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Ch. 4 - The Tale of a Detective

#116: Feb. - April 2013 (Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Ch. 4 - The Tale of a Detective

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Ch. 4 - The Tale of a Detective
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Pheidippides
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Re: Ch. 4 - The Tale of a Detective

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This chapter reminded me a lot of the second. We definitely see a more naive or less formidable Syme in this round. The chief wit hhis back to him seems to have the upper hand in the brief conversation, something that really stands out given the strong argumentative nature of Syme towards Gregory in previous chapters. With that being said, I enjoyed the descriptions of Syme being a revolutionary against revolt and for taking contrasting opinions, especially to those of his parents, based on reason and a desire to be cantankerous. The chapter is also a powerful argumetn against anarchy, definitely preachy in that regard:
When they say that mankind shall be free at least, they mean that mankind shall comit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without right or wrong, they mean the grave.
Earlier on in the chapter, there is an interesting observation about how the well off with dangerous ideas are more of a threat than the poor. The "lawless modern philosopher" is definitely a spear aimed at folks like Emma Goldman and dare I say Proudhon. This bit of political expounding was certainly not tedious or dry, if anything, it was a well posed argument within the narrative.
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Re: Ch. 4 - The Tale of a Detective

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Chapter Four
The Tale of a Detective
Chapter Summary

Syme leaves the meeting elected the new Thursday and travels aboard a tugboat toward a meeting Sunday. During the voyage he thinks about his life and how he became a detective. He was raised in a family of radicals, but they were ridiculous (his mother - a radical vegetarian, his father, the opposite continually ramped up his love of consuming meat in response to his wife’s growing vegetarianism until Syme believed that his father might actually be willing to defend cannibalism). Under those circumstances Syme’s teenage rebellion led him to conservatism. Later, almost blinded by an bomb, he developed a hatred anarchism.

After years of writing pamphlets, articles, and poems against anarchism he was approached on the Embankment by a policeman who was a kindred spirit. The policeman took Syme to Scotland Yard and ushered him into a totally dark room. A man in the room told him he had been accepted into a service against anarchism - apparently the only requirement for membership was willingness to participate. To signify that he was now a policeman fighting anarchism he was given a card identifying him as an officer in the Last Crusade. It was in this capacity that he had gone to Saffron Park and had the encounter with Gregory which occurred in Chapter 1. Now, he was heading down the Thames beyond Charing Cross to a meeting of the Anarchist Council.
n=Infinity
Sum n = -1/12
n=1

where n are natural numbers.
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Re: Ch. 4 - The Tale of a Detective

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He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest
people had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about
without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk
about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and
self-realisation; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence
the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any
drink between the extremes of absinth and cocoa, of both of which he
had a healthy dislike. The more his mother preached a more than Puritan
abstinence the more did his father expand into a more than
pagan latitude; and by the time the former had come to enforcing
vegetarianism, the latter had pretty well reached the point of defending
cannibalism.
classic :lol:

reminds me of the old line
History is like a drunk man on a horse. No sooner does he fall off on the left side, does he mount again and fall off on the right.
Martin Luther having a buddhist moment?
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