Saturday Sherlock
Mar. 26th, 2011 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neadodsThe Speckled Band
Always a popular one; I'm finding plenty of audio adaptations of it and The![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
diogenese_club has an amusing take of Doyle's on the perils of using an actual snake on stage for the theater adaptation. ("[T]hey were all inclined ... to turn back through the hole and get even with the stage carpenter, who pinched their tails in order to make them more lively.")
It's certainly everything that people think of in a Sherlock Holmes story - an impenetrable dying clue, a gothic air of horror - note that the most famous novel is neither of the ones set in the Wild West or the one set in India, but the one on the moors with the ghost dog - and Sherlock saving the day with a combination of intellect and violence. Doyle, though Watson, is admitting as much: "he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic."
So it's possibly churlish to point out that it's a completely ludicrous setup for murder, really.
Doyle has dispensed with the awkwardness of dismissing Watson's marriage and simply bypassed it. He's also bypassing his own canon... need I go find the quote from Study in Scarlet about Holmes being an early riser as compared to "He was a late riser as a rule"? But perhaps it's not best to speculate about how much time either man spends in bed when we're coming up on the slasheriffic "I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations."
I'm not sure what else to say about a case so very famous; it all seems to have been said before. If you've got your slash goggles on, you might make something of Holmes suddenly worrying that it's too dangerous to take Watson with him. Especially when Watson makes it clear that he refuses to be left behind *because* it's dangerous.
Engineer's Thumb
Well, this is nice and gross - and in the end, Holmes is going to be incredibly unsympathetic. He wasn't that sympathetic to being the direct cause of Roylott's death in Band, either, but as he more or less said, "He wasn't a very nice man." However, telling a guy that he'll be able to dine out forever on the story of his missing thumb and that's that is... pretty darned cold.
Anyway, to begin at the beginning, with two interesting bits that we don't see often - Watson actually practicing medicine and Watson actually introducing a case to Holmes. (Side note for the Americans - Sherlock is as indolent as his brother if it takes a lot of effort to get him to come visit, even in the slower days of horse and carriage; according to online maps it's less than a mile between Paddington Station and Deepest Darkest Baker Street.)
To be honest, I'm not sure what to say about this one either. There are some interesting character bits - Watson rushing off with the merest word to his wife; Holmes smoking a really vile-sounding morning pipe. But Holmes doesn't really solve anything aside from where to look for the house. Any detective would have thought to look for other missing engineers given those clues, the baddies got away, and it wasn't even Holmes who destroyed their operations, it was Hatherly's lantern.
So, meh. This is one of the stories that I'm reading once to say I've done the canon and will probably never touch again.
Noble Bachelor
In contrast, I've always been a bit fond of this one, with the exception of that one bizarre speech at the end. As fond as I am of the gothics, not all crimes have to be murders, and I like that there are no real villains here, but there is a real - and surprisingly challenging - puzzle.
We start off with the hilarious hedge that Watson brought back a bullet "in one of my limbs" - gave up on trying to remember where, Artie? We also have Holmes being Holmes, sniffing that social invitations "call upon a man either to be bored or to lie." (The difference with modern Sherlock, IMO, is that he refuses to be bored and he won't lie. He doesn't mind being outright rude on principle, whereas Holmes is only rude to 1) people who've been rude to him first and 2) Scotland Yard, on principle.
We also get Holmes outright saying that he only reads the criminal news and the agony column, a lovely bit of characterization.
This should probably go under misogyny, but I find the line "[brides] often vanish before the ceremony and occasionally during the honeymoon" hilarious. Of course, Holmes' only connection with weddings is with wedding crimes, so I don't find it very surprising that this is what he leaps to now.
"She is what we call in England a tomboy." We use the same word here for the same reasons. St. Simon is doing a good job of "othering" his wife, although Doyle isn't going to show her in such a bad light when she shows up. Nor is Holmes - what St. Simon calls "childish" for example, Holmes is going to gently excuse and outright defend. Copper Beeches, Scandal in Bohemia, and Noble Bachelor are the three stories I point people to when they say they don't like the way Holmes treats women.
It's a charming little drawing room comedy piece, in my opinion - lighter than most Holmes stories, but also full of character bits and with actual deduction going on. So perhaps it's best not to dwell too much on Holmes' fondness for Americans (the part about "the folly of a monarch" is rather sweet) suddenly devolving into a bizarre creepy fantasy of an Anglo-American all-conquering empire. (And where does that put Canada and Australia in particular?)
Exotic Locales/People Count:
3 - Gypsies in Speckled Band, "Indian" (because not all those animals come from India) animals in Band, Americans in Bachelor
Abusive/Oppressive Villain Count:
2 - Roylott is the Doyle hat trick all in one: reclusive, abusive, and psychologically twisting. And then there's the wife-abusing psychotic villain in Thumb.
Venial Victim Count:
.5 - Hatherley knew he was being paid too much for a suspicious story, but I can't entirely blame a man who's had no work to jump at the chance to bring a little something in. (Just as I cannot blame Violet Hunter in Copper Beeches for being forced to take a job she knew stank like a flat skunk in July.)
