34404
I have been reading Colorless Tsukuru by Murakami in Japanese. I came across a
sentence where I understand the spirit of what it is saying but can't quite
see how it translates. I was wondering if anyone could help me..

The context is that the main character Tsukuru has been going round to old
friends houses and has been given the cold shoulder and he can't work out
why.. The whole passage is:
しかしそれがいったいどんなことなのか、どんなことであり得るのか、いくら考えてもおもい当たる節はなかった。 My understanding is this
means: (broken up into sentences)

しかしそれがいったいどんなことなのか However what the heck were these things? (that he is
supposed to have done)

どんなことであり得るのか what could it possibly have been?

いくら考えてもおもい当たる節はなかった No matter how much I thought about it I couldn’t pinpoint
the exact moment

I'm pretty happy with my translations but I'm not sure about:
しかしそれがいったいどんなことなのか

I sort of get what its saying but I'm wondering if anyone is more familiar
with this sentence structure. I think its saying _"However what the heck were
these things?" (that he is supposed to have done)_
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-05-26T22:24:03.900
34403
2016-05-27T00:58:06.373
11023
question
grammar reading-comprehension
しかしそれがいったいどんなことなのか - "what the heck could have it been?" not sure of translation
I have just read this part of the novel in the original myself in search of
some context (because what the original says matters the most.).

Here is the context/background for the other users.

Tsukuru goes to college in Tokyo, away from his hometown. As he is not very
sociable, he has made but a few friends in Tokyo. When he goes home during his
school breaks, however, he has good ol' friends (namely, four of them) that he
chills out with. When Tsukuru goes home in the summer of his sophomore year,
he tries to contact the four by phone. No matter how many times he calls their
homes, however, he is told that his buddies are not home by the other family
members. Tsukuru starts suspecting that his friends are actually home but want
to pretend, for some reason, that they are not.

「 **何か** があったのかもしれないとつくるは思った。自分がいない間にここで **何か**
が起こって、それで人々は彼に対して距離を置くようになったのだ。なにかしら不適当な、好ましくない出来事が。しかし **それ**
がいったいどんなことなのか、どんなことであり得るのか、いくら考えても思い当たる節はなかった。」

In the phrase 「しかし **それ** がいったいどんなことなのか」, 「それ」 refers to 「何か」 that precedes -
**_this (unknown) 'thing' that is happening between Tsukuru and his old
buddies_**. The phrase should be taken literally here. My own TL would be:

> "But what the heck this _thing_ was all about"

The "that he is supposed to have done" part of your TL is neither said nor
implied in the original.

> "But what the heck this _thing_ was all about, and what it could _possibly_
> have been, any way you sliced it, it did not ring a bell."
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-05-27T00:09:36.873
34404
2016-05-27T00:58:06.373
2016-05-27T00:58:06.373
34403
answer