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Finished a day early!!
I have my part time job tomorrow after work so I didn’t think I’d have much time to read.
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FINALLY! I’m trough, too. Just in time tough 
Well I got some questions about some sentances.
I really hope that will not escallate
Q1 (p. 65-66)
誰かのアイデアを知らしめて、どれだけの人間かそれに賛成しているのかを調べる。
We investigated, who made this idea known and how many people are agreeing with it.
(Did I get this right?)
Q2 (p. 68)
死刑制度を廃したら、国家反逆者をいつまでも生かしておかなければならない。
If we abolished the death penalty system, we must keep the states rebels alive forever
(I’m definetly not confident with this terribly long last part. And why exactly is here おく used? I know it to create a feeling of “I do something in foresight of the future”, but that does not really fit here.)
Q3 (p. 74)
走り去り際にエルメスがぼそっと言った言葉は、「さよなら王様」
How is the 際 spoken here? Is it さい (circumstance) an actually just another word for まま or is it きわ (time, moment) and thus an equivalent for とき?
Q4 Another question to the content:
Why is the man in the end so afraid/angry?
My idea:
Is it because Kino threathens him (p. 74): 「あなた間違っていますよ」って言ったらどうします。
(What do you do if we say “you misbehaved” (?))
I think, sentance is in the backgroud, that Kino and Hermes are two, but the man is only alone. This way the vote of the two of them is heavier, and they could use the political system punish (= kill) him. When he realizes that, he wants to chase them away, so they never come back.
Damm, again my whole bunch of 18 questions shrunk down to only 4.
~T 
Ps: this book club is AWESOME! I would have never started a book like this at my current stand of abilities, but I am totally surprised, how well I get through. Thanks guys 
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I had the same interpretation ^^
おく also means leaving something in a certain state after the te-form, which applies to the having to leave them alive part
生かしておかなければならない → 生かす te-form (to let live) + おく in “must” なければならない form
As a suffix, 際 takes the きわ/ぎわ reading (I think specifically when used as a suffix it’s ぎわ 
), so at the time/moment of them running off
I also think it’s because they made an implication they disagreed with him, which as we saw is not very well tolerated in what their society had become. As far as the 2 vs 1 thing, I’m not sure that necessarily applies at the time because Kino and Hermes aren’t official citizens there, so I’m thinking his anger more so stemmed from the being disagreed with bit
同感 ! 
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Q1 - I think 調べる applies only to the second part of the sentence. We make someone’s idea known to everyone and investigate how many people are agreeing with it.
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That was my (shaky!) understanding as well.
Finished chapter 2! Just in time.
That guy sure didn’t take the rejection very well.
And poor エルメス being betrayed at the end.
I kinda feel like 4 weeks in is a good time to reflect. This being the intermediate book club and all I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep up, but this community is really motivating and I’ve somehow managed so I’m pretty happy 
.
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I agree! It’s interesting to see that we are just reaching the “half-life” of participation. We started with 55 people reading along, had 30 on week 3 and 25 on week 4. I need to check, but I think that’s a much better performance than previous installments of this book club, and I feel like the weekly thread creating-polling-asking questions format is working well.
Hmm, maybe I should move this discussion to the main book club thread
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That means we have to be better for the next book then. I like challenges 
Never expected that many people though. Would be fun to have a comparison between the number of people in each book club depending on the chapter. ha ha
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