桐歌 is read きりか, although according to the internet it can also be とうか
Nozomi’s husband is a freelance designer, which her mom wasn’t super happy about! The engineer was Mami’s first suitor (chosen by the mom), the dentist assistant is the second suitor (chosen by Mami), and the politician is some kind of family friend that got her her job.
Kakeru’s mom of course made . I don’t know why the japanese seem so fond of the stuff, it seems like it’s always about プリン.
I actually just looked it up and boy does it look good! I think I had been mistranslating it in my head as “pudding” for years, or maybe just accepting it as a generic pudding-like dessert.
Hmmm. I wonder if that strange couple will come into play later on. Also, why did 真実 told 金居 she dislikes her “friends”, maybe they are a “bad influence”, in her view (non conformist)? Maybe they made her run away? (It’s not like anything makes it seem that way, I just thought I’ll write some crazy theories down for a change to be able to say a bit more haha)
Or maybe the author just wanted us to see another side of 真実…
Also, was it ever specified what gender the stalker has? I can’t remember. I wonder if it might be a woman. But I also don’t feel like the book really will go into crime novel territory, so I still have no idea how this could unfold, even if it was a woman.
To be fair in English “pudding” is used for so many completely different things, it’s kind of a meaningless word. But yes, Japanese プリン is basically French “crème caramel”, but personally I’m not a fan!
I just saw on wikipedia that they also have プリンアラモード (à la mode) where they serve it with fruit and whipped cream and sometimes ice cream .
Which reminds me they also stole our French crêpes only to serve them with fruit and whipped cream (which is not how we usually eat them).
They also like their fruit and whipped cream fruit sando, don’t they. And what the hell is this combo???
I always have to look up モラトリアム – I know it has a meaning in Japanese that’s diverged from the English meaning, but I can never remember what it actually is…
(answer to the question; no spoilers for this chapter)
Maki has very few lines of directly quoted dialogue, and I think all of those she just refers to the stalker as あいつ; the Maki-POV prologue isn’t specific either. But in the Kakeru’s-POV narration on eg p28 and p30 he uses 男 when he talks about the stalker; so Kakeru at least is not uncertain, though of course he could be being misled by Maki being deliberately super vague.
(Spoilers for this chapter)
This chapter seems to me to mostly be about a depiction of a couple who made dating and finding a marriage partner work for them – a worked example of the abstract principles discussed in the previous chapter. It doesn’t really seem to have moved Kakeru forward in trying to find out what happened to Maki, though there were a few things, like that encounter with the “friend”, that I guess will tie in later, and we get a bit more of a picture of Maki’s life.
We’re now nearly halfway through the book, so it seems like we can start drawing conclusions about what the author was interested in writing about, and it’s definitely the 恋愛 part more than the ミステリ part. So far as there is any resolving of mystery going on, it’s more that we and Kakeru are gradually finding out what this person was really like. It almost feels kind of unbalanced – that Kakeru doesn’t make very fast progress is certainly realistic, but Maki’s been gone nearly two months now. It doesn’t seem likely that the book is going to take a fast turn into a tragic ending, so I guess that argues for her having gone somewhere more or less voluntarily. Perhaps she didn’t feel she could tell Kakeru about something in her past, and didn’t feel she could marry him without talking about it. But that doesn’t seem to quite gel with the real sense of fear in the prologue section.
I think this isn’t a book I would have read without the book club, and I’m enjoying it, so I’m happy it was chosen – reading things a bit out of my comfort zone is part of why I like taking part in the clubs.
Interesting discussion on the gender of the stalker! There’s definitely an implicit assumption that it’s a guy, but that could indeed be unexpectedly female.
Btw it’s Mami not Maki ^^’ Fyi I put most name readings in the top posts.
I think this chapter illustrates the crazy pressure around getting married. You can tell Kakeru regrets not having started 婚活 sooner, and while he’s flabbergasted at Kanai and his wife getting married so quickly, he seems jealous. It’s not even very clear why Kakeru wants to get married. He seems to “assume” he’ll have kids more than he actually “wants” kids? Mostly it looks like he wants to be a happy little family to fit in with every one else. To just be normal. Can’t blame him, this feels all too familiar to me be honest.
. I don’t know why the japanese seem so fond of the stuff, it seems like it’s always about プリン.
