for @astudyincanon I found an audiobook of His Last Bow, sadly not Sir Christopher Lee this time, but adequate. :)

I can believe that this time Holmes and Watson may actually have been separated for at least a time, because they do seem so happy to see each other again. They still work together like a well oiled machine, though.

The story is bookended by the scenes of two men standing and chatting companionably together, at the beginning it’s the two German spies, at the end it’s our heroes.

I was struck by how similarly von Bork here, and Magnussen in HLV, speak of the English. And like Milverton, von Bork keeps his papers in a safe, which Holmes finds a way to get into. “Altamont” has an appointment to bring sensitive documents, but essentially ends von Bork instead.

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Dec 3rd, 2018

I’m almost not late this week! And I LOVE listening to Sir Christopher Lee read!

I’ve always seen this story as being about drug abuse, and very possibly it’s Watson trying to express his concern about Holmes’ use. Presbury takes a different concoction, but he does it for a similar reason, he thinks it will enhance his natural ability, or restore his youthful vigor. He thinks he has it under control, using on a set schedule. Holmes was using, at least in part, because he thought it aided his thought process, and he didn’t think of himself as an addict. Watson on the other hand, was acutely aware that this is an illusion, and that in fact the dangers to Holmes were very real. The effects on Presbury of his using are grotesque, and frightening and disturbing to his daughter and his assistant, both of whom care about and respect him for who he truly is, not for this twisted and debased caricature.

Bennet and Edith also model a healthy, appropriate romantic relationship, such as Watson desires with Holmes. We never actually meet “Alice Morphy”, she and her Professor father might be ciphers for the illusory obsessions connected with the drug use. The relationship is presented as unnatural and unhealthy, and this “Alice” not as a caring person, but one who might only be attracted to Presbury because he’s rich.

The dog, named Roy (”king”), attacks “the monkey, not the man”, and thus expresses Watson’s desire to cast out this drug-demon from his beloved friend. I love that the dog is not killed in this story, only pried off the man. COPP is referred to in the beginning of the adventure, and the attack scene mirrors that in COPP closely, except that Roy is a Good Dog, a faithful companion (like Watson!) not one that has been tortured into viciousness. One feels at the end of the story, that while Presbury has a long recovery ahead of him, that his loyal hound will be a comforting companion through it. Is Watson trying to hint that he would like to come home to Baker St?

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Nov 14th, 2018

This story feels like the opposite-day version of SCAN in a way. The lady: Ms Klein (Ms Adler) is about to marry: a noble (a professional) for ambition (for love) having rejected: a professional (a noble) who loved her (who wanted to possess her). The McGuffin is: a manuscript (a photograph) connected to the previous affair, and she has: hired ruffians (been subjected to ruffians) to obtain it (trying to get it from her). Holmes: lets her get away with it for some reason (is outsmarted by her) although it’s clear that she’s an awful person (and he learns to admire her as a truly good person) There are several other points of contrast, it’s quite odd, and I agree with the annotation in Baring-Gould that Holmes seems out of character in several places.

ACD tropes: the perp tries to decoy the mark out of her home in order to get at something in it. (REDH, 3GAR, STOC, subverted in RETI and ILLU when Holmes does the decoying.

ETA, also i think the word “queer” is used at least four times, could be a personal best for a single story? ;)

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Oct 27th, 2018

For @astudyincanon I listened to the audiobook read by Sir Christopher Lee (beginning to think I must find a copy of this set to buy!) and watched the Granada episode.

Ah, this is the one with all the “queer street” quotes, and Sir Robert “never married” and both he and his sister are big into horses. I remember horses are a major sexual metaphor in teen girls’ fiction, so why not here also? Especially since there is so much secrecy around the horse in question: a substitute lookalike is shown in public, to keep people from finding out just how wonderful The Prince is. I also wonder if dogs=gay love in ACD as well as in BBC Sherlock, because the spaniel in this story is a great candidate for the “follow the dog” meta series.

Sir Robert is introduced as “indulging” in horse-whipping a man, being a “daredevil rider”, and “has never married” but lives with his widowed sister. What with all the queer coding, I have to wonder if “Lady Beatrice” is Watson’s unreliable narrator talk for Sir Robert’s gay lover.

When alive, Lady Beatrice visited the horses daily=when it wasn’t illegal, gay love could happen openly in daylight. She died of a heart condition=it’s about love. Sir Robert “spent two hours every evening in her room.” but now Sir Robert goes down to the ruined crypt every night=gay love is illegal and has to be hidden under cover of darkness.

There’s a theme of impersonation and concealment in general in this one. Not just the man who impersonates Lady Beatrice to conceal the fact of her death, but also Holmes & Watson posing as fishermen. (I seem to recall quite a while back someone suggesting a subtextual reference in “fishing”, but I forget the detail, anyone else remember?)

