エンキョリレンアイ

I decided to bite off way more than I can chew: I have begun reading a novel in Japanese. The novel I chose was written by Rui Kodemari (小手鞠 るい) and I just figured out that the title means "The Long-Distance Relationship" (エンキョリレンアイ).

I bought the book at a Good Will in Ashland, Oregon for a dollar. It was the only novel in Japanese and I thought that at some point I could use it to study. At that point, I had no idea what it was about. I can follow the plot, but the more abstract the sentences become the less I'm able to understand them. Some of the metaphors are giving me a real problem. I think she compared this guy's smile to light filtering through the leaves of trees, but I can't be sure.

It seems to be a trashy love novel. I'm cool with that. A love novel still trumps the children's programming that I watched in Japan. I remember at least one cartoon about a village of vegetables and a village of fruit (separated by a river) who learn that a healthy diet consists of cannibalizing residents of both places...

This novel is about a young woman looking back at the origins of her relationship with someone who may or may not be a foreigner (the "voice" as she keeps referring to him). I guess he's in New York and she's in Tokyo (it hasn't been said yet but that's what is implied on the jacket) and she met him while working part-time in a bookstore in Kyoto.

I'm only 12 or 13 pages in...

I guess none of this merits a post. Dammit.