I was surprised that apparently nobody did a Japanese translation before the 1950s.
Not mentioned in this piece is that the reason for the terrible weather that had them all inside composing ghost stories was that it was the Year Without a Summer – a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia the previous year had global effects on the climate.
Haha, I was also like wow, is he really suggesting she couldn’t possibly have written this without her genius husband (夫シェリーの天才の影響なしにこの作品を書いたかどうかは疑わしい)?! Definitely a weird side bar.
It was interesting to see the commentary in Japanese about the work nonetheless. It also felt like one the easiest things I’ve read all advent.
Reread サラダの謎 last night, and then 朝 this morning, liked em both. Had been kind of intimidated to try reading some 太宰 but found that one at least to be very approachable. Looking at the length, 走れメロス now doesn’t seem as intimidating as it did the last time I checked. Although I know people have mixed feelings about that one I’d still like to read it for myself.
Also continuing on my 宮沢 kick decided to reread やまなし | L26. Was curious if a few extra years of japanese and study of buddhism stuff would help out with understanding that and… nope! not really That’s just an odd one, I think
At least two more 太宰 in the pre-vetted calendar! Imo of the famous authors he’s probably one of the easiest to read. I enjoy his shorts a lot, although I haven’t read any of his long form content yet.
紫陽花 | L32?? … there were quite a few words I didn’t know, but did I understand correctly that she died at the end? why? I am confusion. Is the dirty then clean ice some kind of metaphor I am not getting?
I was confused by 紫陽花 too
found this blog post with someone’s interpretation of it.
they also wrote a summary there, which I used to check how much I understood. somehow I got most of the second half right, I guess by that part of the story I got a bit more used to the old japanese.
I don’t really know if she died or not, when reading I thought she had just collapsed. but as for why, in that blog I linked I saw this paragraph:
and just to confirm, also did a quick check on the jp wikipedia page for 地主神,
新しい土地の開発に際し、その土地古来の神に許可を得るためや、封じ込めるために、地主神は祀られた
so I guess her collapsing when going too far from the shrine is meant to be another hint at her identity, like her black hair.
maybe someone with deeper knowledge about shinto customs would’ve picked that up more easily
Glad I’m not the only one who found that brutally hard to understand
I started out listening with this 朗読, realized I was in way over my head with the classical Japanese, and then just watched + listened to the video because he put the modernized text on the screen. I think I kind of broke my brain listening to the classical Japanese while trying to simultaneously read the modern version though I walked away from it very puzzled. Might read some of the links you all posted later if I have time after work
Looked at 山の別荘の少年 and started reading it, then kinda got distracted, and ended up reading ア、秋 | L37 instead. Enjoyed it, but yeah it’s very different than reading most of these short story or essay type works. Kinda meanders through word association and poetic imagery stuff, which I thought was fun (but i’m also a sucker for artists talking about making art, so)
女 | L34?? ← this was surprisingly difficult to find… natively search is sometimes not great… now off to read it…
Edit: I liked this. It’s surprisingly accessible language-wise - with lots of furigana. Nice little cycle of life snippet.
待つ | L30 did not re-read this but I gave it 5 stars back when I read it first, so if you only read one story, make it this.
待つ was my first short story in Japanese, and also #1 of my short story/news paper article phase that I started after I finished the intermediate Tobira text book to make first contact with N2 grammar and vocab. And right away I found, well got recommended, a story I liked very much.
女 was not what I expected when I read the title. I enjoyed the descriptions in this one. I think I’m starting to like 芥川’s short stories thanks to this calendar.
I was not expecting 女 to be about spidersI personally didn’t enjoy this as much as the other ones by him this challenge, and it reminded me a bit of his works that I don’t like, but I think if I weren’t mentally associating it with some of his more bitter works I probably wouldn’t have the same reaction.
That’s just an odd one, I think
)
now off to read it… 
