December 2, 2022

I may need to revisit this later when I'm better at following essays, because I feel like even after reading this twice I'm not sure I got what the author was trying to convey.

Lots of old fashioned words, unusual punctuation, kana being used differently than in modern writing (をかしな instead of おかしな), had to pull out a 古語辞典 for one phrase, etc. There's also references to then-contemporary literary figures and Japanese history that you're just expected to know. Honestly not an easy read, and even after many a lookup I just didn't quite get what the overall point was despite feeling like I understood the gist of each section.

Edit: After writing this review I talked it over with a Japanese person who had also read it, and with some discussion and linking to this: https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1312977858 I finally got the meaning. I guess it's nice to know even some Japanese people struggled with this essay

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similar in difficulty to猿蟹合戦L37
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