Month / August 2018

by Inhae

Japanese Immersion: film, anime, magazine and news!

I am quite happy with my immersion in Japanese this week! I watched the film 『ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる』and several episodes of 『ちびまる子ちゃん』. I also spent a lot of time reading and translating the magazine 『趣味の文具箱』. Finally, I started reading the news again.

『ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる』

ちょっと今から仕事やめてくるThis film by Izuru NARUSHIMA 成島 出 (なるしま・いずる) is an adaptation of the novel (same title) by Emi KITAGAWA 北川恵海 (きたがわ・えみ). While I loved the novel I have mixed feelings concerning the film.

As long as the film follows the novel, I found it quite okay. The actors are good, the setting is good, the slight deviations from the novel are good too. I loved the scenes at Takashi’s workplace, that really convey the daily’s nightmare to work there.

The end of the film is however completely different. While the novel mainly focuses on Takashi, the protagonist, the film wants to give more place to Yamamoto, the other character. At some point, it leaves the novel behind to follow its own step and add new scenes to the story. This is where I felt like watching a cheap TV film with too many good sentiments and happy smiles to my taste.

But even if I didn’t like the end, I enjoyed watching the film.

『ちびまる子ちゃん』

The death of Momoko Sakura made me want to watch the anime adaptation of her most famous work: 『ちびまる子ちゃん』.

I thought I would watch one episode, but I ended up watching a second and a third one and now, I could not tell how many I have watched.

It is a very good listening practice to me. The level is low enough for me to understand most of what is said, so it is not discouraging and still provides some challenging parts and an overall good contact with daily Japanese conversation.

I also find these episodes funny and interesting in themselves. While reminding me of some similar episodes of my own childhood, it gives interesting insights into Japanese school and traditions.

趣味の文具箱

趣味の文具箱　４６I have been reading and translating some passages of the magazine 趣味の文具箱… a magazine on fountain pens!! I didn’t know there were magazines on fountain pens at all, but finding one in Japanese is really a sign that these two hobbies go on well together.

The magazine is published four times a year and I have the issue 46.

The magazine has 160 pages with different articles and several pages devoted to the “New Stationery Collection”, which is a display of new fountain pens by brand. It is nice to see what exist on the market, even though most pens are far too expensive for me. The articles are interesting. In the issue I have, the dossier is about choosing, using, washing and taking care of your fountain pen. There is also an impressive display of tools used to take care of the nib and an interesting interview with a Japanese designer working at Lamy.

Japanese Immersion - film, anime and magazine 2

I can really feel the difference between reading something in Japanese to read in Japanese and reading something in Japanese because the contents interest me. In order to try some new study approach and do something I never did before, I took some paragraphs, copied them into a notebook in Japanese and translated them into French (all this is also a pretext to use my fountain pen). It didn’t feel like studying at all, I enjoyed doing it because I am so interested in the contents I translate.

By doing so, I have realised how translating can boost your reading skills. While I am reading only, I satisfy myself with a general comprehension of the sentence. Trying to translate it, however, forces me to analyse more closely what I am reading, and doing this helps to improve my reading ability in general, or at least, I think so.

Military service exemption for Son Heung-min?

The Asian Games are going on and though I am not following it, I will watch the men football finale tomorrow. Not only is the finale Korea-Japan, but if Korea wins, the players will get a military service exemption. Everyone is looking at Korea’s football star Son Heung-min (Tottenham) to see if he can avoid going to the military (the service is 21 months long…). I have no idea how Japanese feel when they play against Korea, but Koreans are generally very happy if they win against Japan. This and that put together, I guess that Korean fans will be on fire tomorrow!

Anyway, this made me open Mainichi again and read an article on this topic. I was very pleased to see that I could read it comfortably and without looking up words (guessing from the kanji the words I didn’t know or never learnt like “兵役免除” that I understand but cannot pronounce).