The discussion of the furnace and “deep waters” reminds me that fire is a metaphor for passion, and water for emotion. So maybe “fishing” is about looking into emotion to see what specifically is there. Is there any subtextual reference in the specific fish, I wonder? Trout, pike, eels and dace are mentioned.

The Granada episode plays up the spookiness of the “ruined crypt”, with a lot of very tropey camera work. It’s “spooky-lite” though, it’s just an overgrown churchyard, with saplings and dry leaves. Still, it’s enough to remind me of “Ghost Stories are Gay Stories”. In the text, Holmes makes “a careful examination of the graves” which range all the way back to Saxon and Norman times. Gay love has always been there, it’s nothing new.

Lady Beatrice’s death (of a HEART condition) was natural, as gay love is natural.

What Sir Robert did, in concealing her death, may have been technically illegal, but in sentiment all was done correctly and properly to honor her. At that time, gay love was illegal and had to be carried out in secret, but it’s not nasty or sordid. A “skeleton in the closet” was removed and cremated to make way, and Sir Robert “honored her nightly”, there was no irreverence, and he placed her in consecrated ground. Of course Holmes and Watson don’t reveal his secret, and he gets his happy ending. I wonder if the whole “sister’s death” story is again Watson’s translation of a lovers’ tiff, and if Sir Robert’s “womanizing” was actually about a (temporary? recurring?) infidelity, which caused a rift but was ended and healed.

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Sep 5th, 2018

For @astudyincanon book club, I listened to an audio recording, and watched the Granada episode. @plaidadder has done an excellent dissection of many issues in the episode, so I’ll just point out a few things that stuck out to me.

First, I LOVE the comfortable domesticity and teamwork in this story, which extends to include Lestrade. There are SO MANY little glances and expressions that tell “how well I know you, and delight in pleasing you” between all three of them. Lestrade has “nothing in particular” going on, “so tell us about it!”. Watson tells Lestrade he’s “splendid” for identifying the corpse, Holmes gives Watson the hint about the streetlight so he can show off to Lestrade, and of course at the end Lestrade nearly brings Holmes to tears with his high praise. (Holmes immediately deflects with The Work)

I think the Excessively Dramatique opening scenes in the Venucci house are perhaps done to contrast with the complete lassitude at 221B, where Holmes is reading, and Watson & Lestrade are lolling about as if they are about to sleep off a big turkey dinner or something. In turn, team Holmes becomes more active and more Dramatique bit by bit through the story, till at the end, Holmes breaks the last bust in the most theatrical manner possible. When he holds up the pearl, the camera carefully frames it so Watson is directly behind the pearl. There is no doubt what Holmes values most highly.

Is there a tiny bit of mirroring going on between Dr Barnicot (who has *two* busts) and Dr Watson, and then between Harker and Holmes? I noticed that Harker’s sitting room is cluttered with books and papers in a way that we have seen 221B, and Harker seems to be single, and to enjoy working at odd hours including the middle of the night. There the resemblance ends, as he has no stomach for action or murder! But the way he’s bending over the corpse when the policeman arrives makes me think of the BBC line, “do people sometimes think you’re the murderer?”

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Aug 15th, 2018

For this week’s @astudyincanon I found this lovely reading of RETI by Sir Christopher Lee, it’s almost like having it read to me by Holmes himself.

As others have noted, Holmes and Watson are a solid team here, each one absolutely relying on and trusting the other, though their talents do not duplicate each other. That’s part of what makes them such a good team.

Another thing that struck me in this story, when Watson describes the fellow he noticed following him, and Holmes supplied more details, I expected it to have been Holmes in disguise, but instead it was a different detective. Here we are late in the partnership, when Holmes has achieved the fame that he seemed to want way back in STUD, but which now perhaps hampers his ability to investigate quietly. Even though his name is excised from official reports in the newspapers, Holmes is sought out. He seems to have mixed feelings about this, on the one hand he appreciates the recognition of his unique gifts, on the other hand he recognizes the necessity of letting public credit go to the official forces. Is this a reflection of the tension between public and private in his personal life as well? He mustn’t let the public have too complete a picture of his private self.

Another contrast I noticed, Holmes takes Watson out to a concert, as in several other stories, while Amberley only pretended to have taken his wife out to the theater. (If this case took place in late July (according to Baring-Gould), did Holmes and Watson go to a Proms concert? I have been enjoying them again this summer on the BBC’s web site.)

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19 notes
Jul 28th, 2018

this past week for @astudyincanon, I listened to the audiobook of Devil’s Foot, and watched the Granada episode. I noticed all the suggestive phrases like, “long and intimate friendship”, “aversion to publicity”, “discretion and reticence” and how it is beyond question that when Holmes needs a country vacation to recover his health, his Watson will go with him.

