I really loved this story - I think my favourite of the ones so far. Whimsical, poignant, profound.
The second half definitely didn’t go where I had imagined it would from the first half.
We start this half with a tiny insight into the character as he was at the time of first discovering B談話室. He has this incredibly brain numbing job as a proof reader of academic texts, but curiously seems to find it fulfilling and fascinating. In particular, Ogawa uses this geological metaphor of him diving through strata of soil, gravel and rock, searching for typos, identifying corrections, and then (?) marking them with little red pebbles.
This short section seems to be very significant in several ways. The way the character conceives of his role in proofreading (where he makes tiny corrections but leaves no trace of himself) seems to mirror his interactions in the community hall. Ogawa uses the same word 潜り込む when the character talks about his engagement in all of the assorted meetings and groups. And (if I understood correctly), this is further echoed in how the character conceives of his role as a novelist.
(The obsessional proof reader echoes Mina’s mother in Ogawa’s ミーナの行進, who has a wonderfully odd hobby of searching for accidental misprints in advertising material)
There are two further groups that our narrator joins - both of which are moving, but in different ways. I still have only a vague sense of what was going on in the 運針. Others may have found videos explaining this sewing technique, but it seems as though the class is a form of mindfulness or meditation rather than anything specific to needlework. Our narrator discovers his neighbour silently weeping, and (consonant with his hidden proofreader role, and perhaps with what everyone else is doing) he resumes focus on his needle poky-poking and ignores the other person’s distress.
The second group has the opposite emotional structure. The narrator tries to flee the 梔子 (口無し get it?)会 as soon as he realises what it is actually for, but is trapped by the desperate clutching of his neighbours. Here, he is the one blubbering - and there is a lovely reflection on how he does not feel (completely) like an imposter - his tears for the lost children are genuine.
There is what seems to be an important sentence at the end of this section
B談話室に行われている営みを間違いなくこの世に刻み付けるために、小説を書いている
I have this half sense that this is an echo of the central idea of the book - and maybe of Ogawa’s writing itself. Why does she write her stories? Perhaps this is one answer??
And then we have the curious and magically mysterious ending.
What do you make of the vanishing woman at the counter?
I have a theory I think that perhaps this is Ogawa herself - inserted into her story like one of Hitchcock’s cameo appearances. I’ve only just thought of this, but I am now wondering whether there are similar cameo characters in Ogawa’s other novels?
I just finished the story and agree, it’s beautiful
3rd Night
This totally went in a different direction than what I had envisioned, with him becoming a meeting addict and eventually a writer.
Also, all of these stories (and especially this one) give me the impression of characterizing the very normal, ordinary Japanese people (actually very similar to how my language partners keep describing themselves and everyone), even more ordinary than what I found in many novels (because there you often have a kind of hero figure or extraordinary person). So maybe that’s the overarching theme? A glimpse into the ordinary and how special it is?
I finished as well. Didn’t like the story as much as the last one. It also was pretty lookups heavy for me with all the specialized vocabulary.
Thoughts
I also didn’t expect the story to go into the direction it did. I did feel like him visiting the other cubs wasn’t nearly as cringe as his first club. Even the meeting with the parents who lost their child (honestly wouldn’t have expected something like that with that name either) he actually had real emotions so I am fine with him being there.
It’s an interesting hobby for sure. He has such a reclusive personality and becomes a meeting addict, where you always meet totally unknown people.
Yeah that part didn’t fit 100% for me. His character giving interviewes just seemed a little of. I would have more expected him to publish under a psydonym.
That’s how I understood it as well. Its a way to focus urself and get rid of distractions. It worked for our protagonist! I think I would like to try something similar myself.
I’m more pragmatic. I simply think the ojisan was sick one time and let his daughter help him out. Didn’t like the guy enough to want him to meet his daughter so he denied there being a girl in the first place .
Last week I said the girl has the right job. In contrast, to me it seems the ojisan is not very good at his job…
Yeah you could say that is one part of it. For me a really big theme thoughout are still the human connections and how they shape who we are and who we become.
The factory worker that helped our first protagonist through her accident (indirectly), the connection with the landlady in the second story, and now all the (even fleeting) connections our protagonist made with the club members.
I don’t have too much to add that hasn’t already been said, but so glad to see that others connected with this story as well. This may be one of my favorite things I’ve read in the language thus far, and I actually really liked the way that we split it up as a club. I was sort of sitting with the idea of this being a bit of a silly story with an unhinged protagonist for a few days before making my way back and finding something much deeper and touching than I had anticipated. Had a lot of lookups in the geology section (including a double lookup where I didn’t know the english meaning ((what is peat I mean come on))), but still really loved this short story. Has me quite excited to keep reading.
and eventually a writer.
.