This passage explains that Korean football players can get a military service exemption if they win a medal at the Olympics or a gold medal at the Asian Games:

韓国の成人男性には28歳までに21カ月間の兵役の義務がある。サッカー選手が特例で兵役免除されるためには、オリンピックで3位以上の成績を収めるか、アジア大会で優勝することなどが条件となっている。

  • 兵役免除・へいえきめんじょ: exemption from military service

Conclusion

While I still have a hard time opening the Japanese novel I started some days ago and still don’t feel like reading at all, I am glad that I am still in contact with Japanese in other ways.

I feel now, more than ever, how important it is to have various ways to be in contact with your target language. There are times when some doors seem to be shut (for me at the moment, reading novels), and having other paths to explore allows you to stay in touch with the language, to discover new ways to study or new passions, and to improve different skills (listening instead of reading for example). Writing this Friday post (or knowing that I will have to write it), greatly helps me to stay active in looking for Japanese resources or things to do in Japanese.

I highly recommend writing or listing everything you do in your target language in your language study journal or any other support. A weekly basis works well for me, but it can be different!

by Inhae

Book Review: 『のほほん絵日記』by さくらももこ

This is not the post I planned to write today (I thought I would post in my “currently reading” section), but I heard on Monday that Momoko Sakura had died from cancer on the 15th. I thought it would be appropriate to devote this Wednesday’s post to one of her books.

Momoko Sakura is well known for her manga 『ちびまる子ちゃん』but she also wrote a lot of other books and 『のほほん絵日記』is one of them. I bought and read it some time ago but for some reason, never wrote a review of it.

『のほほん絵日記』is a collection of short illustrated journal entries. Initially, these entries were written for a Suntory campaign made in 1999 for their のほほん茶, a product which is, I think, discontinued. I don’t know how Momoko Sakura’s work was integrated into the campaign, but she made 48 entries for Suntory. Later, she decided to collect all of them in a book and added 40 more entries. She describes, in the postscript, how she spent three nights and two days in a hotel in Atami with her staff to write these 40 entries.

When she started the series for Suntory, her son was 4, but he was 6 when she finished the missing 40 entries. Momoko Sakura says in her postscript:

この一冊の中で、一番成長ぶりが感じられるのは息子かな、と思います。ちなみに他の家族は今さら何一つ成長していませんが… (p.189-190)

The stories are about Momoko Sakura’s daily life and feature members of her family and other characters. I think that people can easily relate to these stories and end up reading them with a smile on their face because it reminds them of their own experience or simply because these stories are cute, sometimes funny and always sincere.

I personally could relate to a lot of them: when she does the grocery shopping with an empty stomach and ends up buying more than she could possibly eat; or when she crafts a cute calendar for the house and realises that her mother made a stupid entry in it with a ballpoint pen, haha.

This is an example of the book’s layout:

p.104-105 (sorry for the poor quality of the pictures). Each story comes with a title, a coloured illustration and a handwritten text.

I like this entry because I didn’t know there could be more than 10 different sorts of umeboshi (!) and because I always find it strange when Japanese eat umeboshi, make the face you normally make when you eat umeboshi, and then say that it is delicious!

Conclusion

I really enjoy having this book, and I will certainly read more of Momoko Sakura’s work. 『のほほん絵日記』is the kind of book that you pick up from time to time to read one or two entries. Of course, one could read it in one session, but I personally prefer to open it randomly and read or re-read the entry there. In any case, it is a nice book, the drawings are cute, the text is handwritten, and the stories can easily speak to a lot of people, I think.

Reference: 『のほほん絵日記』、さくらももこ、集英社文庫.

by Inhae

Monthly Review: August 2018

August, or summer in general, is not a good time to study… at least to me. I have struggled with books and haven’t read as much as I should have. I blame my lack of productivity on Korean summer heat and hope that writing this monthly review will put an end to this Summer curse, chase away my laziness and put me back to study!

Monthly Review - August 2018

August hasn’t been a productive month

Books

Do you sometimes have moments when you don’t feel like reading at all or start several books and feel unsatisfied with them and unable to go beyond the first 20 pages? August has been this kind of month to me.

