# 木になった亜紗 Informal Reading Club **URL:** \ **Category:** Book Clubs\ **Created:** [April 1, 2024, 3:23am UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714 "2024-04-01T03:23:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![omk3](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/omk3/32/94_2.png) [@omk3](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/omk3)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 7:43am UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/21 "2024-04-14T07:43:48Z")
Finished the third story last night (and the essays). I loved it! This one starts super weird and ends up in familiar territory, quite the opposite of the two stories that came before. It also had a happy ending I suppose, unless we think of sad little Jack left behind waiting for his mate. I was very surprised that, while I was first totally weirded out by crawling humans eating off the ground, I was totally okay with the idea of them being beloved pets 😅 What strange worlds 今村 夏子 creates! She’s an absolutely brilliant author, and I always find it funny how in her essays she always talks about how worthless everything she writes seems to her, and how difficult it is for her to write anything worthwhile. ☺ ---
**Author:** ![読み蛙](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E8%9B%99/32/9157_2.png) [@読み蛙](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E8%9B%99)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 2:42pm UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/22 "2024-04-14T14:42:14Z")
Catching up a little bit, but I’m halfway through the second story. Will post thoughts when I’ve finished too. For 木になった亜沙、 Definitely very fairytale vibes (so far second story is too). Felt so bad for 亜沙 by the third or fourth time people refused her food 😭 Also, when she was konbini chopsticks in bag with bento etc., the narrator kept saying 最後に and I was so expecting that she’d get thrown out immediately. A couple of questions I have, When the reform school guy said to 亜沙、「君の手はきれいすぎる」 Was he being creepy? That’s would be my initial reaction, but afterwards 亜沙 seemed to be happily doing her volunteering etc. Also, this sentence slightly confused me: [みんなそれぞれに、主に子供時代に、亜沙が味わってきたような感覚を味わい、味わい続け、そして死んでいった人たちだ。 I read this as something like: They all, each in their own way, had experiences like Asa’s, mainly from childhood, which they continued experiencing until their death. Does this mean they all died and got reincarnated into their objects? I initially thought Asa had just passed out and woken up as a tree, rather than died and got reincarnated. ---
**Author:** ![omk3](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/omk3/32/94_2.png) [@omk3](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/omk3)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 3:28pm UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/23 "2024-04-14T15:28:11Z")
> [@読み蛙](#): > > I initially thought Asa had just passed out and woken up as a tree, rather than died and got reincarnated. It does say quite clearly that 亜沙は人生を終えた。 so I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. > [@読み蛙](#): > > Was he being creepy? I didn’t take it like that, although it was certainly a weird thing to say. I think 亜沙 took it as a compliment. What I _think_ it might mean was that her hands hadn’t been dirtied by being used (in transactions with other people?), they were “virgin” hands, so to speak. In contrast, at the end of the story her hands (such as they were) were very dirty. ---
**Author:** ![読み蛙](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E8%9B%99/32/9157_2.png) [@読み蛙](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E8%9B%99)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 6:14pm UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/24 "2024-04-14T18:14:00Z")
Ah thank you! I must have glossed over that, that makes sense. > [@omk3](#): > > I didn’t take it like that Yeah she seemed quite happy with it. I guess in this fairytale world everyone’s prone acting a bit weird, it certainly wasn’t the weirdest thing that happened! ---
**Author:** ![bungakushoujo](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/bungakushoujo/32/24027_2.png) [@bungakushoujo](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/bungakushoujo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:44am UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/25 "2024-04-15T02:44:01Z")
Story two spoilers: > [@omk3](#): > > But then she spent all her life trying to get hit, even though actively trying to be hurt isn’t exactly the same thing as not avoiding it when it comes. She lived her whole life still avoiding things - she even avoided being a proper mother. She avoided staying at her place of employment, avoided seeking help when she could. She could even have asked for one box of biscuits, who knows, the man might have given her one given the horrible state she was in, but no, not even that. At first she only ran, now she only waited. And when she finally got hit, that was the end. What kind of life was this? Would she die if she was hit earlier too? Or was it just that what she was going through now, what was making her suffer, was life itself, not something like a dodgeball game, and ending it meant ending life itself? I took getting hit and the entire story to be a metaphor for any kind of situation you can find yourself in where you feel like an other…You could apply a number of different lenses to it as well, such as neuro-divergence, looking different from others around you, having a disability, having a difference background, etcetera. Just as an example, if you are, say, neuro-divergent in some way, you may notice you have different situational outcomes than the children around you, but perhaps the realization isn’t one of not belonging. Nami only realizes that the cheers of her classmates mean “Hurry up and get hit”, “Hurry up and end up in a good place like us where you get your favorite drinks and snacks” when she is an older child approaching adolescence. The realization is that she is actually missing something that everyone else appears to have and that “having” is equated with belonging and participating. When she gets older, belonging and participating means being a functioning member of society and holding down a job, which she fails at. That is not to say that anyone who is neuro-divergent or otherwise like from the cases I will end up homeless, though. 