This week felt a little easier to me than the other ones. I think it’s mainly an effect of there being more dialog. It was mainly people talking and making plans.
Thoughts
I was pretty surprised that they all thought wapros were something pretty rare. The book came out in 1987. I’ve thought wapros would have been pretty common by then. That just shows you how much the world has changed in that relative short time frame on one hand. On the other hand most things are still the same, and we can easily read a book from that time period without it feeling too dated. Close to 40 years, man.
I quite like our protagonists on the mainland so far. They all have their own quirks, and I think they are a more harmonious bunch compared to our group on the island.
What shocked me was the backstory of 千織. I feel like they more or less brushed it off. If something like that would happen to me, I would be devastated much harder. Sure 江南 is feeling some regret, but honestly he is probably one that isn’t mainly at fault.
I’m not sure if it is helpful that the book is split into island and mainland storylines. I feel like when we go back to the island in next week’s reading I will have already forgotten pretty much everything about the story that is going on over there. But it’s probably necessary for the book to work, so I leave my judgment for after when we finish the book.
EDIT: was also happy to see がてら used in this weeks reading. Since I started learning N1 grammar I appreciate it actually being used somewhere.
After much reflection, I think I’m reading too many books at the moment, so I will likely be reading on ahead of this one to finish up early. I’m just re-reading for fun anyway; if the club votes to continue reading this series, I’ll definitely be joining you guys for initial reads.
Already, I’ll post my thoughts here for this week once I finish.
Definitely a long week; not too bad since I’ve had more free time than usual to read, but it might be a tough sell on a usually-busy week. Anyhow, we jump to what I remember as the mainlanders having the time, energy, and interest in deep-diving on the mysteries at large, sometimes tediously. Anyway, we’ve got 島田、河南、and 守須. So if I’m understanding the timeline here correctly, 中村青司 and his household died before 千織, right? She died a few months after them?
Everybody probably knows this by now, but just to put it down here as well, at the start of chapter 3 (i.e. next week) we get the confirmation that @downtimes is right regarding the timeline of events.
I’m also not convinced by the dual storyline idea, especially since the island has so many characters to keep track of. Maybe it would be more manageable if I were a native speaker who could finish a chapter a day.
Anyway, we’ve got 島田、河南、and 守須. So if I’m understanding the timeline here correctly, 中村青司 and his household died before 千織, right? She died a few months after them?
I keep flipping the order of events around in my head for some reason.