First, I started 『往復書簡』by 湊かなえ （みなと・かなえ）and loved it but was disappointed to find out that it was a collection of short stories. I stopped after the first story and decided to start another book instead, one from my reading challenge list. I picked up 『悪と仮面のルール』by 中村文則（なかむら・ふみのり）. I haven’t even talked about it on my blog because I only read around 20 pages before deciding that this book was not for me. It is not what I expected, and I found the beginning both strange and hard to read in Japanese.

Then I thought that the best thing to do would be to read another novel by Kanae MINATO, and chose one that would be a novel beyond doubt (and not a collection of short stories). I chose the novel 『リバース』but here again, I had a hard time getting into it. The first time I started it, I understood very little. The second time I gave it a tried, I could understand it quite easily (I must have lacked focus the first time) but did not feel interested by the story. Finally, I let it down during these two weeks when I haven’t done any Japanese. I was tempted to start another book, but I was afraid I might let it down too, and three defeats in a raw would have made me feel like a complete failure, haha. I even thought of reading a Keigo HIGASHINO, which I love, but I was afraid it would be cursed too, so I preferred to stop reading in Japanese altogether. But I think that I will take 『リバース』 again and give it another try, so it will certainly appear this Wednesday as my “currently reading” book.

The only success I had was  『ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる』by 北川恵海 (きたがわ・えみ).

I don’t know if I should blame the books or myself. As I haven’t gone very far (just reached Part II) of Atonement by Ian McEwan, I guess that I am the one to blame. I mean, you cannot possibly blame Atonement! This is a masterpiece of prose, the kind of novel that instantaneously killed any pretention I might have had to write a novel myself. I love reading it, but for some reasons, I am very slow at it.

So I guess it is just me, I didn’t feel like reading this month. It happens, I guess.

Fountain pens

I was much more successful in pursuing my newly born passion for fountain pens. I acquired a Sailor and a Platinum (both Japanese brands) when some months ago, I would have considered utterly useless to have more than one fountain pen.

One good thing with the fountain pen hobby is that it makes me want to write. Sometimes, I just don’t feel like writing in Japanese or taking notes about what I read, but then I thought “but I could use my newly acquired Sailor Shikiori Yozakura to do it!” and I end up studying Japanese!

Also, I focus on Japanese brands, not because I think they are better, but because it relates to my learning Japanese. And seeing breathtaking Maki-e on Pilot pens really fed my fascination for Japan and Japanese art:

(I spent too much time watching Brian Goulet’s videos…)

I will never be able to buy these pens but just looking at them somehow makes me happy.

Last but not least, I am training myself to become ambidextrous, at least, only for writing. I have always been fascinated by people who could write with both their hands and I have always wanted to train my left hand to write as well as my right hand but never really had the patience to do it. What helped me this time is that I have learned an alternative keyboard for French two years ago. It is called “bépo”, and I am using it since then, even when writing in English. And learning it was frustrating too. It took me weeks, maybe months (I can’t remember) to use it comfortably. In the beginning, I could only type very very slowly, it needed patience and regular practice. Well, I think that training your non-dominant hand to write requires the same process. It is frustrating, but as I know I succeeded with the keyboard, I know that I can succeed with my left hand too!

Monthly Review - August 2018 1.jpg

I didn’t know there was such a thing as a “Fountain pen hobby”, now I am completely in it…

Conclusion

I had a lot of fun this month with my fountain pens, and I enjoyed practicing my handwriting with both my hands (I also want to improve my handwriting with my right hand.)

I hope I will soon go back to study, or at least read in Japanese. I need to catch up with the news too, especially with the LDP elections approaching… I have a lot of words stocked in my electronic dictionary that wait to be added to my Anki deck… I also want to go back to my History book that I haven’t read for quite some time now… and so many other things!

by Inhae

Japanese immersion: listening to the film Only Yesterday on iBooks

I am very happy this week because I have listened to a lot of Japanese thanks to the film Only Yesterday directed by Isao TAKAHATA. I am a fan of Ghibli films and I have several of them on DVD. The problem is that I don’t always want to sit on the sofa for two hours and just watch a film I already know very well. I thought that it would be cool to have only the audio on my phone and be able to listen to it as if it were an audiobook. This is what I have done this week, and it worked like magic. First, I listened to it a lot, and secondly, I felt improvement!

