October 11 Reading Refelction -Jaxon

 I can feel a strong sense of alienation from this week's reading, especially from "I Want to Kick You in the Back" and "People Who Talk to Stuffed Animals Are Nice," and I really want to read the rest of the passages for these two stories. I feel a strong resonance with Nanamori in the story as a university student, and Nanamori's opinion or value about love is exactly what I have been thinking of until now, and I'm very happy I'm not the only one in this world who thinks of love hurts people's feelings and friendships. Nanamori's courage surprised me, especially under the conditions that he knew Shiraki had many romantic relationships. I think he mentioned he wants a relationship in college since that's what people are all pursuing, and people around him keep talking about those topics. Nanmori might be affected by the people around him and the trends of the majority in Japanese society, so he started to try to find a relationship, too. However, he still keeps the thoughts that he will damage the friendship between him and Mugito, so he engages with Shiraki instead. I even have a friend like Mugito in the story who is also in the same department and took the same classes as me, so the book just got my heart. It also kept the author's style of not telling any information about any characters but just throwing a bunch of names maybe it's because this time I read really carefully I didn't feel very confused. 

For "The Hole," I enjoyed reading the story, but I didn't get what exactly that hole is and what the mysterious animal is. I thought the story should have a lot to tell, but it ended very abruptly. I feel the ending is sudden because there is a lot of content describing how they move in and what the life of the narrator is like every day in the countryside, but the story ends by telling one of her days encountering some issues. I don't know why the whole story reads like a typical American horror movie in that the protagonists move to the countryside and start encountering weird things. The description of the countryside, especially the silence, sound of cicadas, and the summer heat wave feels creepy to me since it gives me a sense that everything seems to be normal, but something went wrong. 

I have to admit that I didn't read the "Twelve Twitter Stories" very carefully, but I don't quite get them. They give me a sense of those extremely short novels that convey plenty of information with reversals. 

I also enjoy reading "I Want to Kick You In the Back," the story expresses the theme of alienation explicitly. The scene of Hasegawa interacting with the model and the photographer makes me feel not well. The idea that to be able to live, you have to hide your true self and try to adapt to others is given many examples in the book from the perspective of people who don't follow social norms and get isolated.