I get it, I understand it, but I can’t quite understand the exact structure. Anyone can explain it a bit? Especially the bolded part, didn’t really get what it means beyond the obvious.
Page 64, 4th line in the book. Both the background and answer are spoilers if you haven’t read this far.
The から in the bolded part is throwing me for a loop, but I’ll take a stab.
Background
Earlier on the same page, he says that several of his friends were caught rebelling against the king and executed. (仲間が何人か捕まって、処刑された).
After that, he says that in this country people’s families are killed publicly along with the criminal.
Answer
そんな中 = while the family is being killed first,
仲間達 (subject) = the people being executed, the man’s friends
私や他の仲間 (object) = me and other friends (who aren’t being executed)
群衆から見つけて (verb) = locate us from among the crowd. (This is confusing to me because 群衆から seems like it should be “from the crowd,” but grammatically, 仲間達が - the ones being executed - is the subject. They’re doing the looking, and they’re definitely not in the crowd, they’re on stage). But I think this is right, everyone feel free to chime in though.
So all together, “While their family is being executed, they spot me and our other friends among the crowd…”
Does that help?
The rest, for anyone else reading, is "they refused blindfolds, and in the very quick moment that they fell, they uttered something. Then I saw them die by getting their skulls get smashed and their spines snapped. (Rough and loose translation) ひどいなあ
When I first read this, I misinterpreted it as the man speaking about being in the crowd.
I think you have it right. The people being executed would find him or his friends “from among the crowd” and look at them while being executed.
Reading more into it, this is a rich sentence. It could simply be that the sentenced prisoners look for people they know while facing their death. But then there’s the aspect that this direct connection spurs people onto action.
Thank you, I was also having trouble with this sentence, this makes it clearer.
One question though, is 目隠し really used figuratively here, as they refused to look away? Or could it mean that they literally refused to be blindfolded? (I hope 断って here is -te form from 断る, not 断つ, since both of them are 断って.) I’m still a bit confused.
You’re probably right about 目隠し. I just forgot that it meant blindfold lol. My guess would be they had the option of being blindfolded but refused? Seems a bit weird for such a murder-first, ask-questions-second country though, not sure.
Finished reading aloud Week 4 by myself in preparation for Week 3’s discord, lol.
I don’t know why but this week was really funny in a very morbid way. Every time the guy opened his mouth I could help but scoff and roll my eyes, haha.
I’m reading from an ebook so I don’t have page numbers but hopefully you can tell by the title.
I really find it hard to believe that they can just so quickly get 98% of the population at any one time to agree to anything, let alone killing people en masse. Also him and his wife at the end do not make up 98% of the population. They make 66%. That last guy was done wrong…well I mean he was done wrong anyways for being killed just because he wanted to leave. Lmao, what a crazy chapter.
Dang it, I never know enough History to get these references. Is that an actual phrase said by someone in the revolution or something? I just thought it was pretty funny.
98% thing
That one’s just another way to write numbers, writing like we do but changing the digits for kanji. It’s relatively common, I guess. I see it more often used to write years, like 二〇一九年 instead of 二千十九年.
But anyway, I enjoyed that chapter more than the first. When I found out that the citizens had gained the ability to read each other’s thoughts, the rest of the story became too predictable, I think. This chapter still had plenty of surprises.