My favourite Ghibli films to learn Japanese

From my experience and point of view, the film Whisper of the Heart directed by Yoshifumi KONDO is perfect to study Japanese through films, even for beginners. It is generally easy to understand what the characters say, they talk about daily life, school, books… personally, this film encouraged me a lot when I just started Japanese and was able to catch things I had just learned in the film.

I also like From up on Poppy Hill by Goro MIYAZAKI. I find that films dealing with daily life and not containing much action scenes are easier to understand. It will certainly be the next film I will convert into mp3.

I chose Only Yesterday because it is one of my favourite films and I find that the characters talk a lot. As I wanted to extract the audio from the film and only listen to it, it would not have made sense if too many scenes were only based on the action without dialogues. Only Yesterday also has a beautiful music with several folk songs from Eastern Europe that I like very much, so the scenes were nothing happens in terms of dialogue are pleasant to listen to.

How to extract audio from a DVD?

You can extract the audio from a DVD for free by using the VLC player. I just followed the steps I found on this site. It took me several attempts to extract the audio, but I have read somewhere else that this method did not always work. It worked eventually and I found myself with an mp3 of the film.

I followed my own instructions from some months ago to transfer this mp3 to my iBooks app (on iPhone) so that I can listen to it as if it were an audiobook. This allows me to easily jump in the audio (if I want to re-listen to something I did not understand), and the app remembers where I stopped the last time I listened to the file so that I can start from where I left.

I plan to repeat the same steps for the other Ghibli films I have (I don’t have any DVD in Japanese other than my Ghibli collection.)

My understanding improved!

By listening only to the audio, without watching the film, I was able to understand a lot more than I could before. I didn’t have to make special efforts or listen several times to the same passage. By just letting the audio run while doing other things, I realised that I understood things I never did before.

I guess that, since I don’t have to focus on what I see on the screen, all my attention is directed to what I hear. And of course, the more I listen to it, the more I understand. Dialogues which seemed out of reach before are now making more and more sense, to the point where I can almost repeat them or at least, identify the words used.

I wish I could also extract the Japanese subtitles from the DVD (it might be possible but I’m afraid it will need a little more work than just running VLC)… On the other hand, not having the subtitles script forces me to focus on listening and not jump to the script as soon as I cannot make out what is said. I think that I can reach a good understanding of all the dialogues by listening to them again and again. I want to see how much I can understand with this method before looking at the subtitles.

Conclusion

I am more than happy to have found something I like and don’t mind listening to several times. My problem with improving my listening is that, though I have tried a lot of things to listen to and found a lot I enjoyed, none of them would be so appealing to me that I would want to listen to it over and over again or come back to it as soon as I have time.

I plan to convert the other DVDs I have and make myself a collection of Ghibli to go on my phone.

This week’s Japanese immersion is a success! 😃

by Inhae

Book review: 『ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる』by 北川恵海

To get back on track after a small break, I picked a book I expected to be easy: 『ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる』by 北川恵海 (きたがわ・えみ).

I have already read another book by Emi KITAGAWA, which I liked very much, but I liked 『ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる』even better. I have only positive things to say about this novel, and I can only heartily recommend it to any Japanese learner (because it is easy to read) and anyone struggling with his work.

The story

As the title suggests, the novel is about quitting one’s work. The protagonist, Takashi AOYAMA is a young salaryman, who has been working for his company for 6 months. He spends most of his time at work, comes home only to sleep, has no friends, no girlfriend, no free time and only waits for the week to be over.

Now it is time to write something like “Then he meets a guy named Yamamoto and his life changes”, but it would give the impression that the novel is a kind of candid pursuit of happiness when it is much more than that. To put the record straight, one should say that the novel, instead of showing how you can change your life, shows instead how hard it is to do it.

Takashi AOYAMA is trapped in his situation and cannot find a way out. While his feelings are perfectly described, his personality and appearance remain loose so that it is easy for the reader to identify with him. I am sure that many people read their own story in this novel. After all, who never struggled with his work?

