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ところでその蕎麦を受け取ったときの会話で、くまとわたしとは満更赤の他人というわけでもないことがわかったのである。

This sentence is from a book well-known to many learners of Japanese, a compilation of Japanese short stories. It comes with partial translations and grammar notes by the editor. This story is 川上弘美の神様. But I'm not convinced by either the translation or the grammar note. The translation says

  • ところで At any rate
  • わかったのである it became clear

The grammar note says that

"のである makes the statement preceding it more emphatic and sets us up for the paragraphs that follow. [It] often lends an explanatory feel to the sentence it ends; here, it indicates that the narrator has reached a conclusion, and that the evidence on which that conclusion is based is about to be presented. [...]"

(In bold are the parts that I "agree" with, in italics my disagreement)

I've never heard that のである by itself announces anything about to be said. Quite on the contrary, I've always seen it as a way to explain the situation.

On top of that, translating ところで as "at any rate" makes sense in context (indeed, that sentence is the transition from the narrator wondering how considerate a bear offering soba to their neighbors might feel obligated to be, considering they're a bear, to how they themself learnt they are related to that bear.), but is weird and seems over-translated. It is supposed to be "by the way", literally "(this) (place/situation) (and)...".

So I'm wondering if, actually, ところで and わかったのである, put together, take some particular meaning.

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I think you are right.

The feel that the evidence on which that conclusion is based is about to be presented comes more from ところで, which is by the way typically and in this case too.

ところで indicates the writer will change the topic. Just saying くま and わたし are not total strangers is odd in terms of story telling and readers will expect that there's more about it, which (I guess) is why it gives the above connotation. Also, the feel won't change if it ends わかった/わかったのだ etc.

So it is more about semantics/pragmatics rather than syntax of ところで.

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  • Thank you. Can you access this link? It should help make the context clear. drive.google.com/file/d/1xNZLPs5uTnydHz9rc1LxX6WTA2NO1Kpr/…
    – Stephane C
    Sep 28, 2022 at 23:32
  • @StephaneC Yes, it uses である throughout, so it is more of a stylistic choice of the author and shouldn't carry that much of connotation in general (it may sound story-ish. That is, I feel it is less common in business documents, say). As for the story, it goes : くま moves in → description of くま→ ところで, くま and I are somehow related→ Here is how.... In this particular text, the author says we turned out to be non-strangers first then how. The feel mentioned in the note has more to do with how the author tells the story.
    – sundowner
    Sep 29, 2022 at 0:04
  • Possibly one could argue that ところで....である has that connotation because of what I put in the answer and である sounds like an end, a conclusion. That is, ところで...である (with reasonably short '...') means the writer puts the conclusion first, and by the nature of ところで, it is expected that '...' is elaborated later on.
    – sundowner
    Sep 29, 2022 at 0:08
  • If I understand @sundowner correctly, in this context, わかったのである and わかった are semantically equivalent, regardless of the sentence-beginning ところで? I agree that, rhythm or rime-wise, わかったのである flows better. But I find it hard to believe that's all of it.
    – Stephane C
    Sep 29, 2022 at 0:33

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