Week 2: すべてがFになる - The Perfect Insider

[NicoleRauch]

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すべてがFになる - The Perfect Insider Home Thread

Week 2

Start Date: Apr 17th
Previous Part: Week 1
Next Part: Week 3

Reading:

Week	Start Date	Chapter	Page Count
Week 2	Apr 17th	Chapter 2	52

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!

Participants

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• I’m reading along
• I have finished this part
• I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
• I am no longer reading the book

[Redglare]

Note to self: Chapter 2 has 8 parts

[Jfredel78]

Did you finish Chapter 1 yet?

[Redglare]

Yep! Got through it eventually

[miwuc]

For the people saying that the book is not gripping enough: plot is starting to happen! And I definitely want to know what happens next o_o

I personally quite like the book so far (minus minor complaints from the feminist in me).

[valkow]

There are a couple things where I just want to tell the author, “I get it already!” but mostly I am enjoying this book a lot. Do I like any of the characters? Maybe not, at this point?? But still I’m enjoying it. I’m remembering a little from the drama but not enough to be satisfying at all. I feel like they switched the order of things around a lot, maybe even bringing in stuff from later books first, so now I’m thinking that my favorite arc from the drama might not even be in this book, hm. I liked this one, too, though, so I’m still excited.

[NicoleRauch]

@valkow

I feel like they switched the order of things around a lot, maybe even bringing in stuff from later books first

So maybe there are still some surprises left in it for you

By the way even at the time of writing the series, this book was not meant to be the first one The author’s wikipedia page sheds some light on this phenomenon:

Mori made his debut as a novelist in April 1996 with The Perfect Insider . He won the very first Mephisto Prize for this, or rather, Editor Karaki says that the prize was established in the first place to make Mori’s debut sensational. At this point, he had already written up three other novels, and the truth is that the first piece of work he had completed was Doctors in Isolated Room rather than The Perfect Insider , which was supposed to be the fourth piece in the series. The editor in chief, Hideo Uyama, decided to publish it first since it was the most shocking of the four.

I really like the notion of establishing a prize for the author.

[valkow]

Ah, interesting! That makes a lot of sense. And there are definitely going to be surprises since I can’t remember many of the key things, even assuming they’re the same.

[Jfredel78]

Technical question:

How do you all approach reading a book like this? It takes me quite a while to read a page because I’m looking up every word I don’t know in an attempt to expand my vocabulary (and study for the N1). Do you all aim for 100% comprehension like this, or do you just accept some ambiguities and try to get the gist?

[Jfredel78]

What did you think of the part where 山根 says that 萌絵 and the 留学生 should get in the car because “女性優先”, but oh wait… 国枝 is actually a woman too! Ouch…

[miwuc]

Riiight, that’s the main thing I was thinking of And they do repeat that 国枝 looks like a man and that seems to be a negative thing. (Like 犀川 having trouble imagining her married, but I guess it’s based on her personality too).

[Belerith]

A couple months ago I only looked up words I wasn’t sure how to read, and was fine with knowing by context otherwise. In an effort to expand my vocabulary, I am also looking up everything now, though. It averages out to a bit over a word per page so far. The looking up doesn’t take that long, but since I’m also creating flashcards for them it probably adds 30-60 seconds to a page. (I’ve created 118 flashcards for the first 2 chapters.)

I’m curious myself now so I’ll be watching the clock next week. I think a page takes me about 2 minutes, but it’ll be interesting to see how far my perception differs from the truth.

How long does it take you to read a page? That is, what’s quite a while mean to you?

[NicoleRauch]

My vocabulary is still not great (although it’s slowly improving), so I usually look up everything. Sometimes I also double-check the readings of words. My reading speed is normally around 4-10 pages per hour, depending on the complexity of the text and the amount of words that are unknown to me. (This book is among the easier ones for me, so it’s usually closer to 10 pages, but may slow down significantly for the more difficult passages.)

[Jfredel78]

@Belerith @NicoleRauch
I’d say I take roughly 5 minutes a page if I’m looking up a lot of words. Maybe 2 minutes for dialogue-heavy pages where I don’t need to look anything up.

If I do the math, it looks like I probably read a little over 10 pages an hour. That sounds about right. I figured it took me about four hours total to read the first chapter.

[NicoleRauch]

@miwuc

For the people saying that the book is not gripping enough: plot is starting to happen!

Indeed - no more complaints on that end

[Redglare]

Part 2

Age of retirement at the lab is 40…?! 0: dou iu koto

Part 6

I like the reasoning from Saikawa when he realizes Moe lied about the promise “she would have told me about the promise as soon as she came back from her walk, I should have seen through that immediately… gosh darnit, just how much do I let my guard down around this person”

Part 7

The lab seems like a cool building with the subsystem Debora passing messages around and controlling the robot trolley and the lighting inside. No keys, only a glass hand scanner thingie. Also the plain hallways with no name plates, only different colored doors to tell them apart gives it an even more modern feel, at least with how I imagined it, haha #Minimalistic. No windows or stairs, only slopes and elevators. Cool cool

I’d expect the stuff at the lab to be strict, but not only are Moe and Saikawa casually let inside, the vice chief is plappering about matters that happen there too, i.e. the toraburu with the chief’s sudden nyoom away with the helicopter, and the thing with the Mysterious Door.

Part 8

This part was a bit scary

[Ditto20]

This chapter was definitely more interesting than the first, both with the kind of creepy stuff at the end of the chapter(which I happened to note was almost right at the 20% mark which is where a book I just read claims most novels tend to have some sort of catalyst, so apparently the book was right about at least one novel) and also with all the facts about stuff. I guess it might just be a general mystery thing, but all the random facts in this chapter made it feel a lot like the initial investigation parts of an Ace Attorney case, so I think I was probably unintentionallly making notes of any of those that seemed like they would be important for solving a potential case I also wonder if all the dolly descriptions means the thing in the room is related to what Magata Shiki talked about, since I feel like I remember her mentioning similar stuff in the previous chapter.