Misogyny Watch: The more I read, the less I find any real evidence of Holmes' so-called hatred of women. Not when:
- He gets more or less blown out of bed in Speckled Band. Instead of resenting it, he assumes that it's a very important business and promptly soothes his female client, points out that she has been physically abused, and eventually offers to take her to her aunt to avoid more abuse. Not to mention solving the attempted murder of her and the actual murder of her sister, and without asking for pay when she pointed out that she didn't have money.
- He is so kind and understanding to the missing bride in Bachelor that she sings his praises. And when she's out of earshot, Holmes defends her side and practically begs forgiveness for her; he's certainly gone out of his way to try to set up a peacemaking dinner. A real misogynist, a true hater of womankind, would not have done it. Such a person *couldn't* have done it, because such a person would never see her point of view, much less said "I fail to see that anyone is to blame" and "you must make allowance."
(Yes, I am using this chunk of the Saturday Sherlock to pretty much marshal my arguments for the inevitablemeta_holmes "He's not a misogynist" post.)
Fanciful Sherlockisms:
- He piffles a lot when Roylott is trying to intimidate him, and he makes light of the chain of circumstances that led him to Watson's bedside, but the only real silliness in Band is "Well, a cheetah is just a big cat and yet a saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I daresay."
I'm adding this one in because it's surprising how often he doesn't actually solve anything that a competent policeman (or in some cases, an enterprising and determined kitten) couldn't figure out.
Sherlock actually solves something count:
2 - In Band he deduces the bizarre means of murder before he arrives; in Bachelor he finds the missing bride.
Watson waffles between being clever & outright stupid. In Band, he can't recognize a snake that he should have been warned against while in India. In Bachelor Holmes wants his help giving background... although this is the oddly diffident Watson who "feared" to bring up the surprise disappearance to Holmes, just as he couldn't bring himself to mention "stop taking that damned cocaine!" for several months.
Here I've been cheering the Richie and BBC Watsons for putting a little butch back into the character, and the original one is as submissive as a well-trained dog!
But a dog Holmes wants; he tells Watson "do not dream of going" when he's got the consultation in Bachelor.
Next up: The Beryl Coronet, The Copper Beeches, Silver Blaze Also, Saturday Sherlock is probably going to be posted on Thursday because I'll be with my parents on Saturday. (Or should I do a double feature the Saturday after? It's hard to tell who's following this or actually doing the read-along vs commenting on what they already know when I post.)
Also (and this is as much a note to me as for anyone else) - week after next we're reading Cardboard Box, which apparently was written right around now but wasn't published until His Last Bow, so Americans are going to have to scramble to find it. It's online, I'm sure.
Always a popular one; I'm finding plenty of audio adaptations of it and The
diogenese_club has an amusing take of Doyle's on the perils of using an actual snake on stage for the theater adaptation. ("[T]hey were all inclined ... to turn back through the hole and get even with the stage carpenter, who pinched their tails in order to make them more lively.")It's certainly everything that people think of in a Sherlock Holmes story - an impenetrable dying clue, a gothic air of horror - note that the most famous novel is neither of the ones set in the Wild West or the one set in India, but the one on the moors with the ghost dog - and Sherlock saving the day with a combination of intellect and violence. Doyle, though Watson, is admitting as much: "he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic."
So it's possibly churlish to point out that it's a completely ludicrous setup for murder, really.
Doyle has dispensed with the awkwardness of dismissing Watson's marriage and simply bypassed it. He's also bypassing his own canon... need I go find the quote from Study in Scarlet about Holmes being an early riser as compared to "He was a late riser as a rule"? But perhaps it's not best to speculate about how much time either man spends in bed when we're coming up on the slasheriffic "I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations."
I'm not sure what else to say about a case so very famous; it all seems to have been said before. If you've got your slash goggles on, you might make something of Holmes suddenly worrying that it's too dangerous to take Watson with him. Especially when Watson makes it clear that he refuses to be left behind *because* it's dangerous.
Engineer's Thumb
Well, this is nice and gross - and in the end, Holmes is going to be incredibly unsympathetic. He wasn't that sympathetic to being the direct cause of Roylott's death in Band, either, but as he more or less said, "He wasn't a very nice man." However, telling a guy that he'll be able to dine out forever on the story of his missing thumb and that's that is... pretty darned cold.
Anyway, to begin at the beginning, with two interesting bits that we don't see often - Watson actually practicing medicine and Watson actually introducing a case to Holmes. (Side note for the Americans - Sherlock is as indolent as his brother if it takes a lot of effort to get him to come visit, even in the slower days of horse and carriage; according to online maps it's less than a mile between Paddington Station and Deepest Darkest Baker Street.)
To be honest, I'm not sure what to say about this one either. There are some interesting character bits - Watson rushing off with the merest word to his wife; Holmes smoking a really vile-sounding morning pipe. But Holmes doesn't really solve anything aside from where to look for the house. Any detective would have thought to look for other missing engineers given those clues, the baddies got away, and it wasn't even Holmes who destroyed their operations, it was Hatherly's lantern.
So, meh. This is one of the stories that I'm reading once to say I've done the canon and will probably never touch again.
