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Great first comment, I had to search for the same thing.
12 伝書バト
This scene with 小林 discovering the window and it gradually dawning on him to use his bird to send a message was hilarious to me. I thought the whole point of bringing a carrier pigeon on the adventure was to be able to send a message just in case. But it seems he meant the mascot/ good luck charm thing from the last chapter literally. I guess this is the kind of thing where as a kid (reading) you get really proud of yourself for having figured out something before the MC or before the author tells you.
Ok fine, secretly I am proud of myself. Come on man, use the bird. The bird!
New phrases (inspired by @Buruberimiruku)
ひけはとりませんでした second to none
From:
引けを取らない not losing out (to), holding one’s own (against)
道草を食う to loiter (on the way), to waste time
I like this, it’s evocative of an animal wandering around getting distracted finding stuff to eat
13 奇妙な取りひき
Summary The thief wants the pistol in exchange for breakfast which the boy does to avoid raising suspicion. The thief wants the diamonds for future meals
I was a bit surprised how easily 小林 gave up the pistol. He could have at least made a show of waiting till lunch. Come on, I thought people were tougher in the old days!
14 小林の勝利
Summary
The thief has just taken the pistol when the cook says he sees several police cars have arrived.
It’s too late for them to escape via the entry or back door so they run up to the second floor.
They find the thief upstairs and arrest him. But in all the excitement, 小林 forgets about the cook and they didn’t happen to find a second person in the house. What really happened? Nice puzzle to leave the dear reader with
I can’t imagine they had time to do more than hide. My attempt at speculation: So did they hide and the person arrested is a third person, the old man lookalike? It sounds unlikely, but that’s all I’ve got.
Done with this week’s reading. Enjoyed it quite a bit. I do have slightly different impressions from @mitrac though
For me, this progression felt super natural this time. He first tried to get out himself with his handy ladder. That makes total sense, first try to get out yourself or try to call help directly. Only after he realizes both these options sadly don’t work does it take him like 2 sentences of “if I’d be a fairy, I could just fly out of here” before he realizes he could use his pigeon friend.
After all, if I can escape myself or take the option to rely on a pigeon, I’d certainly choose the same way as he does in the story
Isn’t it super obvious what happened here? Both of them went to the second floor, 二十面相 took his disguise and put it on the cook. Then he put on a 警官 uniform and called out that the thief is on the second floor. Then he simply walked out the building with the rest of the 警官 when they escorted the thief to the car (Léon the professional style). Notice how the caught thief doesn’t say a word. Maybe the cook was gaged somehow as well. It’s dark in the attic after all, easy to make mistakes.
In retrospect yes in my head the action moved so quickly that there wasn’t time for that, so I was trying to think of what may not have required any faffing about
On one hand I miss complicated speculations as in more advanced mystery novels, on the other hand it is cute, so why not. I was also a bit puzzled that sending a pigeon wasn’t a plan all along.
two way of spelling はげしい
I was surprised to see it, does anyone know the reason?
I looked in my favorite online source, Lorenzi’s Jisho, because you can choose “inspect kanji” and see details for specific Kanji… And because it lists usage data, such as arrows showing kanji usage trending upwards or downwards Lorenzi’s on はげしい
… Sometimes it shows different kanji usage for slightly different nuances or very different meanings, but it has no such information regarding the two… It does 激 is taught in 6th grade and 烈 is taught in High School, and that 激しい is gaining in popularity (green arrow up), while 烈しい is dropping in usage (red arrow down)
… But for two different usage on the same page, both modifying 叩く (たたく to strike, hit)…
My brief research came up empty.