Personally, the beginning of the novel brought me back to the time when I was coming home from work at 10p.m every day and had a 20 minutes pause at lunch to eat something from a convenience store. I started having skin problems from stress, I suppose, and not getting enough sunlight. I felt that my work was taking my time and my health out of me, that it was in fact, taking my life away from me. I find that the novel captures and describes this feeling very well and I immediately felt involved in the story and the protagonist’s fate.

The very beginning of the novel gives a good idea of how this is achieved, and it will also show that the novel is not difficult to read in Japanese:

「六時に起床。同、四十六分発の電車に乗る。八時三十五分、会社に到着。席に座ると同時にパソコンの電源を入れる。
十二時から一時間の昼休憩。席を立ち上がったところで上司に声をかけられ、開放されたのは十二時十五分。歩いて三分の安いラーメン屋には長蛇の列。並ぶこと十五分。ようやく飯にありつける。注文が来るまで三分。湯気の立ち上るラーメンを胃袋に吸い込むこと五分。すぐに席を立ち、会社の玄関横にある小さな喫煙スペースで、缶コーヒーを片手に立ったままタバコを吹かす。この半年でタバコの量は二倍に増えた。ここでやっと、ホッと一息をつく。時刻はすでに十二時四十五分を経過している。
十二時五十八分、自分の席に戻る。十三時二十七分、本日三度目の上司の怒鳴り声。
十九時三十五分、やっと、上司が退勤。頼むからもっと早く帰ってくれ。
二十一時十五分、ようやく退勤。この時間になると、電車の本数が少ない。二十二時五十三分、帰宅。二十五時零分、就寝。以下、繰り返しｘ六日間。」p.6

Light novel?

I still don’t know how to define light novels, but I think that 『ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる』is one of these. All the elements at the periphery of the story have been reduced, and the novel focuses entirely on the protagonist and the plot. There are no descriptions or long narrative passages, the story turns around a few familiar places and situations. There are a handful of characters, with a lot of scenes involving only Takashi AOYAMA and Yamamoto. The working environment of Takashi is reduced to two main characters, and the reader is spared any complicated description of Takashi’s work. There are a lot of dialogues and frequent line breaks so that you never find yourself with a page stuffed with text.

It looks like if all the elements of context have been simplified to create a short novel (232 pages), easy to read while commuting or after a long day’s work. It naturally makes things easier for Japanese learners too.

Conclusion

I loved this novel very much because it really spoke to my heart. If you don’t have literary expectations and take this novel for the story and message it conveys, it really is worth putting in the hands of anyone who has a hard time at work, who needs courage and feel depressed. More generally, it is a nice story that will speak to a lot of people I think.

by Inhae

Back to study mode!

I am back, after a two-week break from writing my blog. Even though I promised myself that I would continue learning Japanese, I almost did nothing to learn or be immersed in Japanese during these two weeks…

Some say that taking a break from time to time is not a bad thing and some say that you should not take a complete break and continue to be in contact with your target language. I tend to think that a complete break is not the end of the world in itself and can even have positive effects. However, because it is hard to get started again, it is maybe best to avoid such complete breaks, just to be on the safe side.

But as I did a two-week break anyway, I don’t have another choice than to get started again. I gathered some tips that help me get back on track:

Look for emulation

First of all, I read blogs or watch YouTube videos by people who write/talk about language learning and how to stay motivated and so on. In fact, I often already know what they are going to say, and I don’t really learn something new from their contents. But simply reading or watching what other people say on these matters is extremely motivating.

If I follow some language learners, seeing that they continued to be active while I was enjoying myself encourages me to jump on the train again.

You don’t have to necessarily look for people who learn the same language as you. For example, I always find a lot of motivation in watching videos of artists who show their sketchbooks or people who show their journal where they doodled or wrote on every single page. Reaching a high level of drawing or keeping a diary are two activities that require regularity and consistency. This is why watching such videos encourages me to work on a daily basis.