😂 (If anyone who was different as a child went on to become homeless, we’d have lots of homeless people on the earth!!). I think fundamentally the story is just getting at the painfulness that can sometimes accompany not belonging, and that feeling seen and understood, even if only by one person, can have a big impact. 今村夏子s debut work, [こちらあみ子 | L28](https://learnnatively.com/book/42e51b67be/), also features a young girl who is different from everyone around her. It is quite different in tone from the rest of her books and doesn’t have any of the surreal or weird stuff, but I found 的になった七味 to be very thematically similar to it, and keep pondering both… 😆 I like how even though you can read it seriously, the story was still super bizarre and something you could also easily call a fairy tale. It’s almost like a cautionary tale - “If you become too obsessed with being hit, some day you’ll turn into a target!”. Maybe we will turn into books one day because we enjoy reading them too much? 😆 Ok, time to read the third story! ---
**Author:** ![bungakushoujo](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/bungakushoujo/32/24027_2.png) [@bungakushoujo](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/bungakushoujo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:46am UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/26 "2024-04-15T02:46:03Z")
> [@読み蛙](#): > > Does this mean they all died and got reincarnated into their objects? Yes, it seems that is what happened. They all became objects so that they could live their best lives and finally do what they always wanted to for others! ---
**Author:** ![bungakushoujo](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/bungakushoujo/32/24027_2.png) [@bungakushoujo](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/bungakushoujo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 3:55am UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/27 "2024-04-15T03:55:49Z")
Now I am also done with the third story! Short, but a pleasant little read! Also weird as hell! It felt like a cursed version of Cinderella or something. 😂 > [@omk3](#): > > I was very surprised that, while I was first totally weirded out by crawling humans eating off the ground, I was totally okay with the idea of them being beloved pets You are forgetting to mention that they also use a cat litter box for going to the bathroom! I wonder what Jack is doing now. I would have enjoyed reading about their happy marriage. 🤔😂 The hardcover does not have any essays in it, so that’s the end of the line for me unfortunately! But I thoroughly enjoyed reading this! 😄 I have now also read all of 今村夏子s books and can make my official ranking! 🥁 1. こちらあみ子 (this has to be number one, it’s in my top five favorite books of all times!) 2. むらさきのスカートの女 3. 父と私の桜尾通り商店街 4. 木になった亜沙 5. あひる 6. とんこつ Q & A 7. 星の子 Yay! 👏🏻 Often when I read too many of an author’s books, I start to enjoy their work less since themes begin to overlap and feel similar, but I enjoyed all of the 今村夏子 books I read so far. Even though some are exploring the same themes, they’re all different and entertaining enough to keep me hooked and coming back to her world again and again. 😍 ---
**Author:** ![読み蛙](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E8%9B%99/32/9157_2.png) [@読み蛙](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E8%9B%99)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 12:21am UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/28 "2024-04-21T00:21:28Z")
I’ve finished story two now, so I’ll add my thoughts! (at the moment this is a bit of a bundle of unconnected small thoughts) I definitely agree with [bungakushoujo](http://forums.learnnatively.com/u/bungakushoujo) on parallels between the stories. I felt like story 1 started with 亜沙 being ‘different’ from everyone else, and her story was an upward journey of finding her purpose, and her companions who were similarly ‘different’. Other the other hand, story 2 started with 七味 being ‘different’, but her story was a downward spiral as she didn’t find her companions or purpose. (Even her son seemed more concentrated on his girlfriend rather than his mother). I do think both, in a fairytale way, highlight how alienating/tough a path there is for neurodivergent people. Story 2 definitely felt like we were falling further and further away from stable life. Despite the few well meaning people, soceity in general felt geared against 七味. With the second story, I do feel less satisfied with it as a whole. Partly this was just because it felt a lot bleaker, but I also felt like there were a lot of characters who felt a bit unexplained or 1-dimensional. Especially たくや君, but also Nanao’s girlfriend and even Nanao. ---