And it’s such an old book… Goodness knows what their attitude was towards the kanji back then! (There are sometimes different “archaic” meanings listed in the dictionary also…)
My reward for finally finishing this week’s readings was reading all the blurred or hidden comments (I did look at the note and map @2000kanji posted as soon as I reached the description about the giant kamaboko interesting bit of history for the neighborhood)
Week 6 - much long, very words
I was happy to see that Kobayashi-kun was able to use so many of the Detective’s Seven Tools: notebook and pen, flashlight, multi-purpose knife, rope ladder, compass, watch (and the bonus pigeon). I’m surprised he didn’t pull out the fountain pen shaped telescope? Or did I miss that? It would have been useful when peering out the window… although maybe unnecessary…
Kobayashi-kun should have added an energy bar to his Detective tool kit…he would have been in a better position negotiating his meals with the thief. Well I guess he was just biding his time so maybe he wouldn’t have pulled it out… Speaking of meals, was anyone else kind of worried that the Thief had caught Pippo and was having the cook fry him up for Kobayashi’s breakfast?!? That’s where my mind went when the thief mentioned that he saw Pippo fly away. I was so relieved when I read the breakfast description and saw it was only three onigiri ham and a raw egg(?) (no squab!)
I felt that Kobayashi had Pippo as a messenger pigeon from the outset because Pippo already had a tube tied to his leg (to put a message in), and when he was giving Pippo instructions he told Pippo 「早く奥さんのところへ行く」which I understood to mean that Pippo had a mate where he would go back to (in this case Akechi’s aunt’s house?), which seems to be how homing pigeons work…but I may have misunderstood this phrase.
That makes sense. I kind of expected the person caught by the police to be the cook, but then where did the thief get a police uniform? Maybe he had other disguises stored in the attic? If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be a great plot twist that the thief (disguised as a policeman) escorts the cook (disguised as the thief) to one of the police cars and they drive off into the sunset still holding hands? I haven’t read ahead so I can’t confirm this…
As for favorite phrases or words, I don’t have anything to add to @mitrac’s great list. Thank you to @Shannon-8 for sharing Lorenzi’s Jisho! I didn’t know about this cool resource and now I will spend even more time munching on grass along my reading journey.
The one cool N2 grammar point I was excited to recognize in the wild was the alternate use of ながら (“although”) on page 61 when Kobayashi was disappointed to discover he couldn’t see anything when standing on the sofa 「せっかく窓を発見しながら、そこから外をのぞくことも、できなかったのでしょうか」Or at least that’s how I think ながら is being used here..
Ah, I think you misunderstood that part. It was not the thief that saw it fly away, it was 小林 wondering/worrying if the thief might have seen it.
Close. 奥さん means the wife of 明智, not the wife of the bird . So he’s instructing the pigeon to fly to akechis wife’s place, since she would know the pigeon and understand that it is a message.
Best guess is that he has tons and tons of uniforms stored somewhere in his hideout. He is the 二十面相 after all, master of disguise. Where that is exactly, is left to imagine for you, dear reader.
Thank you for clarifying these misunderstandings @downtimes, I appreciate this! I’m relieved to hear the odds were extremely low that Kobayashi would end up eating Pippo, and that Pippo’s marital status remains a mystery.
Given that the context and meaning is exactly the same in both cases, I have to assume that it’s random and doesn’t mean anything. As @Shannon-8 says, while there are many situations where kanji choice carries a specific nuance, I can’t find any source online attributing a different meaning to these two spellings in particular.
I noticed that this book, probably owing to its age, tends to be a lot more “creative” with its kanji usage, often using spellings that would be considered uncommon in modern Japanese, 駆ける written 駈ける for instance. Or しかし written 併し, which I can’t even get my IME to produce.
3 pages into the chapter, 3 to go til the end of the chapter and the week’s reading. I bet anything there is a secret passage out of the house that somehow starts in that upstairs room and that 賊 escaped through (with his cook, of course) (is anyone else getting “secret gay romantic relationship” from 賊 and コック?)
But actually downtimes’ theory seems a bit more plausible.
Finished the chapter and I feel there’s a strong possibility that the person they think is the 賊 is actually the コック. So much for my gay romance theory I guess. Well, it could be a tragic romance?
⭡This option!!!
And a classic chapter wrap-up with a “reader, what do you think happened?” moment. We think Zoku and Kokku live happily ever after!
in my head the action moved so quickly that there wasn’t time for that, so I was trying to think of what may not have required any faffing about
. So he’s instructing the pigeon to fly to akechis wife’s place, since she would know the pigeon and understand that it is a message.
your comments are killing me