One of the things I have learned to notice since being in book club, is how Watson describes (particularly handsome) men they encounter in the course of their adventures. In this case, it’s Leon Sterndale. His name suggests a Lion, and he’s described as a famous lion hunter. The way Watson goes on about him borders on fangirling. I also think it sets us up for the way the ending of the case is handled, where Sterndale’s raw justice on Mortimer Tregennis is accepted and excused. Sterndale is at the pinnacle of the case, but he’s not shown as a villain. Like Captain Croker in ABBE, he’s accepted as a peer by Holmes and Watson.

It’s interesting to look back to a case like STUD, where Jefferson Hope was in much the same role, but so early in Holmes’ career, he still cooperated with the police in arresting him. Here, he has had time to reflect on that, and other cases, and to think about how the Law may be wrong, and may not serve the highest Justice. This could be another case of ACD doing a subtle ‘mic drop’, again without being preachy, he’s planting that idea in the mind of his audience: some laws may be unjust. In fact, Sterndale himself draws attention to laws pertaining to marriage (!) that tie him to a wife who has left him, so he can’t marry the woman he truly loves, Brenda Tregennis. HMM, a tragedy might have been averted, if the two people who loved each other could have been lawfully married.

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25 notes
Jul 15th, 2018

I was happy to find that there is a magpie audio book of this one! it’s been a very busy week bringing in the May but finally today I had time to listen.

This is one of those cases where nothing actually criminal has happened, but the rugby coach is worried that his star player has gone missing, so he goes to scotland yard first, and they send him to Holmes. By contrast, the rich lord that the missing fellow is heir to, can’t be bothered to look for him, and won’t be out of pocket for anyone else to do so. Well, since SCAN, Holmes knows what to make of these types. I enjoyed watching Holmes stick it in and turn it with that one.

This doesn’t seem to be a super shippy story, except for the fact that once they go to Cambridge to follow up on the one lead they have, Holmes wants Watson to be there even though he’s excluded from two whole days of actual investigation. It’s like, Holmes just wants to be able to come home to him at the inn where they are staying, which is pretty sweet. At the beginning of the story, Watson talks a bit about how his companion needs mental stimulation, though he has been weaning him off the drugs (yay) so maybe this is Watson as “sober companion” as well.

ACD completes his critique of the class system with the description of Godfrey’s now late wife. She was beautiful, smart, and good, and they were devoted to one another, but because she was from a “lower class”, the rich uncle would never have accepted her as his heir’s wife. He may have been a “lord”, but he was neither smart nor good, and his description when he enters leaves much to be desired. (again, contrasted with the description of Cyril Overton, the coach, who actually cares what happened to Godfrey)

acd miss miss acd astudyincanon there's class and then there's real class holmes & watson
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May 7th, 2018

I finally found an audiobook version! And it’s read by Christopher Lee! what a treat.

This story has always seemed a bit odd to me, since it’s nearly all told in retrospect. The landlady, Mrs Merrilow, comes and tells about how Mrs Ronder came to lodge with her years ago, then Holmes consults his scrapbooks about the death of Mr Ronder some years past, and then Mrs Ronder herself fills in the story. Really the only present excitement, is Holmes’ twigging on her having become suicidal, and speaking up to urge her not to kill herself.

This story does ring changes on many recurring themes though. Mrs Ronder was an abused wife, but in this case, it all happened in the past, Holmes was not able to help her during that time. There are other stories in which someone is mauled by a beast (dogs, off the top of my head, in COPP and HOUN), and again, too far in the past for Watson to come to the rescue with his good aim.

It also in a way echoes the events of FINA, in that Mrs Ronder and Leonardo had a plan for how to deal with Mr Ronder, and Leonardo did part of it, he did kill Mr Ronder, but then he left Mrs Ronder to her fate, when he should have stayed by her side and protected her. I wonder how Watson and Holmes see themselves reflected, whether each one sees himself as the one who left when he should have stayed. At least it wasn’t cowardice as it was with Leonardo.

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Apr 8th, 2018

For @astudyincanon book club this week, I listened to the Magpie audiobook of the Norwood Builder. This (like SOLI), is a favorite of mine, both for the personal moments between Holmes & Watson (and Lestrade, in this case), and for the case itself. The various elements of the case all fit together neatly, and none of them feel like contrived coincidences, everything has a reason for being or happening.

Then there are the personal bits, the buying out of the Kensington practice so Watson can return to Baker St. Holmes going off to Blackpool on his own, assuring Watson there is no danger (contrast with SOLI, when he went alone and got in the fight with Woodley). The competition with Lestrade, which both are enjoying so smugly. “let’s go for a walk in the garden” again.

Then there’s a line about “working seemingly random things into a coherent whole”, which seems to be probably about case work in general, but now that I’m reading with this group, feels a bit like a hint to pay attention to the subtext and these little personal moments, as they occur in all the stories.

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Mar 23rd, 2018