Sherlock Holmes

Someone mentioned the series in another thread, and I had to launch this thread so as not to derail that.

I've read a bit over half the Canon - all of Adventures, all of Memoirs, a good bit of Return, three and a half of the novellas because I was warned away from the Alkali Flats, and a smattering of His Last Bow and Case-book - the only one I've read from that last being VEIL, which is quite possibly the weakest one I've read after ENGR and I've heard others in that collection are worse, so I might not even try for the full sixty. (Sixty-one, I guess. Will any Horowitz readers offer their opinion there?)

I love most of the series, but VALL is by far my favorite. Jack McMurdo might just be the most underrated classical character of all time.

Though the Great Game is a blight on the fandom, if you ask me. C'mon, SCAN clearly states that it's a capital offense to twist facts to suit theories before all the data is in. Unless there's a loophole there, that should mean all these blooming theologians are being hanged, drawn and quartered.

It's only a shame the excellent BBC series isn't turning people to the books. You'd really think it would.

edited 9th Apr '12 10:59:02 AM by DomaDoma

I'm currently reading through the series in order and I'm just about to start Hound of the Baskervilles. Is it as good as everyone says?

Oh, and my favourite story so far would either be The Red Headed League or The Empty House.

As far as I know, I've read the entire Canon plus "How Watson Learned the Trick". My first story was "The Dancing Men" or "The Hound of the Baskervilles" - I can't recall which exactly. I loved the books, so the sheer number of references in Sherlock is a big part of why I love the series so much.

Way back when I was in highschool I bought a huge two part anthology of Sherlock Holmes.

It had every story except "The Sign of Four."

Luckily I eventually got it on my phone. For free, no less (or maybe it was 99 cents). It's currently my favorite story (though to be fair the others I read so long ago they kind of run together).

edited 9th Apr '12 9:28:40 PM by KnownUnknown

I saw this incredibly bizarre play based on the Holmes stories once. I don't really remember much about it, but I do remember the exercise in complete and utter craziness that was the identity of the Big Bad: it was Dr. Watson, who had snapped after all the years of watching Holmes get all the credit for their cases! What do you think, more or less weird than The Seven Percent Solution?

Hound of the Baskervilles is wicked good, and I say that as someone who had the ending ruined beforehand by the Wishbone version. (Seriously, Wishbone cut out all the best bits. Should've done one of the short stories instead.) One of the plot points is... questionable - feral dogs won't eat cadavers? Why? - but it's inessential enough that it can get ignored along with all those dips into physiognomy.

I swear I've read or seen Baskervilles countless times and I still can never recall how it ends.

I know there's a dog involved somewhere...

Isn't it weird, though, that Irene Adler shows up in so many adaptions? She was only ever in one story, yet she gets Promoted to Love Interest (and most often completely changed) so often that you'd think she was a regular character.

edited 19th Apr '12 6:58:29 PM by condottiera

Much the same with Moriarty. His situation is slightly better in that while he appears only once, he's responsible for the plots in some of the other stories.

By the way, do you guys watch Sherlock? Season 2 starts May 7!*

^Already watched it. A truly amazing adaptation, though I have to admit a certain loyalty to the Jeremy Brett series stops me from calling it the best.

Well, she's well-heralded for actually pulling one over on Sherlock, and she's also the first character most people probably read about. So she sticks in the mind.

Which is your favorite story to drag Moriarty into? Mine's FIVE. C'mon, nobody else has confused the Klan with ninja assassins in the history of ever. They're a sawn-off-shotgun outfit if ever there was one.

And yes, I love Sherlock. The Three Evil Magicians (there are three writers, so "Moftiss" doesn't suit) somehow manage to pull off the feat of being a complete departure from, with an undying loyalty to, the original series.

edited 20th Apr '12 4:13:47 AM by DomaDoma

My aunt doesn't like it very much because she's kind of a purist, but she still watches it with me.

It's the same with Mrs Watson - she only really appears in the one story (The Sign of Four?). I think it's because some people can't understand/countenance the idea of stories without a romance angle. I wasn't happy with her treatment in Game of Shadows, but I was happy she wasn't a big part of the film.

The most famous villain from this series is apparently Moriarty, who is often praised as the one of the most cunning villains in fiction. What is the story featuring him?

"The Final Problem", which is also the story that kills both him and Holmes off.

A lot of the early stories give Watson's wife a passing mention, but they're out of chronology to the point where scholars have concluded that Watson actually had three wives. And that one of them died of tuberculosis during the Great Hiatus, because the fandom likes to torture Watson, I think.

And Moriarty also has a big role in The Valley of Fear. I've got a theory about that one. One of the premises is that the purpose of cryptography is to mitigate the consequences of interception; one of the conclusions is that there are five epsilons towards the end. I dare anyone who's read it to tell me it doesn't make sense.

As a child, I was at the bookstore when I found a collection of stories about this guy named Sherlock Holmes. I had some money, and it looked HUGE, and I love huge books, so I bought it.

One of my main goals as a Troper is to always evaluate a worrk on its individual merits, not on a FANBOY SQUEEE.

This does not apply to Sherlock Holmes (Or TF 2, but that's a different story)

I LOVE THESE BOOKS

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

I HAVE READ EVERY STORY AT LEAST 4 TIMES

Also, Valley Of Fear is awesome, as is the speckled band.

Hmm. I think my favorite short story would be COPP. Because I figured out one of the key plot points without cheating, and because Violet Hunter is damned intrepid for a client.

But REDH and SPEC are up there, I think largely because I discovered them early in life.

edited 8th Jun '12 7:13:46 PM by DomaDoma

COPP?

The Copper Breaches. REDH is The Red Headed League, and SPEC is The Speckled Band.

I guessed the first two, and that one is a good, if creepy one.

I love the line from the (DON'T KNOW FANCY ABREVIATIONS) Solitary Cyclist:

"You're two late! She's my wife!"

"No, she's your widow."

BANG

It's SOLI. Just the first four letters of the title as a rule, exceptions being CHAS for Charles Augustus Milverton, ENGR for Engineer's Thumb (worst one I've read; no mystery-solving in it whatsoever) and everything with numbers in the title except for FIVE - these have a numeral followed by the first three letters of the next word, e.g. 3GAR.

Talking of FIVE, I'd like to quote the Chad Mitchell Trio on the KKK:

Well, they like to call us deadbeats, and we like to say we're not
We'll all stand on our records (and that's one thing we've all got!)
And we only have that arsenal so that you won't raise no fuss
If you don't like that, then call the cops - 'cause the chances are, they're us.

Yeah, if you played a word association game, nobody would answer "KKK" with "ninja assassin". The outfit as we know it is all about the sawn-off shotguns and clumsy six-shooters. All the geeks have a drag-in-Moriarty theory, and FIVE is mine.

Yeah, not a fan of The Final Problem. If this guy is so Bad Ass that he can take out Holmes, why was he never mentioned up to this point?

Because it was a rush job. Also, the venom is just palpable. The way to do this sort of thing properly is to lend it all a sense of tragic inevitability, not to bring up a whole load of alternatives at the end of which Doyle still gets out of writing any more. IMO, it's the mean-spiritedness as much as the actual act of killing off Holmes that set off the uproar.

But that's presumably why the beginning of NORW gave the fandom license to implicate Moriarty in absolutely anything, and why VALL was written (continuity be damned). These are both magnificent contributions to Sherlockiana, so in the end, I can forgive Doyle for not laying the groundwork.