Hello and welcome! Tires have been punctured, phone lines cut, and we’re all trapped in this 読書会館 together for the next several weeks.
This is the thread for the first two weeks of 十角館の殺人 where we read the prologue along with chapter 1. We will follow the below schedule (page counts are estimates based on standard size iPad with default font):
Week 1 + 2 : プロローグ + 第一章 (47 pages)
Week 3: 第二章 (31 pages)
Week4: 第三章 (24 pages)
Week 5: 第四章 (22 pages)
Week 6: 第五章 (39 pages)
At week 6 we will vote on which of the two cadences we’d like to finish out with
Details on those, feel free to ignore til week 6
Speed up, the end is near:
Week 7: 第六章 + 第七章 + 第八章 (43 pages)
Week 8: 第九章 (55 pages)
Week 9: 第十章 + 第十一章 + 第十二章 + エピローグ (52 pages)
or Steady, generally just one chapter a week unless very short
Week 7: 第六章 + 第七章 (26 pages)
Week 8: 第八章 (17 pages)
Week 9: 第九章 (55 pages)
Week 10: 第十章 + 第十一章 (19 pages)
Week 11: 第十二章 + エピローグ (33 pages)
I will generally copy this information over thread to thread each week for ease of finding - you can always expect the schedule at the top of any weekly thread
Law and Order
Any reveals, for the current chapters must be behind spoilers or detail curtains. When we get further in you don’t need to hide details that were revealed in previous chapters.
Questions on vocab, grammar, nuance, and the like are both welcome and encouraged. If you’re not sure if it’s a spoiler, assume it is and use one of the above options to hide the text.
You are encouraged to speculate and guess wildly
Be kind about other peoples’ wild guesses
Even if you don’t read the chapter(s) in time, you are still encouraged to post in the thread for that reading once you have finished it. I advise not reading ahead in the threads as you may see spoilers.
It’s tiiiime! \o/ (Or will be, once I’ve gotten my 9 1/2 hours of sleep.) I’d been holding out hope the book would randomly go on sale for Kindle before we started, but alas. I love the theming you’ve got going on in the OP, @cat ~
Can’t wait to chat with you all!
@brandon There’s a special marker for Wanikani book clubs on natively book pages; would it be possible to get one for our book clubs here as well?
Took some time to go through the prologue; that was an amazing scene to set! I’m also already glad I read And Then There Were None; we’ve already had our first shout-out to the lady writer herself!
Some questions for you fine folk (All pages given are Kindle pages):
(Apologies for any typos; I’m on mobile)
p5- 神たらんと欲するのはたやすいが、実際にそうあることは、人が人である限り、いかなる天才にも不可能だと分かっている。
The bolded part there specifically; is the たらん a shortened version of something else?
Next sentence:
神ならぬ者に、ではいったい未来の現実をーーそれを構成する人間の心理を、行動を、あるいは偶然をーー完全に計算し、予想し尽くすことができようか。
Two Qs here. 神ならぬ: this is used several times, and I just wanted to double-check that it’s supposed to be the straightforward “will not become (a) god”, and not something else.
Second, 未来の現実: “the present of the future”? Feels like I’m not parsing this right.
p6: the word 入り細 is not showing up in any of my usual J->E dictionaries and I’m too tired to try looking it up in a J-J one. Anyone know what it means?
Finally, a general question: what connotations is 己 supposed to have? I’ve seen it often enough to know it’s another way of saying 自分, but I don’t know what separates the two.
I’ll give it a whirl as I’ve also finished the prologue but not the rest of the reading yet:
神たらん - trying to be god / playing god. たらん is just in my dictionary as “to try to be” and synonymous in Japanese to であろう
ならぬ == でない, so like, godless. edit: dictionary also says「ならない」と同じ
未来の現実 == 未来 is future but 現実 is reality, not present. I think you’re confusing it with 現在
I had to look up 入り細 too cause it was new to me. I found it to be part of a phrase, 微に入り細を穿つ which means to go into the tiniest / minutest of details. So it kinda has that nuance of “teensy details”.
Ha yeah, the joys of short text snippets. To me ‘godless’ or something to that effect made the most sense in that context. I found this doing some light searching:
I’m throwing this word in here in isolation, not a spoiler for anything, but I went to look it up and found someone asking about it referencing this very book
tl;dr:
【疒（やまいだれ）つき】 広義の意味では病気もち。 狭義の意味では精神を病むこと。
my rough translation: broadly meaning some who is ill, more narrowly meaning someone who is mentally unwell
Haha yeah! I also read the prologue today and thought the same thing, wasn’t expecting to get a reference quite so quickly! Also (spoilers for prologue and and then there were none) the killer writing a confession and throwing it into the sea is also something that happens in and then there were none!
Not much more to add other than to agree with others that the prologue was some really nice evocative writing. Excited for more!
So if I read the killer’s thought process correctly in the prologue, they’re also going for a similar, “I’m targeting people not reachable by the law”, right?
I think I was more tired than I initially thought last night; I’m having trouble remembering.
Glad to see the book has those mini breaks in the chapters. Read to “2” in the first chapter. I found the initial conversations and imagery hard. Lots of boat terms!
Not sure about the 30 rating, but I presume it should get a little easier once things get going
Whilst there isn’t an audiobook, there is a manga if anyone is interested in it.
Could be useful for getting a feeling for the characters or clearing up any scenes. Not sure how faithful it is though:
I took it to just mean “judgement beyond the law” and surely, if you’re going about killing people, lawful judgement it is not.
In contrast to And Then There Were None, it seemed to me the victims sre chosen because they have directly harmed the (not yet?) killer in some way, and not because their crimes, if there are any, couldn’t be punished by the usual lawful means.
Yeah, I had the same read as @omk3 on this. I think that there is nothing to necessarily rule out it being more along the lines of and then there were none motivations but I don’t think the prologue gave us anything that would outrightly suggest that at this point (though very possible I just missed something)
Okay, then I need to go back and re-read. I guess that’s what prompted my question in the first place: I couldn’t quite remember, and looking at everyone’s responses, it seems that was because the killer’s motivation wasn’t necessarily super well-defined in the first place.
Yeah I couldn’t find anything explicitly stating it either, I think I just assumed due to what I quoted and also having just read And Then There Were None. I sort of assume if you’re talking about revenge and judging beyond the law you’re punishing someone for what they did and the law can’t touch
Law and Order 
I guess that’s what prompted my question in the first place: I couldn’t quite remember, and looking at everyone’s responses, it seems that was because the killer’s motivation wasn’t necessarily super well-defined in the first place.