Home Thread for 기억술사 1 | Week 4

Welcome to the thread for 기억술사 1 | L24??

It’s time for another book club! All discussions will take place within this home thread that will be updated each week with the current week number. So, make sure you use spoiler tags and indicate which part of the book you are going to refer to ahead of the tag to show respect to your follow-readers an any possible late-comers.

Summary

“잊혀지는 것보다 두려운 건 너에게 기억되는 거야……”

제22회 일본 호러소설 대상 독자상 수상작!

일본 판매 25만 부 돌파, 일본 서점 직원들의 지지 No.1

감성 미스터리이자 애달픈 호러로 일본에서 큰 이슈를 불러일으킨 화제작 ‘기억술사’의 첫 번째 이야기 『기억술사 1 : 기억을 지우는 사람』이 아르테에서 출간되었다. 『기억술사』는 노스탤직 호러라는 신(新) 장르를 개척했다고 평가를 받은 작품으로 ‘작가 오리가미 교야’라는 이름을 알린 대표작이기도 하다.

2012년 『영감 검정』이라는 작품으로 제14회 고단샤 BOX 신인상 Powers를 수상하며 혜성같이 등장한 오리가미 교야는 영국 런던에서 태어나 와세다대학 대학원을 졸업한 후 변호사로 활동해온 재원이다. 처음 쓴 작품으로 수상과 동시에 작가로 데뷔한 저자는 자신의 직업 능력을 살려서 쓴 법률 미스터리 『구로노 하즈키는 새장에서 잠들지 않는다』가 ‘이 미스터리가 대단하다!’ 19위, ‘2016 본격 미스터리 베스트 10’에 18위를 기록하며 차세대를 담당하는 기예 미스터리 작가로서 두각을 드러냈다. 현직 변호사로서도 작가로서도 왕성한 활동을 하고 있는 오리가미 교야는 『SHELTER/CAGE』, 『301호실의 성자』 등의 작품을 출간했지만, 역시 그녀의 이름을 독자들에게 확실히 각인시킨 작품은 단연 『기억술사』라고 할 수 있다. 오리가미 교야는 『기억술사 1 : 기억을 지우는 사람』으로 2015년 제22회 일본 호러소설 대상에 응모하여 독자상을 수상했는데, 독자상은 전문 작가나 비평가가 아닌, 일반인 모니터 요원들이 선정한 수상작을 말한다. 실제로 이 작품은 독자들로부터 좋은 평가를 받았고, 일본 서점 직원들의 전폭적인 지지까지 받으며 베스트셀러가 되었다.

누구에게나 인생에서 한두 가지는 잊고 싶은 기억이 있을 것이다. 쓰라린 실연의 기억, 트라우마가 될 만한 혹독한 경험, 소중한 사람을 잃어버리게 된 부주의한 한마디, 아무에게도 말할 수 없는 수치스러운 기억, 술기운에 부린 추태 등등…… 그런데 만약 이 모든 기억을 지워주는 사람이 존재한다면 어떨까.

잊고 싶은 기억을 깨끗하게 지워주는 도시전설 속 괴인 ‘기억술사’를 둘러싸고 벌어지는 이야기를 옴니버스 형식으로 풀어나가는 소설 『기억술사』는 2015년에 1권이 처음 출간되었고, 그 인기에 힘입어 이듬해 2, 3권이 연달아 출간되며, 2017년 지금까지 누계 판매부수 25만 부를 돌파했다.

English Summary

“The only thing I fear more than being forgotten is being remembered by you…”

Winner of the 22nd Japan Horror Novel Grand Prize Readers’ Award!

Over 250,000 copies sold in Japan, and No. 1 endorsement from Japanese bookstore employees

The first installment of “Memorizer,” an emotional mystery and disturbing horror that has made waves in Japan, “Memorizer 1: The Man Who Erases Memories,” is now available from Arte. The first installment of “Memorizer”, which is said to have pioneered the new genre of nostalgic horror, is also the work that made the name of author Kyoya Origami famous.

Kyoya Origami, who burst onto the scene in 2012 when he won the 14th Kodansha BOX Newcomer Award Powers for his work Inspiration Black, was born in London, England, and graduated from Waseda University’s graduate school before working as a lawyer. His first work, the award-winning legal mystery “Hazuki Kurono Never Sleeps in a Cage,” which utilized his professional skills, was ranked 19th on “This Mystery is Great!” and 18th on the “Best 10 Authentic Mysteries of 2016,” making him stand out as a skilled mystery writer for the next generation. Kyoya Origami, who is active both as a lawyer and as a writer, has published works such as SHELTER/CAGE and The Saint of Room 301, but it is The Memorizer that has made her name known to readers. Kyoya Origami won the Readers’ Choice Award at the 22nd Japan Horror Novel Award in 2015 for Memorizer 1: The Memory Eraser, which is a prize that is awarded to the winners of the 22nd Japan Horror Novel Award, which are selected by members of the public, not professional writers or critics. In fact, the work was well-received by readers and became a bestseller with the full support of Japanese bookstore staff.

