my Japanese understanding. That said, I agree with @pm215 in that it’s a little unclear where we’re going from here. I also think the fox was the thief (…also that felt kind of obvious from the beginning because Foxes Are Not To Be Trusted :tm:) and I suspect he will steal again and we’ll have more wild adventures. Hopefully of different genres each time!
深冬’s sudden love of reading at the end felt pretty heavy handed though, I hope we don’t get more of that.

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Can someone tell me what is? I’ve been reading and reading, hoping it would eventually get cleared up by context, but I still have absolutely no idea.

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My dictionary told me it was a pole, but googling “棹 イメージ” shows it can also be boat oar or the neck of an instrument. Polls are also present in the search results, but less common.

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Yes; I assumed it was something like an impossibly tall telegraph pole.

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Fun fact, that’s also a place where I had to do a double take. Like @pm215 said, it’s a pole… but then the book mentioned it was a few thousand meters high, which played the vinyl scratch sound in my mind. I even checked with my dictionary, but I didn’t remember wrong.

About the fox, I immediately thought he/she was suspicious since the introduction part mentioned that the grandmother made the curse through the help of 狐神. So I though it was either a helper from said 狐神 or the thief being cursed by the same.

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So I finally finished the first chapter, and it kind of just feels like the book is done?

This sums up my feelings exactly. I don’t really like fairy tales for exactly this reason.

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