Noble Bachelor
In contrast, I've always been a bit fond of this one, with the exception of that one bizarre speech at the end. As fond as I am of the gothics, not all crimes have to be murders, and I like that there are no real villains here, but there is a real - and surprisingly challenging - puzzle.
We start off with the hilarious hedge that Watson brought back a bullet "in one of my limbs" - gave up on trying to remember where, Artie? We also have Holmes being Holmes, sniffing that social invitations "call upon a man either to be bored or to lie." (The difference with modern Sherlock, IMO, is that he refuses to be bored and he won't lie. He doesn't mind being outright rude on principle, whereas Holmes is only rude to 1) people who've been rude to him first and 2) Scotland Yard, on principle.
We also get Holmes outright saying that he only reads the criminal news and the agony column, a lovely bit of characterization.
This should probably go under misogyny, but I find the line "[brides] often vanish before the ceremony and occasionally during the honeymoon" hilarious. Of course, Holmes' only connection with weddings is with wedding crimes, so I don't find it very surprising that this is what he leaps to now.
"She is what we call in England a tomboy." We use the same word here for the same reasons. St. Simon is doing a good job of "othering" his wife, although Doyle isn't going to show her in such a bad light when she shows up. Nor is Holmes - what St. Simon calls "childish" for example, Holmes is going to gently excuse and outright defend. Copper Beeches, Scandal in Bohemia, and Noble Bachelor are the three stories I point people to when they say they don't like the way Holmes treats women.
It's a charming little drawing room comedy piece, in my opinion - lighter than most Holmes stories, but also full of character bits and with actual deduction going on. So perhaps it's best not to dwell too much on Holmes' fondness for Americans (the part about "the folly of a monarch" is rather sweet) suddenly devolving into a bizarre creepy fantasy of an Anglo-American all-conquering empire. (And where does that put Canada and Australia in particular?)
Exotic Locales/People Count:
3 - Gypsies in Speckled Band, "Indian" (because not all those animals come from India) animals in Band, Americans in Bachelor
Abusive/Oppressive Villain Count:
2 - Roylott is the Doyle hat trick all in one: reclusive, abusive, and psychologically twisting. And then there's the wife-abusing psychotic villain in Thumb.
Venial Victim Count:
.5 - Hatherley knew he was being paid too much for a suspicious story, but I can't entirely blame a man who's had no work to jump at the chance to bring a little something in. (Just as I cannot blame Violet Hunter in Copper Beeches for being forced to take a job she knew stank like a flat skunk in July.)
Misogyny Watch: The more I read, the less I find any real evidence of Holmes' so-called hatred of women. Not when:
- He gets more or less blown out of bed in Speckled Band. Instead of resenting it, he assumes that it's a very important business and promptly soothes his female client, points out that she has been physically abused, and eventually offers to take her to her aunt to avoid more abuse. Not to mention solving the attempted murder of her and the actual murder of her sister, and without asking for pay when she pointed out that she didn't have money.
- He is so kind and understanding to the missing bride in Bachelor that she sings his praises. And when she's out of earshot, Holmes defends her side and practically begs forgiveness for her; he's certainly gone out of his way to try to set up a peacemaking dinner. A real misogynist, a true hater of womankind, would not have done it. Such a person *couldn't* have done it, because such a person would never see her point of view, much less said "I fail to see that anyone is to blame" and "you must make allowance."
(Yes, I am using this chunk of the Saturday Sherlock to pretty much marshal my arguments for the inevitable
meta_holmes "He's not a misogynist" post.)Fanciful Sherlockisms:
- He piffles a lot when Roylott is trying to intimidate him, and he makes light of the chain of circumstances that led him to Watson's bedside, but the only real silliness in Band is "Well, a cheetah is just a big cat and yet a saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I daresay."
I'm adding this one in because it's surprising how often he doesn't actually solve anything that a competent policeman (or in some cases, an enterprising and determined kitten) couldn't figure out.
Sherlock actually solves something count:
2 - In Band he deduces the bizarre means of murder before he arrives; in Bachelor he finds the missing bride.
Watson waffles between being clever & outright stupid. In Band, he can't recognize a snake that he should have been warned against while in India. In Bachelor Holmes wants his help giving background... although this is the oddly diffident Watson who "feared" to bring up the surprise disappearance to Holmes, just as he couldn't bring himself to mention "stop taking that damned cocaine!" for several months.
Here I've been cheering the Richie and BBC Watsons for putting a little butch back into the character, and the original one is as submissive as a well-trained dog!
But a dog Holmes wants; he tells Watson "do not dream of going" when he's got the consultation in Bachelor.
Next up: The Beryl Coronet, The Copper Beeches, Silver Blaze Also, Saturday Sherlock is probably going to be posted on Thursday because I'll be with my parents on Saturday. (Or should I do a double feature the Saturday after? It's hard to tell who's following this or actually doing the read-along vs commenting on what they already know when I post.)
Also (and this is as much a note to me as for anyone else) - week after next we're reading Cardboard Box, which apparently was written right around now but wasn't published until His Last Bow, so Americans are going to have to scramble to find it. It's online, I'm sure.