We all have one or two memories in our lives that we’d like to forget. A bitter heartbreak, a traumatic experience, a careless word that led to the loss of a loved one, a shameful memory that you can’t tell anyone, a drunken indiscretion, etc… But what if there was someone who could erase all these memories?

This omnibus novel, which tells the story of an urban legendary monster who can wipe out memories you want to forget, was first published in 2015, and due to its popularity, the second and third volumes were published in succession the following year, with total sales exceeding 250,000 copies so far in 2017.

(Translator: DeepL)

Reading Schedule
The reading schedule is a rough breakdown of pages based on the amount of weeks in the schedule. Depending on the book medium and version, there may be slight differences so use your best judgement and, when in doubt, use a spoiler tag with a description of the part you are talking about!

Week Chapter title Starting on page
1 10% / 36 pages
2 20% / 72 pages
3 30% / 108 pages
4 40% / 144 pages
5 50% / 180 pages
6 60% / 216 pages
7 70% / 252 pages
8 80% / 288 pages
9 90% / 324 pages
10 100% / 360 pages

Will you be joining? :smile:

  • Yes!
  • No
  • Maybe…
0 voters
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Hi all! A question for the group:
This book has 364 pages, so if we follow the standard 10 week schedule this club has been using, that means about 36 pages per week. Is that going to be too fast? Too slow?

  • I prefer fewer pages per week (10< week schedule)
  • ~36 pages per week is fine (10 week schedule)
  • I want to read even faster! (>10 week schedule)
0 voters

Let me know what you would all prefer.

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I’m excited to start this one! It’s not a genre I would necessarily pick up, but that makes it all the more fun, since it’s an opportunity to discover something new.

The table of contents, from the Yes24 preview, so we can figure out the number of pages per week:

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Thanks for sharing the TOC image! It’s always hard making the schedule based on ebooks since I can never be sure what the actual page numbers are. :laughing: I’ll give it another day or so for people to vote on pacing and then try to find an even breakdown.

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It seems like we are overwhelmingly ok with doing 36 pages or 10% per week!

This book has fewer chapters than some other books we’ve read as a club and doesn’t break down into neat sections. Would we be cool with just saying 10% or 36 pages per week? I can write in the club schedule where we would land each time, i.e. “in the middle of chapter 2”. Not the most organized and crisp way to set up a schedule, but I feel like it could work!

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That seems like a good way. Story-wise I’m guessing the first and last weeks will be shorter since the first few pages of the book are probably author’s intro, table of content etc, and I for one am not complaining about a “warm up” week 1.

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Cool, thanks for the feedback! A few others hearted my last post, so it seems ok for most. I’ll update the actual schedule on the home post of this thread when I can get to a computer later today!

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I’d forgotten to reply, but this is fine by me as well!

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We have a schedule now and I went ahead and updated the post title to say week 1. Let’s go!

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36 pages is turning out to be a lot more than I thought :sweat_smile:
I’m at 3% still, but I’ll make it :triumph: can’t fall behind from week 1.

How is everyone else going? Any thoughts to share with the class?

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Lol it did feel like a struggle to get there, ngl :sweat_smile:

I don’t have much to say so far, but I think we can see the set up now…I’m not super invested yet so I hope things start happening :laughing:

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I’m about half-way through this week’s reading and I don’t think I’ll be able to read much more today…
So far not much has happened but I am enjoying the set up, and I look forward to the rest. I think this is a genre I’ll enjoy.

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Done for this week as well! So far not much has happened, but it is pretty enjoyable for me (books translated from Japanese are just easier for me to read in Korean, ngl :joy:). I’m interested in a few of the things that were mentioned like hypnosis and the urban legend of the 기억술사, so I am interested in seeing where that goes. The blurb also described this as “nostalgic horror”, so I am kind of wondering what that even means? I can’t relate it to the current setup yet. Let’s see!

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Week 1:

I read up until after the MC walks Kyoko to her house — my e-book app doesn’t have specific page numbers. I have lots of questions so far:

In the prologue, the MC says that he knows of 3 people who have been affected by the 기억술사, Maki being the 1st. Then he says that the 2nd person helped him connect Maki to the 기억술사, and the 3rd person made him believe that the 기억술사 is not just an urban legend. So is Kyoko the 2nd person or the 3rd person? :sweat_smile: Maybe we don’t have enough information yet?

