Outside of a Dog: Doyle, Arthur Conan: (03) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Castiron

Castiron wrote on October 22, 2002 at 5:38 PM:

If you ever run across Baring-Gould's annotated edition of the Holmes stories, you might take a look at it. The footnotes, and the little essays on what Sherlockian enthusiasts have tried to deduce from the text evidence, are quite fascinating. (And it's amazing how much mental energy people will put into debating what Watson's middle name is, or how many times he was married....)

Kate

Kate wrote on October 22, 2002 at 6:05 PM:

I believe the Baring-Gould biography is where the Holmes-Wolfe theory is laid out, or at least hinted at strongly.

As far as the annotated edition--I dunno, I might be happier not having the inconsistences pointed out to me so obviously. =>

Seriously, thanks for the pointer; it does sound interesting, in the right frame of mind.

Kathy

Kathy wrote on October 24, 2002 at 8:56 PM:

Yeah, the Baring-Gould keeps pointing out all the continuity errors and explaining them away. I like continuity as much as the next gal, but sometimes I'd rather just enjoy the stories.

Didn't much care for the Carole Nelson Douglas, simply because I have very strong ideas in my head about Irene, and I just don't see her becoming a detective (plus, every writer always has the tendency to rewrite her as a soprano for some reason, even after Doyle specifically said she was a contralto). If I need feminist Holmes pastiche, I tend to pick up a Laurie R. King "Mary Russell" novel.

Be prepared for a quality dip by the time you get to Return and Memoirs. By the '20s you can practically hear Doyle heaving a sigh over having to pull out his detective again. (I'll admit to a sneaking fondness for "His Last Bow", but mostly because it's a war-espionage story, and a change of milieu for Holmes).

For me, the really fun part in getting my hands on a facsimile version of the Strand stuff was seeing how many of the Paget illustrations had been lovingly recreated in the Jeremy Brett series.

Kate

Kate wrote on October 24, 2002 at 9:35 PM:

It's interesting that you should have strong ideas in your head about Irene, considering she gets so little screentime.

Re: Laurie King, I understand that The Beekeeper's Apprentice is quite famous, so it's on my list for eventually.

And thanks for the warning about the quality dip.

Kathy

Kathy wrote on October 28, 2002 at 8:06 PM:

Oh, hell. I can have strong ideas of a character that appears once for three or four pages and never again sees the light of day (e.g., "Clifton Baker" in Ernest Bramah's Max Carrados story, "The Mystery of Headlingham Heights"). All they have to do is be cool. :-)

I adore all of King's novels, but feel I ought to mention that I read her for atmosphere more than plot. The plot will almost invariably be wrapped up a little too neatly in the last five pages, and if this infuriates you, she may not be your cup of tea. However, she's great at building tension and maintaining it, as well as building cool environments and characters. You may want to try one of the standalones, like Folly first to see if you want to dive into one of the series.

Kate

Kate wrote on October 29, 2002 at 6:50 PM:

I rarely try to guess whodunnit in mysteries or anything; indeed, prior to these, the mysteries I was reading most were Nero Wolfe books, where you can't figure out whodunnit usually because Saul Panzer gathered the critical clue offstage. Atmosphere and characters are fine with me.

Martin Wisse

Martin Wisse wrote on November 3, 2002 at 12:26 PM:

What I've noticed about the Holmes stories is that Conan Doyle cheats outrageously with Holmes' deductions. Evidence not revealed to the reader, deductions that make no sense but still are correct, etc.

Kate

Kate wrote on November 3, 2002 at 1:13 PM:

Evidence not revealed to the reader I'm sort of used to, from Nero Wolfe books. I've noticed that a number of Holmes' deductions are quite dubious--there was one about the height of handwriting indicating someone's strength of character, which I thought was just dopey. Like I said, I'm more in the Vimes camp (waits impatiently for her copy of Night Watch to ship).

But in a way even the bad deductions are fun--they keep me awake. =>

David Tate

David Tate wrote on October 3, 2007 at 9:35 AM:

Extremely belated comment:

A friend recently lent me The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (vol. 1), and it's a blast. The nitpicking with continuity and fact isn't what I expected. To me, it mostly seems like members of the Baker Street Irregulars figuring out every last little thing that's wrong or impossible, pondering bizarre retcons and readings to reconcile them -- and then giving up with a nod and a wink and just enjoying the stories.

My favorite so far: when they noted that the events in "The Musgrave Ritual" couldn't have happened the way they were described, because [rot13] zntargvp abegu fuvsgrq fhssvpvragyl orgjrra gur 17gu praghel naq gur yngr 19gu, fb gung Ubyzrf jbhyq unir orra cnpvat guvatf bss va gur jebat qverpgvba naq raqvat hc va gur jebat cynpr. All in good fun, and often fascinating.