いかぬことばかりだ meaning


> この世は想い通りにはいかぬことばかりだ  
>  Everything in this world is not as it seems.

That's what google translate says it means. I already deciphered the first
part, but the part that comes after the は is a total mystery.

I have no idea how to tackle いかぬことばかりだ. I know the ばかり grammar, but I can't
link any of its uses to this sentence.




> この世は想い通りにはいかぬことばかりだ

This ぬ is an old form of the negation, ない. See for example [this
post](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/235/what-is-the-difference-
between-the-negative-forms-%E3%81%9A-and-%E3%81%AC). The fact that the
sentence uses ぬ leads me to suspect this might be some well known saying, but
that's a pure guess.

So 想い通りにはいかぬ --> 想い通りにはいかない = "does not go/proceed according to expectations".

You say you already understand the grammar of ばかり, which is good because I
find it difficult to explain. But I guess the literal, highly clunky,
translation would be "this world is in a state where things (こと) do nothing
but (ばかり) not proceed (いかぬ) according (通り) to expectations". Which, when you
get your head round the double negative, means what you want it to mean.