Look for things you would like to buy

Ideally, I would be sitting at my desk for the sake of Japanese only, without needing to boost myself with consumption greed. But having a list of things that I would like to acquire, things to look forward to or that could serve as a reward, greatly encourages me. It might be things I will never buy because I don’t really need them or they are too expensive anyway, but they serve as a booster anyway.

For example, I haven’t drawn much during these two weeks. But then, I heard about a series of 500 colour pencils called “500色の色えんぴつ Tokyo Seeds” by Japanese company Felissimo. Of course, I don’t need 500 colour pencils, but I spent a lot of time dreaming on their website, and it made me want to pick my own colour pencils again and try to improve myself.

To come back to Japanese, I came across a list of books from the publisher 新潮文庫 called “徹夜本“, books that are so interesting they will keep you awake until the morning. Of course, I need to read them all. Looking at this list of books and selecting the ones I would like to read first makes me want to go back to reading in Japanese and finish the books I already have to be able to buy some of this list.

Keep a language journal

Keeping a journal where you record everything relative to your language studies can be very useful to find the necessary motivation to start again after a break.

In my own journal, I write down the things I did to learn Japanese and a little text about how I feel about it. Sometimes, it is only just a line like “I didn’t feel like studying at all today”, but sometimes I feel very motivated and write down ideas, new goals, things I want to try, how much I enjoy learning Japanese and so on. If you tag these positive entries, for example, you can re-read them when you need a motivation boost.

A journal also helps because it is a collection of all the things you have achieved until now. Looking at it will give you a sense of satisfaction. It is hard to measure our progress by our Japanese abilities because it takes a lot of time and a lot of work before we start feeling the result in our use of the language. But recording your study activity, even loosely, can offer an immediate reward and sense of satisfaction. Not because you are progressing in Japanese, but because you are working towards it.

Try new things

There are infinite ways to learn a language, and there are always new things to try. If you don’t feel like going back to your old study routine or if you feel tired of studying at all, why not try something new? A new app, a new textbook or a new approach. You can also try to work on areas that were not your focus before. For example, if you only learned to read the kanji but had no real interest in writing them, why not give it a try? It can be fun and a good way to get started again.

Personally, the skill I have completely ignore is talking. So I think that I will focus more on that from now on. Not because I want to improve my talking but because I think it can be fun and make me want to study Japanese again.

Also, as talking is my weakest skill, it is also the apter to bring immediate reward. The better you get in a language, the harder it is to feel rewarded by your work. For example, the first 100 words you learn mean a lot to you, but once you know 7000 words, 100 more won’t make a big difference and you won’t be able to feel the benefit of knowing these 100 words. But if you take your weakest skill, it will be easier to feel the progress, especially if you start low like me.

Conclusion

That’s it! That is what I think of doing now to get back on track. If you have tips to go back to a learning routine after a small break, please let me know!

I now have to open my Anki deck that I left untouched for two weeks… 😅

by Inhae

Japanese Immersion: August week 1

Would you consider this week to be the last week of July or the first week August? 🙄

Writing this “Japanese immersion” post makes me realise how much immersion does not happen naturally to me. I really have to make it happen or the week passes without me doing anything in Japanese apart from reading books.

Music

I have been looking for artists to listen to in vain. I have spent some frustrating time on Youtube, but nothing really caught my ear (apart from “Horololo” by EXO-CBX, but that may be because I am used to hearing K-pop, and it immediately sounded familiar and catchy…)

I think that generally speaking, Jpop is not for me, but I can occasionally find things I like, so it is worth searching!

I ended up listening to jazz, an area where I am rarely disappointed and found the band Bohemianvoodoo. This is exactly the kind of jazz I like to listen to, especially while studying:

  • Musical experience: 100/100
  • Study background: 100/100
  • Japanese immersion: 0/100!

Gaming Channel

The only thing I did to listen to Japanese this week (but I did it a lot) was to watch a Let’s play on Youtube. I love watching Let’s plays, and some are very addictive, but I usually watch them in English. Every time I tried to watch Japanese gamers, I found that I did not like their style. I would often find their way of talking irritating or things like that.

