I’ve kept this week in the same thread. Will start a new thread next week
Chapter 9
I might add more reflections once I have re-read the chapter.
But for now…
Interesting to see 叔母さん featuring more in this chapter. I wonder about her chain smoking and whisky drinking, and whether there is unhappiness in her marriage that might be linked to the (still!) missing 叔父さん (the reference to the lack of correspondence at the end of the chapter is quite pointed).
Anyway, as the photo above might have indicated, I am pretty sure that Y中学校 is based on Yamate Junior High
If, like me, you are interested to speculate on the (presumably fictional) location of Mina’s house, it is interesting to have a walk on Google maps between Yamate Junior high and Yamate Primary school. (We learn in this chapter that the former is about the same distance as the latter, though up hill and in the opposite direction . If you are inclined, you can retrace Tomoko’s steps using street view, over 高座橋 and towards the Ashiya river. If you do, you’ll discover one of those glorious quirks of Street View - I found it hilarious…
I am currently reading last week’s reading so hopefully will catch up over the weekend - have 3 days off.
Edit: remembered I wanted to reply about Mina’s asthma.
At first I wondered if this might be something that was along the lines of “hysteria” or a functional disorder given it seemed to worsen during her father’s absence. But the description of her bodily changes due to her asthma and the perceptible wheeze even when well does sound ominous.
I had the same reaction to C6, plenty of arcane vocabulary and a complicated description of light room or whatever it is. Kudos for feeding the text into ChatGPT and generating an image - hadn’t thought of doing that ! The image is rather like the one my own brain generated （笑）although perhaps my room is more circular. The hanging lamps were spot on. Mina’s description of an asthma attack (発作、who knew the ever ubiquitous 発 would show up here!) was harrowing, and not something I had thought of before. It wasn’t easy for me to grasp the descriptions on initial readings. In general, a difficult Chapter for me.
Good plan. It’s taking me longer to catch up than I had hoped. Incidentally, how does one post to the thread generally, rather than as a reply. I’m finding the Natively interface a bit clunky. It would be good if they launch it as an app.
If you hit the reply button at the bottom of the page rather than under a specific post, it just becomes a new post in the thread.
If you want to reply to a particular post (eg my chatGPT image of the light therapy room), do the opposite - hit reply at the bottom of that post, and then it will be linked to the right bit
There is some lovely subtle drawing out of the atmosphere in this chapter. [There is a recurrent theme in Ogawa’s writing of the deep solitariness of her female protagonists, finding themselves distanced from those around them. Eg the sister in Pregnancy calendar, or the housekeeper in 博士]
I particularly liked the passage describing Tomoko enjoying the morning sunlight breaking through her curtains and seeing the shadows and shapes of her bed room in the half-light. And what a contrast with the eerie description of the lonely Pochiko tramping around the night garden. I wonder whether Tomoko is correct in intuiting Pochiko’s loneliness (she is after all thousands of miles from her pygmy hippo family in Liberia), or whether Tomoko is just transferring her own feelings as her homesickness wells up in the night once the rest of the family have gone to bed.
Re-reading the section with the brother’s letter
There is such lovely description here of the anticipation of opening the envelope (I could just see ローザおばあさん deliberately enjoying the moment before tearing open the envelope (even kissing the seal!)) and the handing out of the letters. But that last sentence…
What is the deal with 叔父さん？
This is in case anyone else finds this helpful.
I sometimes get Chat-GPT to help me to parse/make sense of some difficult passages.
But I’ve started to use the prompt below to get Chat-GPT to test me and teach me rather than just telling me the meaning.
PS I found this lovely bit of Ogawa metaphor from Chapter 10
Can you help me to understand this passage? First test me on readings and vocabulary/grammatical phrases, then breakdown the meaning in a quiz. Finally ask me questions to see if I understand. 一ページ一ページに刻まれている言葉の意味は、本当はその箱に収まりきらないほど深遠なのに、そんなことは素振りにも出さず、誰かの手によって開かれるのをじっと待っている。その辛抱強さを、尊いと感じるようになった。
Yes, that was beautiful ! I really loved that part. I rather think Pochiko, as a nocturnal animal, lives his nocturnal animal life as she sees fit; and that somehow heightens Tomoko not belonging here. People might go out of their way to help her (the uniform, the crepes Suzette’s, 叔母さん taking her to school even though it’s plain she never goes out…), but still, she’s not home. She’s « staying at the hippo place », to paraphrase the school scene
I saw that coming half a page away : letters for Rosa, letters for 叔母さん, letters for ミーナ…. Someone’s missing here !
Chapter 10
I can so much relate to ミーナ in this chapter ! Books are special objects, kind of holy, not some commonplace item to be cleared away; the books as tickets to some far-away trip; and the relation you can build to an author, though you never have or never would meet them, so that they become part of your life !
Interesting. More of the darker mood in this chapter.
I thought it was interesting how struck Mina and Tomoko were by the suicide of Kawabata Yasanuri. (The brief passage where they speculate on how it might feel to die by gassing yourself was intriguing but also authentic feeling. It doesn’t seem surprising that 12 year olds might in private discuss questions like this, though adults would often imagine and wish that they didn’t).
The end of the chapter was even more shocking in its brevity (like the newspaper passage - so short it might be overlooked), when they discover the passage about copycat suicides in lonely elderly Japanese.
I wondered about any deeper meaning of the reference to Kawabata. Obviously this event was significant at the time of the novel, and points to the importance of literature for those in the household.
We’ve had a taste of that in this chapter (and I am assuming that the reference here to different types of books all side by side on the bookshelves (German pharmacology texts, picture books, household management books) gave rise to the cover image.
I wondered about the significance of books in Ogawa’s life and what might be on her bookshelves. Also whether the reference to Kawabata is relevant for the story itself.
(Have other people read Kawabata in English or in Japanese? It strikes me that maybe his poetic style and deep loneliness expressed in his writing might indicate an influence on Ogawa. Much more speculatively, I wondered whether 叔父さん is actually away in 東北 somewhere with a geisha like the protagonist from Kawabata’s 雪国)
This is the first book that I’ve been using AI to parse the occasional sentence, and what a boon it is. I like your idea of more detailed testing and may try in due course.
Housekeeping: 1) there seem to be two threads for this book? 2) Is there a way to bookmark the thread to my profile page (or similar) within Natively, I always have to try and find it amongst other threads.
絶望的な気分を味わった (C8) At first I thought 朋子 was speaking ironically “savouring/tasting her despair” but GPTさん informs that this is a 標準的で自然な表現 and rarely used ironically … it simply means “experienced a sense of despair”.
Yes, looking at the example sentences in my dictionary, I think the kanji is a little misleading. 味わう is perhaps used more to mean “experience” than the gustatory sensation? “to experience, to know (eg pain), to ‘taste’ (eg victory)”
Once again 小川著者 moves upward through chapter, from a mundane description of 化粧品 at the start to the poignant history of ローザおばあさん at the end. She also contrasts the aged ローザ at the start with the childlike delight she expresses on learning the Tomoko’s 朋 kanji in the latter part, and a visual reference to her youth.
I liked her description of ローザ’s (patchy) kanji ability, and could relate to it somewhat. （笑）
It could be simply that, but I find the image of 朋子 connecting her own 寂しさ with that of ポチ子ちやん rather poignant, and thought the natural visual would be her eyes or ears or just her.
Still in catch-up mode. C9 now complete, on to C10 and then on to the new thread.
