Concept Failure (and SJARL Marker)

sjarl marker


Actual first line of the book I just tried (and failed) to read: "The story I'm about to tell must never be told."


And this, boys and girls, is why I think I'm never going to buy a book again unless I can get an e-sample of the entire first chapter. OY!

(pre)Saturday Sherlock

( The Five Orange Pips )

( The Man With the Twisted Lip )

( The Blue Carbuncle )

Count of Exotic Locales, Dark Recluses, and Strange Cults:
One each for Orange Pips - I count America as exotic for the purposes of the Strand audience, "uncle" is a recluse and the KKK is being treated like a cult. Carbuncle scores a point for mentioning China.

Sherlock doesn't actually *solve* anything: Orange Pips. Stories like that are going to come faster, says the woman who's been reading head. (Gloria Scott is a particular nadir; he makes one deduction. Which is wrong.)

(Not) Mysogyny watch:
5OP: "I have been beaten four times - three times by men and once by a woman." Much can be read into this - that the loss to Irene is more painful because of her gender seems to be a common interpretation - but I don't see a lot of horror of femininity rolling out of what is a basic statement of fact.

MTL: "I was wondering what I should say to this dear little woman tonight when she meets me." Would a man who loathed women call one "dear," much less worry that much about her feelings, which he twice mentions? I think not. Holmes also mentions with approval Mrs. St. Clair's quick eye in finding details and her bravery in rushing into the opium den. And finally, when she directly challenges Holmes to tell her his opinion without sparing her feelings... he tries to spare them anyway. (Modern Sherlock, on the other hand, would have just blurted whatever was in his head.)

The line "I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner" can cut either way. If you read it as Holmes saying it seriously, then it's another blow to the misogyny theory. But it's also possible to read it as him trying to humor a woman who has put a lot of weight onto the newly-delivered letter.

Nothing is particularly said either way in Blue Carbuncle.

Oddly Poetic Holmes: They're all in Carbuncle this week:
- "Has [the goose] returned to life and flapped off through the kitchen window?"
- "They are the devil's pet baits... every facet may stand for a bloody deed."
- "It laid an egg after it was dead."

New category: Useful Watson. Because he's starting to get his druthers as a true colleague of Holmes':
5OP: Watson (presumably because of his taste in seafaring tales) recognized that all the orange pips came from someone travelling by boat

MTL - Holmes laying out the facts saying "maybe you may see a spark where all is dark to me."
- Watson pointing out that the body would not be wearing a coat alone

BC: Admittedly, here's a blow on the other side: Watson is the butt of the standard "you know my methods" and "You fail... to reason from what you see" lines.

Next up: March 26: The Speckled Band (link to Stanford U version), The Engineer's Thumb, The Noble Bachelor