Week 1: 四畳半神話大系 (The Tatami Galaxy) 🎓 Advanced Book Club

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四畳半神話大系 :mortar_board: Home Thread

Week 1

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Start Date: April 08
Next Part: Week 2

Reading:

Week Start Date End Phrase End Page End Percentage Page Count
Week 1 April 08 脳裏を流れた。 36 8% 31

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle:

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(Please feel free to update your status whenever you like!)

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m planning to catch up later
  • I’m skipping this book

0 voters

5 Likes

In this week’s portion there are 13 subsections if I’m counting correctly.

I started reading yesterday and read up to section 8.
I found it on the difficult side at first (many lookups needed, rather flowery ways of expression), but I soon started getting used to it, and some parts are of course much easier than others. The very short sections also help a lot.

Seeing as there are so many subsections I thought we could refer to them if we want to discuss something, rather than page or percentage. Just a thought.

I had watched a couple episodes of the anime prior to this, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing. On the one hand I know more or less what tone to expect, but on the other, I already have mental images of the characters in my head. I usually like making my own mental pictures as I read.

By the way, the places mentioned are real places in Kyoto. Makes me want to take a virtual tour.

4 Likes

This sums up his writing style to a tea. Everyone has this complaint haha. From my experience with 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 I agree you kind of begin getting used to it as you go, but it’s frustrating as a learner because you want to understand everything x.x

I don’t think it’s a bad thing and in a lot of ways can help you get the image in your head and connect the words and see how they paint the picture. This was my experience reading novelized versions of movies like Your Name.

Google Maps 行こうぜ!

そ・れ・で

I read the first 3 sections today. Felt pretty lost but I think I get the gist, I’m gonna try and finish the remaining sections and circle back with the remaining time to see if it’s an adjustment issue.

the 3rd section made the most sense to me but kind of going off my memory of the anime right now more than I would like.

4 Likes

Read the next 3 sections. I could barely make out the bit about him joining the movie club, but got understood when he goes to Neko ramen and meets the god (forgot his name, but they just started talking where I left off).

This is barely comprehensible to me xD

4 Likes

Yes I found it needs very careful reading to be anything more than “barely comprehensible” :rofl:
But I don’t think you missed anything. And I wouldn’t worry about the god’s name, he seems to not remember it entirely correctly himself.

2 Likes

Ok. That’s good to hear. Like I can get what MC is saying but the amount of word look ups per page is more than I’ve been doing in my other reading. I hear this book is really repetitive though. So I think it’ll become more natural with each chapter. 3-4 sections a day is a great place for me though. I don’t feel like I am overdoing it and don’t feel overwhelmed. Once the pace picks up I’ll probably be comfy doing a few more a day. So no worries.

1 Like
Sightseeing!

Section 8? (I keep losing count)

そこは下鴨本通りから東へ折れた御蔭通りであった。

糺の森:

下鴨神社:

Section 12?

t高野川と賀茂川に挟まれた逆三角形の領域を、学生は「鴨川デルタ」と呼ぶ。

出町橋の暗がりに身をひそめた。

9 Likes

Could finally start today and read the first 4 sections. This book is unfortunately much harder than I anticipated. I hope it’ll get easier eventually…
And yeah, I also don’t understand everything. Trying to be content with getting the gist of things and seeing how it goes from there.

5 Likes

Omg yes so many look ups. But I like the style! I just wish i could read it more smoothly.
Story wise it’s a bit early to say. It’s entertaining, but the main character doesn’t exactly seem likeable.

And thanks for the virtual tour, i love it!

5 Likes

He certainly looks like a totally unreliable narrator to me :slightly_smiling_face:

3 Likes

He’s not likeable, it’s a sort of coming of age story.

Augh, I hate that when dialogue spans multiple paragraphs, each one doesn’t get an opening quote in Japanese. In the section starting “「光陰矢のごとし…” (pg 15-16) I forgot there hadn’t been a closing quote yet and didn’t realize the entire thing was spoken until the end of the last line.

That’s my biggest gripe so far lol and it’s not even a writing style thing, it’s an annoying feature of the language. Not understanding everything doesn’t bother me overmuch as I’ve long accepted I probably won’t for a good while yet, and I can get the gist of it at least. Sure the POV character is a little annoying, but I don’t dislike him to the point of being unable to read it (unlike say Yagami Light of Death Note lmao I have no idea how I was able to read that in middle school)

2 Likes

Finished this week’s reading yesterday! I don’t dislike it so far and am finding it entertaining.

The last section, at the end, the first word that popped into my head was 自業自得 lol. I think that may have been the best part so far. Doesn’t he know the best revenge is ignoring those who wronged you and living well? Otherwise it often backfires… sometimes literally lmaoo (And the fact that the other people there cheered? lol)

Is that the case? Granted, all I know is from this week’s reading, but from it, it seemed less like he doesn’t remember it and more that he always trips over it unless he speaks slowly/carefully since it’s a bit of a tongue twister. He even got the のかみ a.k.a. the “god” part wrong, and there’s no reason for that except simply stumbling over it.

Anyway, I just call him Kamotake lol that’s easiest

4 Likes

Yeah I believe you’re right. Whatever the case, if he cant say his own name properly why should we? :grin:

2 Likes