End Pt 1; Beginning Pt 2

[neadods]

In which we bid goodbye to part 1 and Sherlock Holmes and enter 5 chapters of Mormon!fail digression. Fortunately, we'll catch up with our heroes again in two weeks, in chapter 6 of part 2.

While I'm at it, this is the reading order I'm following, which is the publication order:

A STUDY IN SCARLET (1887)
THE SIGN OF THE FOUR (1890)

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
A Scandal in Bohemia, 1891
The Red-headed League, 1891
A Case of Identity, 1891
The Boscombe Valley Mystery, 1891
The Five Orange Pips, 1891
The Man with the Twisted Lip, 1891
The Blue Carbuncle, 1892
The Speckled Band, 1892
The Engineer's Thumb, 1892
The Noble Bachelor, 1892
The Beryl Coronet, 1892
The Copper Beeches, 1892

THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
Silver Blaze, 1892
The Yellow Face, 1893
The Stock-Broker's Clerk, 1893
The "Gloria Scott", 1893
The Musgrave Ritual, 1893
The Reigate Puzzle, 1893
The Crooked Man, 1893
The Resident Patient, 1893
The Greek Interpreter, 1893
The Naval Treaty, 1893
The Final Problem, 1893

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1901)

THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
The Empty House, 1903
The Norwood Builder, 1903
The Dancing Men, 1903
The Solitary Cyclist, 1903
The Priory School, 1904
The Adventure of Black Peter, 1904
Charles Augustus Milverton, 1904
The Six Napoleons, 1904
The Three Students, 1904
The Golden Pince-Nez, 1904
The Missing Three-Quarter, 1904
The Abbey Grange, 1904
The Second Stain, 1904

THE VALLEY OF FEAR (1914)

HIS LAST BOW
The Cardboard Box, 1893
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge, 1908
Ch I. The Singular Experience of Mr....
Ch II. The Tiger of San Pedro
The Bruce-Partington Plans, 1908
The Devil's Foot, 1910
The Red Circle, 1911
Lady Frances Carfax, 1911
The Dying Detective, 1913
His Last Bow, 1917

THE CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
The Mazarin Stone, 1921
The Problem of Thor Bridge, 1922
The Creeping Man, 1923
The Sussex Vampire, 1924
The Three Garridebs, 1924
The Illustrious Client, 1924
The Blanched Soldier, 1926
The Retired Colourman, 1926
The Three Gables, 1926
The Lion's Mane, 1926
The Veiled Lodger, 1927
Shoscombe Old Place, 1927

Comments

Chapter 7

[neadods.livejournal.com]

A Light in the Darkness

Re: Chapter 7

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The quiet, studious person Watson first described is starting to become the Holmes we know, isn't he? Imperious, secretive, supercilious, and inventive.

Pt 2, Ch 1

[neadods.livejournal.com]

On the Great Alkali Plain

Re: Pt 2, Ch 1

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Wow, Doyle just jumps right in, doesn't he? Not even so much as Hope saying "Let me tell you my story" (which is what I remember from the BBC audio adaptation). It's a good thing that this story wasn't presented serially - can you imagine the number of people complaining that their detective story was somehow replaced with some excerpt from a western? Back in the day, I'd probably have been leafing through Beetons thinking there had been a misprint with another story.

Re: Pt 2, Ch 1

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

And I think of ACD's "American English" whenever a Brit sneers at an American trying to sound British. My favorite line is "So Mama's a deader too!"

Re: Pt 2, Ch 1

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Honestly! and she sounds so *cheerful* about it!

Pt 2, Ch 2

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Mormon!Fail The Flower of Utah

Re: Pt 2, Ch 2

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I got nothin'. I doubt I'll have much of anything worth saying about the exposition chapters.

[sadbhyl.livejournal.com]

How about "Yes, This is Still the Same Story"?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Point. But ye gods, 5 chapters to get through the backstory? A bit much, IMO.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Ah... checking email I see that you commented when I still had the original text up. Have changed the post.

That said... totally stealing yours for next week!

[honorh.livejournal.com]

This'll be fun! I love ACD's canon, so I'll be looking forward to discussing the stories with you.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to it!

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

About done with Chapter 6, so thanks for reminding me that I've got the Utah slog to get through!

[melusinehr.livejournal.com]

I had started reading them all again on my own, so I figured I'd wait until you catch up to where I am before continuing. (I've also started a Robert Jordan reread now that the end is finally in sight, so that's been destroying my time since December.) All I'll say about the current choice is, really? Mormons? I mean, I don't love when they come to my door, but damn. I hope they weren't actually that aggressive.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I read once that he picked Mormons because they were in the international news about polygamy at the time. Haven't done any research about that, though.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

As I recall, Mormons were being accused of snatching girls for "white slavery" and forced polygamous marriage. Not sure if there was any truth to it, but you have to wonder how they dealt with the elephant-seal system of the dominant males monopolizing the females and leaving the numerous bachelors to... well, what?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Sensation, othering, and sex? That's always going to sell newspapers.

As for the elephant seal system, there are dark rumors that the underground groups that still practice polygamy deal with extraneous males by kicking them out for religious infringements that may or may not be real, but that's the kind of thing that I read from people who are constantly looking for the worst abuses in any religion, so the reality of it is unknown.

[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

From what I've read about the Jefford's debacle, that is precisely what they do. What I found harder to swallow - &, granted, it was because I didn't want to believe it, were the darker mutterings about "more than usual dead baby boys" & an incinerator in the compound. Luckily, there was no evidence beyond that, incinerator-wise.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

that is precisely what they do

Not too surprised. The only way to make sure there's an actual power structure is to make sure that control remains in the hands of the small pinnacle of guys holding said power - and make sure there are as few challenges to that as possible.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

When I first read that story, I kept hearing "We are the Mormons" to the tune of Kraftwerk's "We are the robots".

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Not "We are the Champions" by Queen? :)

[fyrdrakken]

Ooh, thanks for the list. I already read Study in Scarlet and Sign of the Four before running out of gas on my reread last fall, and I know I've got Adventures and Baskerville in Kindle format, as well as some individual stories from Last Bow. Need to check on the others.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Some of the short stories and Hound were serialized by Stanford U, which put their .pdf versions online. When I hit them in the readalong I'm going to point to them, because I think they're just PERFECT for this - not just free, but illustrated *and* with useful notes and commentary (but not so much as to detract from actually trying to read.) Click also on Sherlock Holmes Adventures on that page for more.

(I had been intending to print them out, but I just remembered that I have a pretty darn good .pdf reader on my ipad...)