|
Jan 2020
7:59am, 31 Jan 2020
43,134 posts
|
McGoohan
As I've strongly implied above - I didn't much care for this at all. The more I went on, the more I realised that for me it has (among its several), the same major flaw as The Dark Is Rising, which is: it's flat-pack furniture. Follow a plan, execute the plan, eat the venison. Stakeless adventures (but not steakless). It's made worse here because you get it repeated 12 times.
The stories only work because ACD has set up a structure in which they work. For example, in the first story, Holmes pretends to set Irene Adler's house on fire. Women will instinctively protect that which they care about the most, because women are predictable creatures. A married woman would protect her baby, a single woman her box of jewels and Irene Adler goes to her compromising photo of the King of The Moon. What, rather than, say jumping out of the open ground floor window? Or trying to put the fire out?
And every story is the same: they follow a template that only works because ACDoyle and Holmes say it will.
The story-telling isn't actually very interesting either and again that's made worse by repeating it 12 times: we get to see the workings too much and too often. Much as there's a template to the solution, there's a template to the story:
- Holmes and Watson taking breakfast, tea, snuff, cocaine, the papers, etc
- 'I have a new client, Watson and if I'm not mistaken, I hear their tread upon the stairs even as we speak.'
- New client enters and for the next third of the story, recounts their circumstances to this point.
- Holmes says, 'Leave it with me, I have the solution to your problem already. I shall call on you next Tuesday at 11am.'
- The client leaves and Watson expresses incredulity that Holmes can have resolved this matter so quickly
- Holmes says, 'I just need to confirm one thing.' He goes out dressed as a vagrant.
- On Tuesday, he asks if Watson would mind going with him, Watson says, 'Of course.'
- Having not even considered it to this point, Holmes *now* asks Watson about the train times and it so happens there's one from Waterloo that gets them exactly where they need to be, exactly when they need to be there.
- They turn up and Holmes explains the mystery, in logical/scientific terms which only very slightly impinge on anything remotely real. 'I am an expert at phrenology and have determined that all left-handed, red-headed men with freckles are criminals.'
- Holmes and Watson dine on venison.
In short: food, mystery, disguise, train, mystery, food.
But it might as well be flatpack furniture, where when you've built it, you get a very unlikely-seeming set of shelves which really won't hold up under scrutiny.
|
|
Jan 2020
10:05am, 31 Jan 2020
22,780 posts
|
Maclennane
you missed
-Holmes smugly says something personal about his new client and shocks or offends them for no good reason, before listening to the case
|
|
Feb 2020
9:12am, 5 Feb 2020
44,750 posts
|
Diogenes
I am ploughing through the stories. Not quite sure why.
|
|
Feb 2020
9:26am, 5 Feb 2020
22,856 posts
|
Maclennane
Watched Sherlock last night, found it far more satisfying
|
|
Feb 2020
12:04pm, 6 Feb 2020
19,182 posts
|
Columba
Finished the first 12 stories, and that's where I'll stop. I must have read them at some time in the distant past but didn't recognize any of them. I remember reading The Hound of the Baskervilles; also the story in which both Holmes and Moriarty apparently plunge to their deaths; but all that must have come later.
Quite enjoyed it, as much as anything for the comparison of attitudes and values of Then and Now. My edition has pictures, and even the poses being struck in the pictures look like ham-actor poses.
The one link I managed to make between the original and the Benedict Cumberbatch film: Holmes smokes three pipes in succession and says to Watson "It's a three pipe problem". In the film he has given up smoking but uses nicotine patches, and rolls up his sleeve to demonstrate to Watson that "It's a three patch problem".
|
|
Feb 2020
12:16pm, 6 Feb 2020
19,183 posts
|
Columba
There are other links, of course. Watson being an army doctor just returned from Afghanistan at the beginning of the first story; Watson getting married so that Holmes is then living alone; the violin playing.
|
|
Feb 2020
11:28pm, 8 Feb 2020
16,050 posts
|
Serendippily
I read the hound of the Baskervilles around a decade ago and quite enjoyed it. This less so as you have to get through the same description of Holmes at the start of every tale. Short stories often annoy me - if the characters are good enough company and the story engaging enough I expect a full book for my efforts. I probably liked the speckled band and the engineers thumb the best as they were full of a certain old fashioned glamour and I share Conan Doyle’s deep suspicion of the Hampshire countryside I’d rather be in the safety of the big city too  they are a bit like Wodehouse without the wit and the larks but there is always hot buttered toast to be found on the hearth and you can tell a lot from a man by how well brushed his hat is. Scored it a 7 Pleasant enough with a hot drink and the wind howling outside
|
|
Feb 2020
11:30pm, 8 Feb 2020
16,051 posts
|
Serendippily
Reading back yes they do follow a certain Craig Charles formula
|
|
Feb 2020
9:02am, 9 Feb 2020
44,850 posts
|
Diogenes
Oh; crikey! Five Orange Pips has the worst ending ever.
(Craig Charles formula? That one passed me by)
|
|
Feb 2020
9:19am, 11 Feb 2020
16,072 posts
|
Serendippily
- a client calls on Monday
- smugly noted mud on her coat on Tuesday
- she recounted her tale on Wednesday
- was a bit insufferable on Thursday
- and Friday and Saturday
- it was all resolved and we were eating lunch by Sunday
|
