37 Comments
Jan 5, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

Again I made a list of the kanji I didn't know. I realize some translations might not be correct if you read the kanji in context, but this was the best I could do, with my still limited knowledge. The list is less than the first pages, so I could read and understand more, which does make me feel just a little more pleased with myself. I will not comment on the story yet, because I feel like I still need to read the pages more than once and more than this timespan, to really comprehend. Some things seems confusing to me, the storyline, but it's hard to pinpoint it exactly were. Maybe it's just feels strange that someone would cheat on their wife.

P 108-109

悲鳴 ひめい shriek; scream

上げる あげる to raise

決して けっして never; by no means

無理 むり unreasonable

同時に どうじに coincident with

存在 そんざい existence; being

認める したためる to write up

向き むき direction

変える かえる to change

二度と にどと never again

勘違い かんちがい misunderstanding

寝込む ねこむ to stay in bed

床 とこ bed

手早い てばやい nimble; quick; agile

例 れい custom

残す のこす to leave (behind, over)

抜け出す ぬけだす to slip out

庭 にわ garden

越す こす to cross over

翌朝 よくあさ the next morning

驚く おどろく to be surprised

捜して さがす search, to look for

寝坊 ねぼう sleeping in late

違う ちがう to differ (from)

心配 しんぱい worry

服装 ふくそう garments

替える かえる to exchange; to replace?

落語家 らくごか rakugo story teller

際限 さいげん limits; end; bounds

答え こたえ answer; reply; response

一部始終 いちぶしじゅう story; from beginning to end

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Quick check on understanding

- Previously, T lets wife touch his fake beard (wife now doesn’t know who is in the dark with her.) つけひげうちじゅう捜してみたが、どこにもいない。

- Scared to be caught, T gets covers himself with a futon a pretends to sleep by fake-snoring. 空いびきをかきながら、Tはもうビクビクものだった。

- Wife believes that it is a misunderstanding and goes back to sleep. 勘違い

- T sneaks out to one of his favourite spots, leaving a hint that it wasn’t him with the wife in bed (cigarette case with random initials.)

- Wife notices that T is gone in the morning. During a search within the house, she finds the case, which surprised her.

- When T gets back home, he feigns ignorance regarding the cigarette case. とぼけてみせる

- In T’s head, the story/situation he experienced seems like it is from a story teller. 落語家

- There isn’t limits in what he can do in conversation, so he continues to answer each quest with ignorance until his wife reveals what she thought happened last night, from start to finish. 一部始終

- Wife still doesn’t know what truly happened.

These two were not as hard to follow as the first two pages; however, there is still a lot of literary/archaic? terms that throw off my comprehension a bit.

Ex.

「とど」

end of pg. 109

会話入りでやってちゃ際限がないから

end of pg. 109

十何町ってなに?

middle-left pg. 108

Without a doubt, an enjoyable read so far. I’m interested to see what is next.

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Jan 6, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

I felt like I was sitting with the narrator in an izakaya listening to a ridiculous story...I will reserve my comments on T's wife until I read more...but I'm getting the feeling she's an airhead.

Even though T's character is deeply flawed/immature, the effort he puts into playing a prank on his wife shows a childlike playfulness. I'm interested to see how their relationship develops because there's so much that's wrong between them. Still, I don't hate T, though I don't quite like him either...

I looked up more words this time because I wanted to catch all the humour of the situation. Really curious about the ending...how could all the lies possibly turn out well? It's like watching an accident about to happen.

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Jan 5, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

Although I had to look up fewer words for this segment, I ended up having more points I couldn't understand:

1 - もうしめたものだ - I'm assuming this would be もう閉めたものだ, something like done or case closed?

2 - テクテクと十何町を、行きつけの待ち合いへ歩いた

3 - 夫はしじゅう持ているとのは違う - what is the しじゅう supposed to be here? 始終? and what does it mean in this sentence?

