Week 10: 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 10

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Start Date: Feb 26th
Previous Part: Week 9
Next Part: Week 11

Reading:

Week Start Date Chapter Page Count
Week 10 Feb 26th Chapter 10 ~40

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

Previous Proper Nouns
Name Reading Notes Proof
犀川 創平 さいかわ そうへい (Week 1)
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 works 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 father; architect who designed the remodelling of 三ッ星館; died of cancer
鈴木 君枝 すずき 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
鈴木 彰 すずき あきら 昇’s father (Week 4)
萩原 はぎわら Police officer investigating the case on-premise
1 Like

I just have one question…

鏡を見て、左右が入り替わるでしょうか?

6 Likes

Maaaaan Saikawa is so obnoxious. I’m sorry but I’m with 萩原 here. Get to the freaking point. Your little show got people in danger for god’s sake.

Ok so the the murder itself is pretty straightforward in the end and pretty much what we’d said.

But I’m getting lost in the interpersonal relations. If I understand correctly, 宗太郎 was tired of his life with his wife 律子 and decided to fake his death. 君枝 and 宗太郎 loved each other, and 君枝 didn’t like her husband 彰. So they killed 彰 while making it look like 宗太郎 died. 宗太郎 lived a few more years then committed suicide. 昇 who regarded 宗太郎 as a father figure (even though he’s the professor’s son? or is he?) then resented 律子 for the whole thing (she didn’t do much but ok), and plotted to kill her. And 宗太郎 also loved 亮子 ? Which would make sense if he’s 基生’s twin (or could they be the same person or something??) and 基生 married 亮子. And meanwhile 基生 is supposedly not dead, but that’s a story for the next chapter. :exploding_head:

6 Likes

Yeah, you got that all right. Took me about 10 minutes to make sense of those last two pages. :rofl:

And even so, I don’t get what was going on with 宗太郎, 律子 and 君枝. Very strange. But on to Chapter 11…

4 Likes

Hahaha absolutely! He does like to pull off his shows :joy: And wasted half a chapter with his fabulations about how everything rotated and how he discovered it. Maybe that is unfair of me to say so because I understood this pretty much straight away, and maybe other readers need much more support here? But anyways it felt a bit overdone.
Well at least it was interesting to have the room rotate with the doors open, so everybody could witness it.

I must say I had to double-check the persons list a fair number of times as well :sweat_smile:

Haha I almost forgot about that bit! Really curious how this will be resolved in the last chapter.

I think it wouldn’t work out timeline-wise if Soutarou was Noboru’s father, right? We’re talking about 12 years ago here, while Noboru is already 19. Or do you think that Soutarou was in love with Kimie during all that time? I thought that maybe Soutarou was more “in reach” of Noboru because I guess the professor had secluded (or almost secluded) himself for a long time already? Also I think that Noboru only learned about his true father around the time of the first disappearance of the statue, i.e. 12 years ago?

At one point I got a bit lost in the Japanese - maybe someone could lend me a hand?

The sentence in question is
君枝は、律子を憎んでいた。そして、宗太郎が、亮子を愛していることを知ったとき、亮子も憎むことになった。

Oh ok I think I got it now. This is saying that Kimie hated Ritsuko [because she was Soutarou’s wife], and then, when Kimie learned that Soutarou was in love with Ryouko, she [Kimie] also hated Ryouko, right?
(First I thought it means that “when Soutarou told Ryouko that he loved her”, but then I would have expected 知らせる or something.)

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Right. :smiley:
複雑だなぁ…

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Yup that’s how I understood it as well, but that’s the first we hear about that. I expect we’ll learn more in the last chapter. It’s めっちゃ複雑 for sure.

Possibly, I didn’t really think about the details. You might be right that 昇 might have used 宗太郎 as a surrogate for the professor. Even though he already had another dad (彰). That’s a lot of dads.

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One thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet: Interesting how 天王寺博士 initially said that he had no interest in the murder, and then ends up being the one to lay out the whole family soap opera for the police and everyone.

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Oh man only 23 more pages! Will I slack off in my other bookclubs and break from the schedule all so that I can get the answers tonight? Or will I find the willpower to hold off? :grimacing:

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Patiently waiting for the week 11 thread so I can ask for an explanation :slightly_smiling_face:

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Ha-ahem, on my way :bowing_woman:

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Okay, so in the end all the missing people weren’t even related to the murder. The case was rather straightforward, but the interpersonal relationships around that… yeah. I always thought that Shun’ichi’s murder was planned from the start, but it seems like it was coincidental in the end.

And wow, what a cruel way to get rid of Akira… the poor guy fake married Kimie for her sake, was a father to her son, and what did he get in return? :smiling_face_with_tear: This is the real crime here.

So I guess when Akira “disappeared”, Soutarou took the role of the father figure for Noboru.

Still waiting to see how Kisei fits into all this.

Now onto the last chapter! Maybe I will be able to catch up with Vol. 4 after all? :smiley:

4 Likes

1 chapter left! I keep on reading more than expected cos I want to find out what happens. 100% agree with all comments on Saikawa being a butt. I can see why it is convenient to the novels for him to be like that as it means that things are explained gradually and slowly rather than skipping to the key points (ie. who is the murder and how did they do it) but if I was there in real life I’d be losing the will to live as he

decides to teach an astrology lesson before getting anywhere near to the point

I also like how last chapter he seemed to have at least some realisation that his desire to not reveal anything until he got to do his little 名探偵 seminar put people in harms way…and then he pretty much has a tantrum at the poor detective who asks him to get to the point. Uuuuuuuuugh

That said I’m really enjoying this book hahaha

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