Week four of 🌳 黒い森の記憶 🧠

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
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Welcome to week four of 黒い森の記憶!

Home thread for announcements, wiki, etc

We are following the below schedule (page counts may vary based on your medium):

Week Up to Approximate Pages Percent End page
Week 4 - Feb 19 Read up until chapter 2, section 5 30 45% 128

I will generally copy this information over thread to thread each week for ease of finding - you can always expect the schedule at the top of any weekly thread :slight_smile:

:policeman: Law and Order :policewoman:

  • Any reveals, for the current chapters must be behind spoilers or detail curtains. When we get further in you don’t need to hide details that were revealed in previous chapters.
  • Questions on vocab, grammar, nuance, and the like are both welcome and encouraged. If you’re not sure if it’s a spoiler, assume it is and use one of the above options to hide the text.
  • You are encouraged to speculate and guess wildly
  • Be kind about other peoples’ wild guesses :sparkling_heart:
  • Even if you don’t read the chapter(s) in time, you are still encouraged to post in the thread for that reading once you have finished it. I advise not reading ahead in the threads as you may see spoilers.

To gauge participation - a poll!

Are you reading week 4 of 黒い森の記憶?

  • Yes, I’m planning to read along/am reading along this week
  • I’m reading, but not at the same pace as the club
  • I’m just following the discussion :popcorn:
0 voters

Happy sleuthing! :male_detective:

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This book is incredibly good in pulling me into the story :melting_face:
I love it! I did not even manage to stop in time and unintentionally read to the end of chapter 2 :sweat_smile: Love the story, it gets even more deep and complicated with each section.

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I did not manage to read this last week,
will try to catch up tomorrow :persevere:

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This is the start of when it can be discussed :slight_smile: If you read it and contribute anytime before week 5 you’re completely on schedule! And even if you get to it late, that’s fine (see me with the first 1-3 weeks :joy: )

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I finished this section last night and I’m full up on clues I can’t do anything with :joy:

Are the doll, the needle, and the hand symbolizing surgery? What’s the wife got to do with it? (Of course our old man doctor is wondering the same thing…). Why is he really making the runaway dig a hole? Anyone else suspect he’s making the guy dig his own grave?

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Yeah, that was my immediate thought.

I wonder if that chunk of blank pages in the diary represents missing memories for the doctor? We have 記憶 in the title, they’ve got to tie in somewhere.

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It sounds fairly obvious, but didn’t the doctor say something like “Now that he’s here, he could as well be useful to me.” ? which I thought gave away that the doctor is not interested in our dude but in somebody else… (unless the guy is lying to him and is indeed the murderer of the girl) :thinking:

For the diary, I thought the pages were simply blank because he was so depressed? But I was pretty surprised to learn that he forgot the date when his own wife died, even though it’s 4 years ago… :roll_eyes:

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Oh, they totally could just be that. But at this point in the book I’m suspicious of the obvious face value interpretation of most events :slight_smile:

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I caught up.

I don’t think the doctor is making the guy dig his own grave.
It feels more like a late reaction to not having a hole to hide the dead girls body in earlier.

I kinda feel like the old man knows somebody is after him or stalking him.
This is why he absolutely does not want his family close.
The isolation and paranoia (remember the trap he set around his windows?) has already kinda made him a bit crazy.
Having some militant dude he doesn’t really care about around seems like an extra layer of self defense. He is reluctant to let the man leave, wants him to stay around a while.

I found it interesting how immediately after the doctor demonstrated his impressive lying ability with the fake police officer (probably private investigator),
he tells the hobo (and us) that the hand is totally fake. Yeah I am not buying that for one second, that hand is even less fake than the blood.
Also how did that fake police guy get the information that the general store guy reported to the police? (About the rasp)

Forgetting the date of his own wife’s death is quite the accomplishment. Maybe they weren’t close. (I doubt that)

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Caught up a day late.

My initial thought as well, but surely after the initial shock, anyone could tell if a hand is real or not? :thinking:

I assumed he asked at the store while impersonating a police officer. He either told them to contact him if someone bought a rasp, or he just came by and casually asked if anyone had bought a rasp, or asked specifically about what the old man had been buying lately. I wonder who he might be. and what he wants. We still don’t know anything about anyone, almost halfway through the book.

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since nothing really happened in week 3 I just continued on into week 4.

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I am not saying he is digging his own grave, but he is digging his own grave. :rofl:

I still think that that Matchida guy is sus but so is our doctor.

I wonder how much the people who already finished read my stuff and go like “Oh you sweet summer child.” :rofl:

btw. did I miss why police isn’t questioning doc? Like, a murder happens close by and no one thinks about at least checking if he saw/noticed something? :thinking:

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