**Author:** ![読み蛙](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E8%9B%99/32/9157_2.png) [@読み蛙](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E8%9B%99)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 6:29pm UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/29 "2024-04-21T18:29:06Z")
And also finished story 3! I enjoyed it a lot. A nice combination of a relatively standard plot, but with plenty of weirdness thrown in. Reminded me a lot of the french novel _Le Grand Meaulnes_ about a boy who finds his love in a countryside estate, but afterwards can never find it again. In the essays of むらさきのスカートの女 , 今村夏子 talked about her most productive writing spot was at a Doutor (or other coffee chain, I forget). I find it funny to imagine her writing all these offbeat worlds at such an ordinary place. I’m not sure if I’ll read the essays, so that’s probably all from me. It was nice to read along with people, thanks @omk3 & @bungakushoujo ! ---
**Author:** ![bungakushoujo](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/bungakushoujo/32/24027_2.png) [@bungakushoujo](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/bungakushoujo)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 8:27pm UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/30 "2024-04-21T20:27:12Z")
> [@読み蛙](#): > > It was nice to read along with people, > thanks @omk3 & @bungakushoujo ! Thank you for joining! It was nice to have you! 😊 ---
**Author:** ![pm215](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/pm215/32/1320_2.png) [@pm215](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/pm215)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2024, 9:09am UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/31 "2024-12-27T09:09:38Z")
I finished this book last night (it’s one of two I wanted to get done before the end of the year), so here are my one line takes on the stories: - Story 1: I liked this, especially after the mid-story twist. - Story 2: I really didn’t like this. The first part was retreading the same ground as story one, the middle part dragged, and the whole story was just way too long. I ended up skipping ahead to story 3 about 20 or 30 pages in, and came back to finish it later. - Story 3: this was good, and I thought the author captured the way that dreams can seamlessly mix up the completely bonkers with totally normal details and with fragments from other contexts. - Essays, diary, etc: nothing that particularly stayed in my mind, but I read these as rewards for having managed to slog through another 10 or 20 pages of story 2. Also, you can interpret the first two stories as having the rather twisted message that if you feel different and isolated from other people then you should prefer to die quickly, because you’ll be happy once you do die and until then you’re just going to have a miserable time :-/ ---
**Author:** ![nikoru](https://deyr2qldo994j.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.learnnatively.com/nikoru/32/413_2.png) [@nikoru](https://forums.learnnatively.com/u/nikoru)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2025, 1:33pm UTC](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714/32 "2025-10-25T13:33:02Z")
Finished the book the other day, as part of the Bingo challenge. I must say, this kind of surreal writing is really not my cup of tea… Here are some comments on the individual stories: > **Story 1 - Asa** > > This one was pretty light-hearted and funny. Nobody wanting to eat her food was such a weird setup. And then her dying and turning into a tree and turning into a pair of chopsticks, and finally being able to feed a person. Together with all the other people-turned-objects in the flat this made for a crazy scenario. I liked this story. > **Story 2 - Nami** > > As others had said already, what on Earth…?! > What I thought was interesting was the change in her perception on the meaning of what the children shouted, e.g. 頑張って and 早く: > > First she thought she should run away to avoid the pain. > Then she thought she should let it happen as soon as possible to get reunited with everybody. > And finally she heard it as quickly getting over and done with life… > > Other than that, this was just a downward spiral of mental issues of the worst case, from self-hurting behaviour to being abused by her doctor at age 15, and getting pregnant, then not being allowed to go to a hospital and instead have said doctor (a psychotherapist or psychologist or something) help her (rather not very helpfully, it seems) during the delivery, then leave her alone with her baby in an apartment, locked in for years. Not being able to find a job afterwards, being homeless, and finally dying. > > The only message I can see in this disaster of a life is “dear children, if you drop out of school or behave strangely otherwise, you will have a bad life, so better behave!” ?!?? > > Story-telling-wise, this was way too drawn-out and outright boring at times. > **Story 3 - Happi** > > Interesting change of perspective! When they got to Jack’s home and heard the mother and son talk about them, I was sure it would turn out that they are actually cats, without realizing it… (You know, like in “Sixth Sense” or so?) But apparently not. How can a human live on the ground like that?? Funny thought experiment. > What I found strange that she went back to normal without any afterthought after her accident. It was a nice finish that she still had thoughts about Jack and wondered what he would be doing in that moment. I read the essays but don’t have any deep comments about them. Then I read half of the atogaki, and while I somehow found it quite interesting, all of a sudden I could not continue any more… 😅 Like I said initially, a bit too fantastic, a bit too horrible, a bit too long, so I gave it 3 stars. [Previous page](https://forums.learnnatively.com/t/informal-reading-club/7714.md?page=1)