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Finished this week a little early, since I’m crazy sick and needed something lighter to read (head only working like 50%). Enjoyed this week’s portion:
But I have to say, letting a young boy use a real pistol is pretty hardcore. Overall, the story felt much more serious this week. Him falling into the trap and having to lay still because of the pain is pretty strong for a children’s novel. I had the impression of the material being lighter before.
The chapter title was sadly a lot spoilery, it was clear he could not make his planned escape.
I liked the tidbid about 弁慶 and the 7 tools. I love it when novels tie real life stuff into their stories.
But I seriously was not expecting the animal in the bag to be a pidgeon. I was expecting some hamster or something when the narrator described the movement in the bag. But hearing the explanation why he uses a pidgeon made a lot of sense to me
Let’s see how he gets himself out of the prison next week. Judging by the title, the pidgeon will certainly play a role I imagine.
It seems 小林 has the upper hand - he has the diamonds and the gun, but as he’s backing out of the house the thief distracts him by revealing he figured out who he is. He engages a mechanism to open a trapdoor that 小林 falls through. Ouch. We get some mocking from the thief, confirming his huge ego
Comments and reply
Agree - the chapter titles are too spoilery!
I like how this is written from the perspective of what is seen and it makes it more vivid that the 怪盗 could think that the 仏像 came alive. I was surprised that the pistol is real!
Yeah, that felt a lot rougher to me, too
11 七つの道具
Summary and comments
小林 stirs after a while and takes stock. He has a little kit of 7 items inspired by the great 武蔵坊弁慶 Benkei - Wikipedia (embarrassingly, I hadn’t thought to search for him, thanks for the tip @downtimes)
His (back to our hero) 7 tools: 懐中電燈, 万能ナイフ, 絹ひもで作ったなわばしご, 望遠鏡、時計、磁石、小型の手帳と鉛筆
Plus he has a carrier pigeon ピッポちゃん, that is very quirky and fun
Having sorted his belongings and inspected the room, he lays down on the sofa and takes a nap.
This is a fun little chapter showing 小林’s forethought and resilience. He came prepared!
This seems to be common with children books. It was also crazy in 時をかける少女
. You could almost get a summary of the whole book by just reading all the chapters names.
Actually later in the chapter the word comes back with furigana and it’s indeed おとしあな.
W5
I’m starting to have my expectations in check for this book. At first I expected something more Christie-esque, but instead we’re in the Looney Tunes.
I know that it’s an old book but damn the animal welfare is not it. Between the dead dog and now the pet dove tied up in a bag, it’s not great.
I did enjoy the part where the narrator muses that having some kind of small radio device you could use to communicate with others on you at all times would be convenient.
Ok Ranpo, I see your point, but wait until you hear about Qanon and Wikifeet.
More generally I realize that I really don’t know what level of technology to expect from the Japan of that era. I was surprised when Kobayashi whipped out a pen sized electric torch this week.
Week 5’s reading was fun and some parts were unexpected!
Ch 10 & 11
The funniest part was the thief’s reaction to the small Kannon-sama coming alive. He seemed both startled and amused by this tiny statue with a husky voice, calIing it 一寸法師 (いっすんぼうし) の観音様 which, after some googling, I learned is a one-inch tall samurai from a Muromachi era (1392-1573) fairytale.
The fairytale was later revived in the Meiji era when it was included in a collection of Japanese fairytales. Just like Kobayashi, 一寸法師 is tiny, but fearless. In the lyrics from a 1905 song Issunboshi has “a small body, but big dreams” (小さい体に大きいのぞみ）He uses a bowl as a boat, carries a needle for a sword, and uses a chopstick as an oar!
(the unit of measurement 一寸 (いっすん) is apparently still used for things like kimonos and traditional knives etc…)
I enjoyed learning about this 弁慶 too! All these little history lessons are so great to explore. [edit: I meant to add, I hope you are feeling better @downtimes ]
Finally I really enjoyed the unexpected appearance of Pippo the pigeon! I am looking forward to finding out about Pippo’s role in Chapter 12, with the totally-not-spoilery title 伝書バト.
One interesting idiom I learned was かぶとを抜ぐ(to take off one’s helmet) which means to surrender. The thief says this on p. 53 when he reluctantly agrees to hand over the diamonds to the tiny, aggressive pistol-holding buddha statue.
I remember when I read Harry Potter for the first time, the Marauder’s Map concept completely blew my mind. It was so cool.
It’s probably super underwhelming for nowadays’ kids? “so what? they got a GPS but on an old paper?”
Quite a rabbit hole once again, thanks for those, enjoying them a lot!
you’re right! Reminds me somewhere I saw someone asking if in older movies when someone goes to call someone on a dial phone and the know the number - was that a plot device or did people really memorise so many numbers? They thought it was unlikely it could be so common to have memorised all your friends’ and family’s numbers
you’re right! Reminds me somewhere I saw someone asking if in older movies when someone goes to call someone on a dial phone and the know the number - was that a plot device or did people really memorise so many numbers? They thought it was unlikely it could be so common to have memorised all your friends’ and family’s numbers 
Happy that more people are reading this book