Oh boy what a week. Rollercoaster of emotions. Loved it again.
Thoughts
At first, I was like “yay” a story with connections to languages. How fitting for our little reading club. It started so strong with the descriptions of the performances of the different people.
But then he started creating this story about his grandmother, digging up bones of the deceased to build dolls, making up a whole singsang 吹き込み言葉. I honestly nearly died of second hand embarrassment when I read that part (Fremdschämen).
It is a good story though. I’m actually wondering how much of it is based in some kind of truth of things. Did his granny actually live in such a small village by the seaside? And I have to give it to our protagonist. He is good at crafting stories.
And all that to not let down the girl at the front desk, that probably wouldn’t care even a bit if he(?) went into the room by accident. That reminds me, compared to the other stories I don’t think we know the gender of our protagonist yet. Japanese is such an interesting language ^^.
Either way. That front desk girl definitely has the correct job, though. Without encouraging people who look interested, and getting them over their initial hesitation, they’d miss out on interesting life experiences.
I’m definitely intrigued on where the story is going. Is our protagonist actually coming back to the B談話室 at some point in time? Does the reception lady, or the old man he helped, play a bigger role. What will be the occupation of our protagonist. I’m looking forward to getting these questions answered.
Incidentally, this raises a point that I observed recently when reading another collection of 小川 stories. Most of her stories are written from the point of view of a (usually nameless) female narrator. When there is a male character or a male narrator, they are often less sharply drawn. (This is not a criticism. It is very understandable that she writes most comfortably from a female perspective. Indeed, that is one of the very interesting and enjoyable parts of her writing).
I too enjoyed this story
I particularly enjoyed his inner monologue, questioning what the hell he thought he was doing, even as he was confabulating his story about the fishing village and then launching into 偽物中国語
Yes, I’m intrigued to see where this will go. Will he end up with the girl from the reception desk? Will he end up being inspired to study linguistics or endangered languages? Will he be found out?
Ha, I knew there had to be a reason why I wrote “he” in my comment. My subconscious must have associated that way. I was just to lazy to confirm if we had any solid indication of it. Thanks for picking it out.
Haha what a cool dude! My prediction for his future is that he is forced to visit the newborn and build such a doll for it! And while they dig up the ancestors‘ bones they will be arrested by the police and everything will be found out
Wow just catching up but this one is crazy so far. I actually chuckled to myself when they started going around the circle thinking, man wouldn’t it be so funny if he just started blurting some bullshit? Laughed even harder in surprise with some secondhand embarrassment when he actually did it. Gotta respect it - curious to see how strong his commitment to the bit is!
