Week 1: 笑わない数学者 - Mathematical Goodbye (S&M Vol.3)

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笑わない数学者 - Mathematical Goodbye (S&M Vol.3) Home Thread

Week 1

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Start Date: Dec 24th
Next Part: Week 2

Reading:

Week Start Date Chapter Page Count
Week 1 Dec 24th Chapter 1 ~54

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle:

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Proper Noun Readings

Name Reading Notes Proof
犀川 創平 さいかわ そうへい
西之園 萌絵 にしのその もえ
片山 和樹 かたやま かずき Moe’s classmate
天王寺 翔蔵 てんのうじ しょうぞう Professor, grandfather of 片山 和樹
西之園 恭輔 にしのその きょうすけ Moe’s deceased father
湯川 ゆかわ Architecture researcher
天王寺 律子 てんのうじ りつこ Wife of 天王寺 宗太郎; actress
天王寺 俊一 てんのうじ しゅんいち Son of 天王寺 宗太郎 and 律子; genius mathematician; actor
鈴木 昇 すずき のぼる Driver; his mother worked for the professor
天王寺 宗太郎 てんのうじ そうたろう Professor’s eldest son; mathematician; famous author; deceased
片山 亮子 かたやま りょうこ Professor’s daughter; 和樹’s mother; 俊一’s aunt; widow; relationship with 湯川
片山 基生 かたやま きせい 亮子’s deceased husband; 和樹’s mother; architect who designed the remodelling of 三ッ星館
君枝 きみえ Professor’s housemaid
片山 志保 かたやま しほ 和樹’s older sister
諏訪野 すわの Moe’s butler
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Merry Christmas everyone! It’s good to be back with Saikawa and Moe again after a few months away.

I really missed all of Saikawa’s smoking antics. And there’s a lot more flirting and banter between the two main characters, as well as quite a few moments where Saikawa gets hot under the collar and sweats in the middle of December at any mention of his relationship (結婚?!) with Moe. No murder yet though, as per usual for this series.

By the way, thanks for the (barely) spoiler-ish hint to start reading on Christmas Eve. This chapter was a great Christmas read. Looking forward to continuing on with you all in the new year!

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I completely forgot that each chapter is divided into several parts. Almost made the same mistake as with the first book :sweat_smile: :joy:

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Riight? Loved that too, and I found it very amusing how rumors had spread in the meantime, and how Saikawa seems to be a pro at getting him into embarrassing conversations :joy_cat:

Now, for the murder that’s supposed to happen. Or maybe more than one? We got to know a few people already… What is your bet regarding who gets killed? And who is the murderer? I’m seriously hoping that Moe’s classmate Kazuki isn’t the victim! He seems so sweet an innocent with his keigo :grin: Shun’ichi, on the other hand, somehow feels like a very unpleasant person already. Maybe he is involved in one way or another? Also, would he be the titular non-laughing mathematician? :thinking:

And did y’all notice that the fan got mentioned twice already? By now I’m pretty convinced that somebody will get hanged there - this seems to be a very classical scenario according to the amount of Google search results…

Oh by the way, I’m working on putting up a list of names and stuff (once I get my generator script to collaborate a little bit better :sweat_smile:) EDIT: Mission accomplished - names list is now in the OP :slight_smile:

In case I forgot a name or got any of the info wrong, I’d be happy if you could tell me :blush:

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Off to a great start! I just came off of クビキリサイクル and so far this really scratches that same itch. Honestly the setups are extremely similar (I’m sure all this could be found on an Amazon book description but I’ll put in a spoiler tag anyway): A philosophizing protagonist arrives at a mansion in a remote location with his “definitely not girlfriend” to hang out with a secretive host, their servants, and a handful of geniuses, where presumably somebody will get murdered in a “locked-room” fashion. Maybe this is a pretty standard setup in the genre but it’s pretty funny that the two Japanese whodunnits I’ve picked up so far are so similar. It also looks like すべてがFになる and クビキリサイクル both won the Mephisto prize.

@NicoleIsEnough Thanks again for the summary and the immensely helpful character list. I presume that aside from Saikawa and Moe all of the characters introduced so far are new ones? As of now I really don’t feel that I’m missing anything too significant.

That’s quite the Chekhov’s Gun. Hopefully by reading this with a group and over a shorter period of time I’ll be able to keep the clues together even better than with クビキリサイクル.

I guess I wouldn’t have even assumed there’s a murder until you said something! I was curious just to know how the heck the statue got moved :sweat_smile:. Hopefully it’s not Kazuki. I bet Noboru’s safe too because I think his blindness might come into play as a clue down the line. I could do without Shunichi, but I think the fact that he already has inheritance as a murder-motive could either be an important clue or a red herring later. In fact I bet it’s Professor Shouzou who ends up dying.

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Glad to hear you like the book so far!

By now I’ve reached the same conclusion :joy_cat:

Also, if you like this setting make sure to tune in to our next book club 本陣殺人事件 :grin:

Ah no worries! I was quite happy I remembered so much. And the character list is more for my own benefit than for anything else :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Except for Moe’s butler Suwano and her father (whom I forgot to include in the list) everybody is new, correct.

I hope we can get some nice speculations going later on which will continually refresh us on the details :blush:

Oh oops! Well technically speaking I don’t know that there will be a murder, I’m just extrapolating from the other books. So this is maybe a bit of background info that should have gotten into the summary…

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I also think it’s the professor (天王寺 翔蔵) who is going to be killed. He seems like an important character. Unless I overlooked something, it seems like he doesn’t have a room at the 三ツ星館 though, according to the illustration at the beginning of the book. I couldn’t find his name, at least.

Illustration of the 三ツ星館

And I agree that it’d make sense if Shun’ichi was the titular non-laughing mathematician. I can imagine the “non-laughing” part comes from him not inheriting the place after all, probably because someone is going to solve the missing bronze statue mystery and thus inherit the place instead of him.

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Thank you for transferring the drawing to here! I’ve added it to the home thread for easier reference.

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I was kind of thinking it might be nice if the case they solved was one that happened 12 years ago… And there were no grisly murder randomly occurring while these two happened to be there.

That’s probably too much to hope though.

One chapter down!

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Started reading this yesterday! I doubt I’ll be able to catch up with the Volume 4 club, but reading along afterwards is still fun :slight_smile:

Is Shun’ichi a mathematician? I thought he is simply an actor and only the grandson of the genius mathematician Shouzou. His comment on how the statue disappeared also didn’t sound very genius. “Well, with a crane or something”

天王寺俊一は、その宗太郎と律子の息子であろう。天才数学者、天王寺翔蔵の孫ということになる。


I don't have a theory for the murder that's to come, but I have a theory for how Shouzou made the statue disappear!

Since Saikawa mentioned so many times that the building is really confusing and makes you lose your orientation and your sense of balance, I think Shouzou just made use of the almost symmetrical layout of the building. Maybe he switched the colors of the two towers, red and blue, and used some trick to make everyone lose their sense of direction, then led them out the other door, towards the backyard. (I know they’re oriented a bit differently; that’s why some small trick would be needed. Maybe alcohol is enough for the adults?) This is also why the trick can only be pulled off in bad weather: otherwise the brick wall and the sky would become visible and everyone would notice that the building is tilted the wrong way.

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Have continued my slow catching up to this book club :running_man:

This first chapter was really fun, I loved all of the teasing of Saikawa, especially as he so often takes himself way too seriously. I also was shaking my head at the mentions of his teaching style in this chapter….makes perfect sense for his character but I’m glad that I never had him as a lecturer when I was at uni!

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