Also, who is Maki and how are they related to the MC? And what is that dream in the prologue? So many questions :face_with_spiral_eyes:

Marked some new words/phrases:

  • 도시전설: urban legend
  • 치면요법: hypnotherapy
  • 붙임성: sociability, affability (“붙임성도 있었고 말도 잘 통했다”)
  • 대인 관계: interpersonal relationships
  • 물먹다: to fail at something (lit. to drink water)

Excited to read more!

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I forgot to mention, right before the end of this week’s reading section conclued at 10% - did anyone else think it was a little awful how the narrator guy made Kyoko walk home alone so she could get over her fear? I get that he was trying to help, but she didn’t ask for help! :sweat:

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Possible answers to your questions

Week 1 spoilers

This won’t blur for me idk what I’m doing wrong lol

[spoiler]Maki is his younger, childhood friend. I guess she’s the first one he ‘knew’ related to the legend thing. He says he didn’t think about Maki’s memory and the 기억술사 being related until he met person “2”. And after realizing the existence of person “3”, he somehow fundamentally adjusted his view on this legends existence.

I’m assuming person 2 is the girl he’s helping rn. And because of that weird dream sequence at the start, maybe person 3 is actually himself? We don’t know quite yet, but that’s gna be my guess on people 2 and 3 for now haha.[/spoiler]

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Week 1 : First book club! I wasn’t planning to participate at first, since I find it hard to pace myself to a weekly schedule, but I was in a reading slump for almost 2 weeks, some external motivation was required… I finished week 1’s reading (actually went a bit over, about 14% according to the pages on kimchi reader). I am not quite sure where 10% was, but for now, I find the set up quite slow and not much has happened yet indeed. There’s lots of repetition, so it feels like an easy read. I am intrigued to see which direction this is going, I do hope the tempo picks up soon though. (Maybe I’ve just been reading/listening to too many fast paced webnovels lately)

I also didn’t quite like the narrator’s “strategy” to “help” Kyoko. Who does he think he is… He wants to act like the guy who understands when he doesn’t. Room for character growth I guess.

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I just finished week 1, only a day late. This is already looking like it’ll be more interesting than 뜻밖의 계절, so I’m excited to see how it all unfolds, since this was just the set-up.

However, I’m already not liking the narrator, so I’m hoping for some character growth. That ending scene around 10% with Kyoko was not it. I am hoping that the author develops this as the narrator realizing where he went wrong and doesn’t portray him as some sort of hero while doing all the wrong things.

This sentence in particular, was quite annoying. "쿄코의 공포증은 생각했던 것보다 훨씬 심각했다.
So not only is he forcing her to overcome her fears when she didn’t ask, he didn’t even fully believe her in the first place.

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i havent started yet as flu has kicked my ass this week but excited to catch up with everyone

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alright managed to catch up!

spoilers for the first 19% / up till 료 finds 교코 in the alley with her memories gone.

In general i’m finding this a pretty smooth read but this sentence early on confused me so much:
"입 찢어진 여자라든가 사람 얼굴을 한 개[犬]라든가, 모두 그런 유의 이야기잖아.”
I worked out the 유 is probably 類 like in 종류? don’t think i’ve come across it by itself like that before though? :thinking: :sweat_smile:

I also noticed this sentence:
“마키로부터 온 메일이다.” Is this set before smartphones or do they just still use 메일 to refer to sending messages in Japan as like a linguistic holdover from when they used to send phone メール instead of texting? Or do ppl still do that? i figure it’s all line and viber etc these days.

new vocab
소꿉친구 childhood friend
물을 먹다 - (비유적인) to fail/be rejected/strike out

spoilery plot thought

similar to you guys i spent this whole first section hating this guy. Why does he need to be such a creep. Leave my girl 교코 alone she said no ㅠㅠㅠㅠ Also lowkey creepy how he speaks about 마키. Was getting genuinely concerned but thankfully it seems like he realised eventually that he was being a total chump? Hoping for continued character grow there…

Plot-wise I’m intrigued enough, I liked that we got straight into it and give the MC a motivation for chasing this urban legend. and I like the whole angle of people don’t remember getting their memories wiped after the fact. It really leaves the door open for surprise! turns out your memories were wiped the whole time! type twists.

Also random shout out to 칼로리메이트 getting a mention. I remember every girl in my womens-only college would eat these in the 00s, they were :100: absolutely not good for you. :joy:

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