Characters
What was the name of Aya's roommate who she made feel bad by asking about her mentally ill parents?
Reiko
Macaroni looks and feels like intestines
Pregnancy Diary
What emergency arises in the plot of The Diving Pool?
Rie wakes up in the middle of the night very sick from eating the rotten cream puff.
What sport did the cousin allegedly play and was an excuse for why he was never around in Dormitory?
Handball
(why is it significant that it's this particular sport?)
We are all Children of God, and you must never treat your brother like a stranger.
The Diving Pool - part of the "thought of the week" that Aya's father wrote on the sign outside his church.
Which character said, "You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You'll find something that's right for you eventually. You just seem uncertain right now."?
Jun to Aya toward the end.
The narrator sews a quilt
Dormitory
How does the narrator of Pregnancy Diary first acquire the vast quantity of grapefruit needed to make her sister poisoned jam?
There was an accident at the supermarket where she works and her manager gave her a bunch of semi-ruined grapefruit.
Where did the tulips come from in Dormitory?
The mathematics student found them behind a dumpster outside a flower shop and he and the manager planted them.
"But I can never find the right words. Perhaps it's because he's falling through time, to a place where words can't reach."
The Diving Pool - Aya describing how she struggles to describe in words the feelings she gets from watching Jun dive.
Who ate two crackers with cream to the surprise of the narrator?
The old woman at the grocery store in Pregnancy Diary.
Someone jumps in front of a train and gets killed.
Dormitory
What major life change is the narrator of Dormitory avoiding?
Her move to Sweden to join her husband at his new job.
Where does Aya's family take their meals and what's it like there?
In the basement dining hall and it's dank, dirty, moldy, noisy, crowded, etc.
"Still, from time to time, I attempted analogies: the icy murmur of a fountain in winter when a coin sinks to the bottom...."
Dormitory narrator attempting to describe the mysterious sound she hears when she thinks of her old dormitory.
Whose lips were like two maggots that would never stop wriggling?
Aya's mother's
Good luck charms include a scarf with a dog on it.
Pregnancy Diary (because dogs give birth to a lot of puppies without too much trouble)
What is one thing Aya routinely does to indulge her feelings of estrangement from her biological family?
She'll look at the family photo albums that don't contain anything personal about her.
What were some of the losses the narrator's cousin in Dormitory had experienced early in life?
A girl he like moved away, his chicken got eaten by a stray cat, and his dad died.
"As the tip of his finger ran over the inside of my mouth, I fought the urge to bite down with all my might."
Pregnancy Diary narrator - describing the time her brother-in-law examined her teeth at his dentist's office and how she wanted to hurt him.
His fingers were pale and slender - like exotic hothouse flowers.
The math student who vanished in Dormitory
Which story ends in blinding sunlight?
Pregnancy Diary - the other two end in the rain
What is the climax of Dormitory?
The last scene when the narrator is frantically and desperately searching for her cousin and opens the crawl space to find an enormous beehive.
What color swimsuit is Jun wearing the first time we see him at the diving pool?
Rust-colored
"When I remember someone, I think of the sum of the parts - the hands and feet, the neck, the shoulders and chest, the hips, the muscles, the bones. There's no face involved."
The Manager - attempting to explain his fascination with people's bodies.