![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
so ever since i got to japan and saw all those shelves for it in the bookstores i've been wanting to buy BL novels but've been too scared to do it (plus i was thinking my japanese was too bad to read them, or that my eyes were). finally after what, seven months of living here? i did it.
yesterday when there was a sale at the secondhand bookstore i bought a random BL novel (summary: some guy ends up crossdressing because the guy he likes said he looked good in it when they were all drunk at a company party one time), sat down with my erasable highlighter, and read 100 pages straight! i read for like three hours or more! i didn't look up any words or grammar, i just highlighted the ones i didn't know or was iffy on. this is the first time i've done that with japanese (with a novel - i've done it with manga).
while i hadn't peeked at the insides before buying, i did read the summary - from what little i glanced at it seems like stories about office-workers normally use a ton of kanji, so when that was the case i couldn't even make sense of the summary, but this one seemed readable. after i'd been reading for a while i noticed they're actually a pretty good writer, as in even if they have cliché plotpoints they're really into the "showing, not telling" bit and also their characters MISREMEMBER stuff etc - like, at first the character thinks "oh great he's just drunk we shouldn't do this while he's drunk i'm gonna run away" and then a month later they're like "oh he was super grossed out i have to avoid him" (=misremembering). and while you the reader can easily assume the other character is lying at this point or whatever, it's all halfway told from the main character's standpoint and HE doesn't know so it doesn't actually get said in the narration or anything either. all in all it's been a pretty refreshing read, considering i've now spent years reading random crap in english that has a totally different writing style/focus, and while it's the "same but not the same" as BL manga so it's refreshing in that way too.
i think i can finish this book today, and after that i'll plan on just grabbing random BL novels from the 100 yen section and reading them constantly... i'm also checking out the Fight Club novel from the library (who knew THAT was translated to japanese!) and have a devilman novel and cyber city OEDO 808 novel. but somehow i think those are harder than these BL novels.
yesterday when there was a sale at the secondhand bookstore i bought a random BL novel (summary: some guy ends up crossdressing because the guy he likes said he looked good in it when they were all drunk at a company party one time), sat down with my erasable highlighter, and read 100 pages straight! i read for like three hours or more! i didn't look up any words or grammar, i just highlighted the ones i didn't know or was iffy on. this is the first time i've done that with japanese (with a novel - i've done it with manga).
while i hadn't peeked at the insides before buying, i did read the summary - from what little i glanced at it seems like stories about office-workers normally use a ton of kanji, so when that was the case i couldn't even make sense of the summary, but this one seemed readable. after i'd been reading for a while i noticed they're actually a pretty good writer, as in even if they have cliché plotpoints they're really into the "showing, not telling" bit and also their characters MISREMEMBER stuff etc - like, at first the character thinks "oh great he's just drunk we shouldn't do this while he's drunk i'm gonna run away" and then a month later they're like "oh he was super grossed out i have to avoid him" (=misremembering). and while you the reader can easily assume the other character is lying at this point or whatever, it's all halfway told from the main character's standpoint and HE doesn't know so it doesn't actually get said in the narration or anything either. all in all it's been a pretty refreshing read, considering i've now spent years reading random crap in english that has a totally different writing style/focus, and while it's the "same but not the same" as BL manga so it's refreshing in that way too.
i think i can finish this book today, and after that i'll plan on just grabbing random BL novels from the 100 yen section and reading them constantly... i'm also checking out the Fight Club novel from the library (who knew THAT was translated to japanese!) and have a devilman novel and cyber city OEDO 808 novel. but somehow i think those are harder than these BL novels.
Leave a comment