The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Feb 2020 Book Group discussion thread

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Feb 2020
5:58pm, 12 Feb 2020
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Nellers
I've got a 60 minute rowing session to do tonight and the audiobook version of Speckled Band is 62 minutes. Sorted. I'll report back later, although I think Sherlock will probably have it sussed before I start warming down.
Feb 2020
6:45pm, 12 Feb 2020
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Columba
I'm surprised it takes 62 minutes to read. Though it is one of the longer ones, I suppose.
Feb 2020
6:50pm, 12 Feb 2020
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McGoohan
I'm worried Nellers is going to miss the last two minutes
Feb 2020
7:12pm, 12 Feb 2020
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Columba
That bothers me a bit, too. Maybe he could start listening 2 minutes before the start of the rowing session.
Feb 2020
7:52pm, 12 Feb 2020
44,959 posts
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Diogenes
If we tell him how it ends now it won’t matter
Feb 2020
8:00pm, 12 Feb 2020
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Nellers
The bad guy died in a fit of karma. All was well with the world and the client was saved, poor feeble woman, and went to live with her good aunt.

They are very silly really but I’m still enjoying them. That was particularly good I thought. Silliness in the Victorian extreme!

The final explanation came in those last 2 minutes as I unstrapped my feet and got my dry shirt and jumper on. No need to worry. I didn’t miss out.
Feb 2020
8:11pm, 12 Feb 2020
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Serendippily
:-)
Feb 2020
8:32pm, 12 Feb 2020
43,328 posts
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McGoohan
Phew.
Feb 2020
12:31am, 17 Feb 2020
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Peregrinator
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I wrote elsewhere that my copy of TAOSH had to be recovered from the bookshelf of the Peregrinette. When I started re-reading it, I found that she must read it for GCSE, as there are notes and annotations in her hand (which is clear and precise; Peregrinatino's handwriting is unreadable). They formed a useful study guide, although they only cover The Man with the twisted lip, The Blue Carbuncle and The Speckled Band. Some of the marginalia presumably express her love of literature:


She notes various aphorisms and quotes - such as "You see everything, but you fail to reason from what you see". Parts of the story were to be read aloud, as the parts spoken by Holmes and Watson are identified.

But mostly she made notes about how the stories are written:

* The way that the cosy security of Watson's house is contrasted that dangerous city (TMWTTL),

* The labyrinth of street names, that merge reality and fiction (TBC),

* Onomatopoeic and alliterative choice of words to describe the weather (TSB)
* Use of the macabre and outlandish (a baboon in TSB)

* Contrasts between the clear "lovely Surrey lanes" and the concealing "heavily timbered park" and unhealthy and threatening "The building was of grey lichen-blotched stone ... the claws of a crab" (TSB),
* The limited palette of light and colours in descriptions "black ... flickering oil-lamp ... brown ... dark, lack-lustre ... black ... red circles of light" (TMWTTL)

Conan Doyle does conjure up pictures of London that have become iconic. I was chatting to a woman on an aircraft carrier in San Diego, who only knew of London through Holmes and was convinced the city would be, bar the Hansom cabs, still like that today. It is a London with stock characters: cads, toffs, women in distress. Generally middle class are reliable, but Conan Doyle does spread his villains around levels of society. Foreigners are generally suspect, and the only BAME characters are likely to be Sepoys accompanying retired Army Officers. The women are almost all powerless, of the two with any agency, one is American, and the other leaves Holmes puzzled how he was outwitted by her (and even Irene only gets away by getting married). As for the Bechdel test.....

I avidly read Holmes, the Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown and all, at the same age. But as Heraclitus said: you can never read the same detective story twice. If you dimly remember what happened to the Engineers thumb, the story is different. And I'm different. Is Holmes: logical, friendless, drug addicted, craving only challenges to his intellect, really what we want for the Court of Final Appeal. It is a long way from interpreting the Human Rights Act.

But I did enjoy finding my daughter in the pages, and seeing through her eyes how the writing worked. And I now know what a gasogene is, that there is a manufactory of artificial knee-caps in King Edward Street, and a Vegetarian Restaurant in the vicinity of Saxe-Coburg Square - useful information. And I will re-read The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Feb 2020
6:41am, 17 Feb 2020
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Diogenes
I finished the last story last night. Peregrine’s comments above and Peregrinertte’s notes are far more enjoyable.There is good writing in them, but the stories are fatally compromised by ridiculous plots which conclude in the sudden, un-dramatic knitting of loose ends.

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Maintained by McGoohan
'What's that, old man?' I asked of my esteemed friend, the amateur detective, Mr Sher...

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