It's Elementary My Dear Watson

[aggienaut]

   So up until recently I think my only familiarity with Sherlock Holmes other than the pervasive cultural references was having read one story in middle school and seeing (one of two?) recent major movies. But it turns out that (all of?) Sherlock Holmes is available on Audible for free with basic membership, 62 hours in all. Having now listened to this I can now say I've read all of Sherlock Holmes. Okay I just realized it doesn't contain the 12 stories included in "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes."
   I can confirm that while all parts of the phraseology "It's elementary my dear Watson" are things Holmes frequently says, he in fact never does say that exact phrase.

   It's hard to give an objective review because I was expecting and holding it to the very highest standards. But by and large it pretty much held up to this highest level of scrutiny with just a few things I could hold up as quibbles (in one of the last stories, for example, he leaves the unconcious Ms Carfax in the care of a guy who appears to be stalking her, whom she appeared to have fled from?!). The one overall criticism I'll hold up though is that they seem to thoroughly subscribe to the theory that people's internal moral state is readable on their outward appearance, though even this can be explained as a failing by Watson who already knows the outcome at the itme "he" is writing the stories and is allowing his bias to effect how he's describing peopl. But still it's a weakness of the works. The bad guy is always someone described as looking unsettling. The one twist on this, used often enough to become an in-universe cliche, is that a few times there's a big burly savage looking bearded man who at first seems to be the culprit but it later turns out that he's roformed from a rough life and was just himself trying to prevent harm from befalling the woman in the story. Oh and the Adventure of the Norwood Builder was painfully obvious and it defied belief that Holmes seemed to act like it was hard to figure out.

   Also, confirmed what I had already heard, that canonically Holmes retires to beekeeping.


   And somewhere in the forewards or (midwards?) included in the collection between the books by Conan Doyle it was mentioned he wrote some historical fiction novels that HE considered his best work though they've been largely forgotten compared to his more famous work. Indeed, they only have a few dozen ratings on audible each compared to the thousands each of dozens of versions of the Holmes stories have, but I love historical fiction so will now embark on his lesser known Sir Nigel!
   Okay I wrote all the above yesterday but no one reads anything on a Sunday so hadn't posted it yet. I'm now about eight hours into Sir Nigel and... it's really really cliche knight errant stuff. It's uh, so far extremely unimpressive. And the abovementioned equating physical appearance with moral character is downright able-ist with the first real villian being a crippled knight whose crippled status is abundantly made to be a sign of his evil.

Comments

[saensabai.livejournal.com]

Nice

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thank you sir

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Sherlock Holmes. Welcome! Just yesterday I was recommending the Jeremy Brett TV version to someone who hadn't seen it before when I was on my way to the Japanese jazz club.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

how do the TV versions compare?

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

there are a lot of TV versions, the Jeremy Brett one is my favorite. My least favorite is the Brandysnap Cunnilingus one, haha.

[wpadmirer.livejournal.com]

I read all the Sherlock Holmes as a kid, and I think that's the ideal time to read them.

However, I will highly recommend Stephen Hockensmith's HOLMES ON THE RANGE about the two brothers who become detectives after one is fascinated by the stories of Sherlock Holmes. They take place in the American West at the turn of the century and they are FUN.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Deductive reasoning, Watson! I went through most of those Holmes stories on Audible too. The main surprise for me was how much of the action occurs in the Surrey and Sussex rail commuter zone, where I live. They seem to take a train in nearly every story. I suppose it makes sense, because the author lived down here and understood his target audience of bored office workers.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

That must be interesting knowing the locations. Having never been anywhere near London (other than within the airport) I had no real sense of any of the locations other than what I was told in text.

[sea_thoughts]

And somewhere in the forewards or (midwards?) included in the collection between the books by Conan Doyle it was mentioned he wrote some historical fiction novels that HE considered his best work though they've been largely forgotten compared to his more famous work.

It's true, Conan Doyle rated his adventure novels much better than his Holmes stories (he tried to kill Holmes off in The Final Problem but then had to bring him back thanks to the public backlash). I wouldn't say that The Lost World has been forgotten, though, it's had plenty of adaptations and is the Ur-Example of all those "dinosaurs/exotic civilisations live at the centre of the earth" stories.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Sir Nigel was just awful! And then I read reviews about the White Company and it appeared to be similar to Sir Nigel as far as I could tell from reviews. It really boggled my mind that so celebrated an author could have churned out Sir Nigel ... and thought of it as his best work no less!

[sea_thoughts]

It shows that authors don't always know which of their works will stand the test of time. Conan Doyle saw his detective stories as a level above pot boilers, not 'serious' literature like his adventure novels, which dealt with hot issues of the day — evolution, archaeology, palaeontolgy, exploring new countries and new civilisations.