4 - やらふにおちぬ

5 - 殊勝げ

6 - The whole part with 落語家 - how does their conversation relate to a rakugo?

His plan seems to be going well at the end of this segment despite the nighttime spook. I'm not sure if his wife noticed the moustache or if it even fell at all, but I'm guessing since she went to sleep she must have thought him her husband despite the disguise.

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Jan 6, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

Things I didn't understand:

1: かわいらしい悲鳴 (lovely scream???)

2: 家を上げた

3: everything after the dialogue starts

What I managed to (probably indirectly) translate was thus:

T: did you swap this tobacco container?

It goes without saying, that it was the aforementioned silver cigarette case.

[Comprehension jumps off a cliff]

Wife or T: no. What happened to it?

playing dumb, T (or T's playing dumb while his wife says): but

and then, a bit kinder, (probably) wife: didn't you come home last night?

T: huh?

Continuing to play dumb, T: but, I just got here. Are you saying I got home in the first place?

This raises the tension. With those words, his wife suddenly realises.

Like a storyteller, the beginning of the conversation is endless, so after he ends it by answering a question with a question, his wife realises that she continuously spent some of the evening ??? Being frank???

I was having a great time reading from the second paragraph of the first page until the start of the dialogue, because I understood what was being said, even if I looked up every third word. After the beginning of the dialogue, no amount of dictionaries and Japanese Google searches were clearing my confusion :P

I'll still persevere, if for no other reason, then just in the hopes that there'll be more pages like 108 haha

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Jan 6, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

Good Morning!

there are some sentences I don't unerstand, but I list here only those two:

1. もうその時分車なんかありやしない、...

2. 何とやら腑ふに落ちぬ

The most of the today's part I can understand even if not every sentences is clear - that makes me happy yeah yeah yeah :)

regards,

Dana

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Jan 6, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

I've just read the first paragraph and am gonna pick up later, so for now I just have one confusion:

二度とヒゲにさわらせないように

I don't really get it. Aside from the confusion between whether 二度 is にど or ふたたび, the confusion from yesterday carries over. Why is he trying to not touch his moustache? Is that what's being said? And what's the ように doing in that sentence? I know its two common meanings are 'like' and 'in order to'. Does he pull up the futon in order to not touch his moustache? That just circles back to the original question.

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Jan 6, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

I can't keep up even with the slower pace but I'm slogging through it. I also tried to read the Murakami story that had been posted previously, and I'm finding this story both easier and harder. It's less dense in vocabulary and doesn't require me to go to a dictionary every other word, but it's most colloquial and idiomatic and makes it much harder to get a strong grasp of a lot of the grammatical points. I'm getting the general gist but there are a lot of sentences where I really don't know what a particular expression or another is doing in the sentence. For example:

そこにいくらか変わった味がある This was so hard to understand because I couldn't parse theそこにいくらか part. いくらか seems to mean a little bit but I was reading it as some sort of a question instead of something similar to 何か or どうか etc. If I stopped every time I wasn't sure what exactly was going on I'm pretty sure every page would take two hours, as it is I'm skimming for broad understanding and it's still taking quite a while.

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Jan 6, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

The segment this time around seemed to be a bit strange in the context of the read! I wonder if there is a great big mystery or reason for the cheating to occur? Maybe the character had doubts that his wife was being unfaithful and wanted to find out for himself? The pages this time were definitely a bit easier to read but still confusing overall. Hoping to see where this goes!

Have a great night everyone,

Kat.

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Jan 5, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

These two pages felt easier than the first two. I'm a little confused about whether T intended for his wife to notice the mustache during the night or not. Also, is it implied that they had sex during the previous night ? If so, I completely missed it. Could someone kindly point me in the right direction ?

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Jan 5, 2022·edited Jan 5, 2022Liked by Bunsuke

Cheat on their wife and pretend to be someone else and than have intercourse with his wife and reveal himself to her, a strange game indeed, now I am curious to read the rest of the story.

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