3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "I would like to thank everyone for their contribution. Certainly Yakugo and Shingi did the most to render clear what is going on in this sentence. Historically speaking, Yakugo appears to have provided the best grammatical interpretation, as the height of the high-growth period had already past by the time Tsurumi's work came into print, and it was not clear what would follow. It is for this reason that I am awarding the points to Yakugo. Paul has quite an imagination, doesn't he? I am surprised that Humbird has not already downgraded my entry to non-Pro, though. After all, according to her the writing style is "typical" of "pedantic scholars". Humor aside, Tsurumi is a very balanced and thoughtful author with many interesting notions about Japanese culture and how it is interpreted by both Japanese and non-Japanese, and I am happy that I chose his work. Simply, his use of Japanese grammar is very challenging, and it greatly slowed my ability to achieve an accurate reading. I am not eager to do it again."