I do not know if anyone is interested, but I find that I am more motivated to read when there are others also reading the same thing as I am. It would also be fun to have discussions on different books.
One thing I find is that, to really understand a culture, you must read their literature. In any country, there books and poems which are considered classic and important and to which many references are made in day to day life. It also gives insight on the different writing styles existing and the frame of thought in use at the time.
I got this idea while looking at http://www.victorymanual.com/forums/ and figured that with a more active community here, it might be better.
The first story is one that I believe should be given a shot.
http://www.victorymanual.com/forums/topic.php?id=9

wow thanks for the site, unfortunately i'm not at a level where i can read with comfort yet, but yeah cheers^^, this will come in handy i think.

Nice, I like this

Urrr... so are we reading 蜘蛛の糸?

Seconding Raichu, what's the goal here? Read within a certain date? Then do what? Discuss the topics covered? Ask each other about grammar?
There's a decent chance I won't participate, because I have a thing about 'should' reads vs 'want to' reads, but I'm curious and may change my mind.

QuackingShoe Wrote:Seconding Raichu, what's the goal here? Read within a certain date? Then do what? Discuss the topics covered? Ask each other about grammar?

I suppose it's up to whatever helps. If there are points we don't understand, then we can ask for help. If the article is interesting, we can comment on it.

QuackingShoe Wrote:There's a decent chance I won't participate, because I have a thing about 'should' reads vs 'want to' reads, but I'm curious and may change my mind.

Well, in real life, you'll encounter Japanese without any choice in the matter. Take this as a challenge to try and extend yourself.

Might be helpful if you said why you think we ought to read this (eg who it's by, what (roughly) it's about, whether this is a particularly well-known work, that kind of thing).

Having said that, this is a pretty short one, so yeah, why not?

Sounds like a good idea. We could also collaborate on building word lists. Good to cut down the work load by doing it together.

The first thing to do is decide on what to read. The suggestion sounds pretty good since there are already word lists on iknow and it's supposed to be pretty short. I'd appreciate answers to pm215's questions though.

Alternatively, we could all put forward suggestions and then vote.

Instead of doing it on this forum, we could create a blog and register everyone as a poster. Then we could post word lists to the blog and bring up words/phrases that are difficult to understand, which could be answered in the comments section below each post.

Just throwing some ideas out there. Blogs on blogger allow up to 100 posters.

Ah! Ah! I've already read this!
It must mean I'm an erudite Japanologist!

EDIT: wrightak, what about a Google Group?
Anyway, I like this initiative.

nac_est Wrote:Ah! Ah! I've already read this!
It must mean I'm an erudite Japanologist!

EDIT: wrightak, what about a Google Group?
Anyway, I like this initiative.

Sure. That could be good too.

Is the book any good?

蜘蛛の糸 in particular is only a (very) short story. It's certainly worth reading, at least if you like the genre. And, 芥川龍之介（あくたがわりゅうのすけ）'s stuff appears to be a classic, so it serves the purpose described by the OP.

So what's the plan?

I suggest we start with Kumo no Ito since it's [i]short[i] so it's a good first trial.
Shall we set a date for reading it, like by the end of the week (Saturday midnight GMT)?

I have no idea how the word list idea is going to work, so I say if anyone wants to take the initiative and set it up, feel free, but please give good instructions on how to access it.

nac_est Wrote:And, 芥川龍之介（あくたがわりゅうのすけ）'s stuff appears to be a classic

I would go further than this and say that he is one of the most important authors in Japan's canon. He is considered one of the big three of early-modern Japanese literature (along with Soseki and Kawabata).

His language is dated, however, and can prove challenging - or frustrating, depending on your level.

This particular short story has several obscure kanji and many Buddhist references. If you aren't up on your Buddhist terminology, you might want to keep Wikipedia Japan open in a separate tab while you read. Don't know if that is the sort of thing you'd all be looking for or not...

I thought a really easy story would be the first one and was surprised when I checked the story, seems to use pretty obscure words like EnjukuBlack said. However, since it's short it could be okay anyway I guess.

I agree, a time should be set so as to keep people reading. It would be boring if some people read it in just a few days then have to wait for the rest to be done with it.

Would the idea to be doing it mainly with things you can find online, or would it also include physical, modern books?

I think some modern books would help give some variety, rather than just older books. I've been buying things from BK1, but I use SAL so it takes about 2 weeks to get anything. So if it's a book I'd have to buy, a month's notice would help. (And assuming it's not a short story collection, it would need a longer deadline.)

albion Wrote:Would the idea to be doing it mainly with things you can find online, or would it also include physical, modern books?

I think some modern books would help give some variety, rather than just older books. I've been buying things from BK1, but I use SAL so it takes about 2 weeks to get anything. So if it's a book I'd have to buy, a month's notice would help. (And assuming it's not a short story collection, it would need a longer deadline.)

Agreed. I have my girlfriend send me books I want but not only does it take a while to get the packages, she is lazy and sends the packages when she has time to kill

I think we should do it with mainly things we can find online. I would like it so as many people could access these stories as possible.

The idea of the book club is to discuss parts we may not get due to grammar or word choice as well as discussing the story (as for what significance certain items or events may have). Opinions on the story are also okay.

We should have set dates so that people are encouraged to read the stories soon, and if they do not like the one presented, they can wait for the next story to come up. We also do not need to wait on others to finish.

I dont get it, why dont you all use THAT website to do the discussions on :S?

People are already on there asking questions and discussing stuff, why not join and contribute?

The group leader has not been active recently and most of the other members registered have not been either. It is up to the others to decide. I am fine with whatever with which everyone is happy.

Also, with the difficulty, it is fine if there are words you may not know. It has probably been this way when you first read stories in your native language. The only difference is that it was not "foreign" so you were not too bothered. You either looked it up or figured it out from context.
This is a pretty short story, so I do not think that the task will seem that daunting. If there are problems you cannot figure out on your own, you can ask others. This in turn may let others think more critically about different subjects.
An option such as a Google Group or something may be fine too.

Smackle Wrote:Also, with the difficulty, it is fine if there are words you may not know. It has probably been this way when you first read stories in your native language. The only difference is that it was not "foreign" so you were not too bothered. You either looked it up or figured it out from context.
This is a pretty short story, so I do not think that the task will seem that daunting. If there are problems you cannot figure out on your own, you can ask others. This in turn may let others think more critically about different subjects.
An option such as a Google Group or something may be fine too.

Well, in your native tongue it's generally something like one new word per page, in the first paragraph in this one there were tons of words I've never heard and I've passed JLPT2
Just to put it in perspective.

I still think it's a good story, just sort of hard to start people off with. Will continue reading the rest of it later today maybe.

Smackle Wrote:I think we should do it with mainly things we can find online. I would like it so as many people could access these stories as possible.

（゜Λ゜）

Are there many modern texts available online? There's value in older texts which are public domain now, and online does make stuff like looking up words easier, but again I think that mix would be good. But I can't really think of what modern stuff would be online (legally, at least), except stuff like maybe keitai novels.

albion Wrote:(゜Λ゜)

Are there many modern texts available online? There's value in older texts which are public domain now, and online does make stuff like looking up words easier, but again I think that mix would be good. But I can't really think of what modern stuff would be online (legally, at least), except stuff like maybe keitai novels.

I suppose we can choose modern texts that are cheap/easy to get. It might take convincing for some users to shell out money for books they do not know much about though. (Worst case scenario: I could *hint* at where to *find* the books *lying* around.)

Who's up for Tales of Genji in the original? :o