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The Great Passage

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The Great Passage

By: Shion Miura, Juliet Winters Carpenter - translator
Narrated by: Brian Nishii
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About this listen

A charmingly warm and hopeful story of love, friendship, and the power of human connection. Award-winning Japanese author Shion Miura's novel is a reminder that a life dedicated to passion is a life well lived.

Inspired as a boy by the multiple meanings to be found for a single word in the dictionary, Kohei Araki is devoted to the notion that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years creating them at Gembu Books, it's time for him to retire and find his replacement.

He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime - a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics - whom he swipes from his company's sales department.

Led by his new mentor and joined by an energetic, if reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is tasked with a career-defining accomplishment: completing The Great Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language. On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the bond that connects us all: words.

©2012 Shion Miura (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Translation © 2017 Juliet Winters Carpenter. Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction World Literature Linguistics Friendship Comedy

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Critic reviews

"Brian Nishii is the perfect narrator for this audiobook... The book's translation combined with Nishii's narration makes the story sound and feel Japanese - there's a subtle choppiness, and certain word choices and phrases aren't what native English speakers would say - and it's all entirely fitting and charming....a unique and fascinating listen." ( AudioFile)
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Había leído que esta era la obra más importante de Shion Miura, ¡pero vaya sorpresa que me llevé! Resulta que este libro es la obra original en que está basada la serie de anime Fune o amu, una de mis favoritas, por cierto.

Ha resultado un verdadero deleite escuchar una historia con la que ya estoy familiarizada y disfrutar aún mejor la bella prosa de Shion Miura con la magnífica interpretación de Brian Nishii.

Wow. 5 palabras. Un mega deleite. 5 estrellas

¡Una obra magistral!

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This was a lovely, cosy read and informative for anyone who is interested in Japan

Cute story

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loved the authors other book easy life in kamusari but this failed to hook me in at all. the love letter at the end was the most interesting part but I never connected to any of the characters properly. i hoped it would be more lyrical, given the main character loves words but it felt a bit clinical. i also enjoyed the chapter when the paper design factory characters were introduced! that was lovely. did the narrator have a slight lisp? or was the recording falsely emphasising the s sounds? they sometimes sounded a bit grating / harsh.

i loved "easy life in kamusari" but this was dull

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After an interesting start, I must admit that I lost interest in this book and ended up grinding my way to the end. The format of following a different character in each chapter means that each chapter follows a similar pattern.

The character finds the dictionary department, thinks that it is weird, then comes to understand and eventually love it... rinse and repeat. Scatter in a couple of interesting but long-winded facts about the process of writing a dictionary and that's it, that's the book.

A bit of a struggle

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Found this from its anime and it’s just as good definitely in my top 3 audiobooks of all time

Perfect

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If you want to discover the day to day life of dictionary publicist in Japan, this story is for you!
Great narration as well!

Quirky story

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me encantó todo, la historia, los personajes, la sutileza, la profundidad, aunada con una de las narraciones más extraordinarias que he escuchado.. ¡obra maestra!

magnífica obra!

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