This week we are reading the second half of the 九月 chapter.
End page (bunko): 298
End percentage (bunko): 72
End page (tanko): 213
End phrase: 大人扱いしてもらえたような気がして、ちょっと嬉しかった。
The teacher seems really nice. This might help Kokoro feel comfortable going to school.
I found it interesting that Masamune is getting farther away from Subaru. Masamune is probably a super-protected child while Subaru is more “wild”. Like getting piercing and changing his hair color. Aki finding a 23 years old boyfriend sounds fake. Like she barely gives any info as if she is only trying to impress. The author got me hooked on their background now ha ha. I wanna learn more about them.
It’ll be nice if that’s how things play out! In a way, though, the interaction between Kokoro and Kitajima Sensei was left pretty vague, and Kokoro even wonders to herself whether she might be reading way more into an adults professional courtesy and all-purpose generalities than she should and getting her hopes up too much. I’m curious to see how the next meeting between them will go.
On that note, Kokoro really playing with fire by asking Kitajima to come over again but not mentioning that she’d like to know beforehand.
A grammar-related question that came up during this weeks reading group:
2/3rds into 九月, the following sentence was difficult to make sense of: “自分たちの知らない世界をひけらかすようにそうされると、それが羨ましいかどうかに関係なく、ただいやな気持が胸に広がるようだった。”
Attempt at a fairly literal translation: “Regardless of whether it was enviable or not, (Aki) showing off a world they (Kokoro and Fuuka) did not know about only caused disagreeable feelings to spread out in their chests.”
The part I can’t make heads or tails of is the “ようにそうされる”. How does this modify the showing-off of experiences Kokoro and Fuuka haven’t had? What parts is it made up of, how does it function and why?
I don’t know exactly why, but for me it just seemed to click when I read it. I think it’s hard to give a good explanation because a word like される is rarely used in such a way in English, but I’ll try to put into words how I read it.
そうされる is “such a thing is done to (Kokoro and Fuuka)”.
ひけらかすように is “as if she’s showing off”.
So in slightly crooked English, we get something like “Kokoro and Fuuka undergo such a thing like (Aki) showing off”.
I think in English you would always change the passive to an active to make it sound more natural and then you get something like “Aki acting (する instead of される) in such a way as if (ようにそう) she was showing off … just caused bad feelings to spread … etc”.
I agree that passive voice is just used differently in Japanese, so, once it clicks, it gives you less trouble.
If it helps,
you could think of it like this
In English, sentences always have a subject, so there is absolutely nothing weird about saying something like “She looked at me.”
In Japanese, on the other hand, subjects are optional, and tends to default to the speaker. Add to the mix the apparent Japanese reluctance to make any assumptions about what another person is doing, and you can see that most sentences tend to be from the perspective of the speaker, regardless of who is doing the action. This seems especially true when the actions of others affect the speaker (rather than just being something that the speaker is casually observing).
Thus, instead of
“She looked at me,”
The Japanese would tend to be「見られた」
So, whenever you see passive voice, it’s usually safe to just think of it as what someone else is doing that affects the speaker.
Also, そう、こう、この、その、etc. get thrown in sort of extra all the time, I’m guessing for emphasis, like italics. (You did that?), Although grammatically, this is another thing that doesn’t translate directly into English.
My favorite example of this is この私。I mean, there’s no other ‘me’ besides ‘this’ one, but that construction pops up rather often in my reading experience.
Here's my attempt at a translation, which was hecka hard!:
Whenever she showed off that world we knew nothing about, an unpleasant feeling filled my chest. Whether or not that feeling was jealousy, it didn’t feel good.
I’m quite behind the bookclub, so it might not be relevant anymore, but
About those spoilers
He doesn’t strikes me as wild. That was all the doing of his brother (and his brother’s girlfriend). He sounds pretty blasé about it, though (e.g., he said he was half forced to do it, but doesn’t sound very angry or anything about it; he has no negative reaction toward アキ either).
I didn’t get the impression it was fake at all. That kind of things happens all the time, especially since she looks older. It is a bit scary, though (there are some men who aim for younger girls because they are easier to manipulate). I wouldn’t be surprised if her changing her hair color is due to said boyfriend; the change in style most likely is, since it happened later on.
With regards to barely giving any info, uh, yes? She barely gives any info at all, regardless of topic. She will even go out of her way to avoid topics such as school. So, my impression is just that it might end very poorly (and that it’s super scary).
