The Bookshelves Project

Some Sherlock Holmes

I wanted to read something light that I knew I'd enjoy, so I pulled a copy of A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles. What could be more fun than a little Sherlock Holmes? Not much. I have only a few observations:

• Dr. Watson is not as dumb as he is stereotyped to be.
• Sherlock Homes has obviously not seen any television detectives do their work, or he would not, as he does in Hound hold off on arresting a suspect he knows to be guilty merely because he lacks proof. In Hound, Holmes' client is in danger of his life because only by allowing the murder attempt to proceed can Holmes prove the murderer's guilt. If he were a TV detective in the Jessica Fletcher tradition, he would merely have to confront the murderer, and the murderer would confess. That would be much easier on the client, the poor baronet whose throat is nearly ripped out by a fiendish hound and whose nerves are so shattered by the experience he has to spend a year traveling the world with his doctor.
• The books are surprisingly gruesome. I could have done without the ponies sinking in the mire and the twisted body of the poor convict going splat at the bottom of the cliff.
• I marked a couple of quotes I liked: "There is nothing more stimulating than a case in which everything goes against you," says Holmes at one point, and elsehwere, (which I must paraphrase because Eric pulled out the sticky-note that was marking it), "There are a great many things which are perfectly obvious which no one ever takes account of."