But, I found a gaming channel that I really like: Toilet Paper gaming channel. I particularly like his Stardew Valley series. I love Stardew Valley and play it myself in Japanese on Nintendo Switch. I don’t really watch the episodes closely, sometimes I just let the video play while I am doing something else. For once, I really appreciate the gamer’s way of talking. Stardew Valley is a relaxing game, and I find that he has a relaxing way of playing and talking, while occasionally making funny remarks. Personally, I don’t like YouTubers who try to be funny all the time or burst into exaggerated exclamations every 5 minutes. This channel is perfect to me.

There are more than 200 episodes in the series. He started with the unofficial Japanese version before the game was officially translated into Japanese, then switched to the official version when it came out (episode 75/76). I think he more or less let it down at episode 216 and went back to it with the multiplayer update only some days ago.

I also find easy to understand what he says, which is always encouraging to me.

News: ポケトークW

In the news, I found an article on the upcoming new version of ポケトーク, a translator device. The new version will be quicker and have a bigger screen. It will cost 24880 Yen and be available in September. Apparently, you can say a sentence either in Japanese or the target language and the device will translate and read it out loud for you. Here is the commercial of ポケトークW:

Imagine that you go to Japan, try your newly born, shy and modest Japanese abilities on a local, full of fears and hopes, and he hands you his “pocketalk”, thus destroying months or even years of hard study, haha!

Holidays announcement

I think that I will take some summer holidays on my blog… I am sure it has to do with the hot weather, but I really feel like a dumpling in its bamboo steamer: flabby inside and sticky outside. I will allow myself two weeks 😏 from now on! I won’t be posting the next two weeks and will be back on Monday 20th!

See you then!

by Inhae

Currently Reading: 『往復書簡』by 湊かなえ

I was very excited to start a new book by Kanae MINATO! I have read only one book from this author before, but it is clearly one of my favourite books. I was looking forward to reading another story by Kanae MINATO and was full of expectations when I finally opened 『往復書簡』. The fact that it is an epistolary (書簡・しょかん) work added to my excitement (I love epistolary novels, but I don’t read them often.)

My expectations were both entirely fulfilled and confounded. Fulfilled because I felt engrossed in the story right from the beginning and confounded because… it is not a novel! It is a collection of short stories! I realised it only when I reached the end of the “first chapter” (which was, in reality, the first story).

Have you ever started a collection of short stories thinking it was a novel? I can’t remember having such an experience before. I felt so disappointed, haha. I like short stories too, but not as much as a novel. No, in fact, if I can choose between reading a novel and short stories, I will always choose the novel. And if I can choose between a 600 pages novel and a 300 pages novel, I will go for the first. The longer, the better, even if it does not vouch for the quality of the novel. The reason is that it takes some efforts to get familiar with a fictional setting, a bunch of characters, their relationship and so on. Once I have done the effort, I like to know that it will be useful for a long time. Short stories oblige you to get familiar with new characters for only 50-100 pages and then start the whole process from scratch again.

Anyway, there were a lot of hints that should have told me I was not reading a novel. For example, I was puzzled that the story I was reading had nothing, but really nothing, in common with the summary on the cover (which was in fact, a summary of the second story). As I was coming closer to the end of the first “chapter”, the story was obviously reaching its end, and I was waiting for the plot twist, haha!

I overlooked the word 連作・れんさく on the cover… It means “a series of works on the same theme”, and it is exactly what we have here.

This being said I loved the first story. I will wait until I have read all the short stories and write my review, but I can already say that the first story was very engrossing!

But I was so happy to read an epistolary novel, it was so promising, I loved the characters, the plot, the mystery and I was prepared to stay with them for more than 300 pages. All this disappointment because of false expectations! Next time, I will scrutinise every millimetre of the cover, read thoroughly the summary, analyse the table of contents, flip through the pages and even X-ray the book before starting!

I don’t know what I should do now… Shall I start the next story or take a break, read another novel, and come back to 『往復書簡』later?

Currently Reading - 『往復書簡』by 湊かなえ2.jpg