11/4 Readings - Brooke

     I didn't particularly like nor dislike reading chapter 2 of The Cage of Zeus, though it was somewhat interesting to imagine human life shortly after beginning to expand out into space. That along with imagining a subspecies of humans coming into existence made for an especially creative combo. I wondered why the translator felt that they couldn't just use they/them as gender neutral pronouns for the Rounds and that they needed something more special than that. I also found it interesting that sex and gender don't seem to be defined separately in this world and that Rounds are assumed to be bigender (which is the gender that would most likely correlate to their sex assigned at birth) unlike intersex people who are generally forced to identify with one of the binary genders (rather that what necessarily aligns with their sex). 

    "The Place of Shells" felt very dream-like, especially with the flowery prose. I wish we received a clearer explanation on how exactly the dead visit this town and what it really means for time to be blended in this world. I was also curious about why the truffle dog's background was described in such great detail and if there was any significance behind that beyond the main character using animals to fill gaps in conversation.

    I enjoyed the chapter we read from Self-Reference Engine, as I generally like reading pieces about linguistics and anything with mathematical references. I had never thought about it before, but it is true that Japanese would likely be an incredibly difficult language to figure out completely from scratch. I was somewhat surprised that none of the researchers had discovered patterns in radicals, especially because they were speculating so much about how knowing a smaller set of rules/patterns would make it easier to be able to read the estimated 12 billion characters. The meta self-reference to the text at the end was also very fun and it was amusing to imagine a group of researchers scrutinizing over a text that was written about them. 

    I liked both of the short stories by Aoko Matsuda and thought that "The Missing One" was especially cute. I was glad to see Kikue get a positive ending despite the misfortune that Okiku (who she seemed to parallel) faced. Or at least it seemed positive from what we know; Yūta could be a total creep in disguise. On an unrelated note, Himekawa's mother in "On High" somewhat reminded me of how Aoko Matsuda wrote the ghost of the aunt in "Smartening Up", where the ghosts are trying to develop some sort of special trick. It was interesting to see her have ghosts share that common characteristic in both stories.

    "First Rate Material" had a very creative concept, and it made me think a little deeper about our death practices and our attitudes around them. I wondered if Murata was trying to convey a specific message about whether our death practices are good or bad. I also wondered why Naoki had such an aversion to the death practices in this world, as the rest of his close family as well as the whole society seems to more than accept them.