Sherlock Holmes Day

Today is Sherlock Holmes Day .I missed it last year, but I knew I needed to commemorate it this year. I haven't read enough Sherlock Holmes stories, but I enjoy every one I have read, and of course for any crime fiction fan Holmes is an archetypal reference, THE archetypal reference for any investigator in crime fiction, and even beyond the genre. So I have one book of his adventures on my to be read list and once I read it, I will buy more. I also have a reference guide which I might read a bit today. And to accompany this post, I am sharing this image taken from this edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles. So happy birthday Sherlock. You remain to this day the greatest detective of all time.

Sherlock Holmes in London

Today, I am blogging again about this edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The first edition I read of the novel and the very first Sherlock Holmes novel I read. As it was aimed at younger readers, it was accompanied by many pictures, really nice ones. We sometimes forget that a substantial amount of time of the plot is spent in London, where Holmes and Watson first see the villain of the story, although only from afar. The antagonist is also disguised under a heavy fake beard, so his identity remains a mystery at this point. It makes for a suspenseful chase in the city, which concludes with the Holmes being bested (by his own admission) by his unknown adversary. This image renders very well the tension and gives to the scene and the setting a neat aura of menace.

Sherlock Holmes on the Moors

 I blogged back in February about the first edition I read of The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I took this image from the book. You can see Sherlock Holmes in his iconographic if apocryphal clothes, with a deerstalker hat, but an ordinary coat and not an Inverness cape, for some reason. Still, the hat gives him away immediately. In this image, it makes some sense that he is wearing this, as he is on the Devon's moors. Some illustrators and movies have Holmes dressed like this in the middle London, which is patently absurd. Anyway, I think it would be nice to revisit Devon, but more inland this time. Follow the footsteps of Sherlock Homes, when he investigated an old legend who turned into a murder conspiracy.

Sherlock and Baskerville Hall

During my last time at home, I stumbled upon this book, the first edition I read of The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I revisited it a little bit more than a decade ago. It was if I am not mistaken the very first Sherlock Holmes story I ever read, or at least the very first Holmes novel. I might actually have read The Red-Headed League before, I'm not sure. I had of course watched the TV series before. But in many ways, The Hound of the Baskervilles was my first venture into Sherlock Holmes' world and to this day it remains my favourite story. I don't think I will reread it this year, having a lot on my TBR, but it was nice to see the copy I owned when I was a kid.

A Sherlock Holmes Guide

I found this book in a thrift sales, it cost me a quid or something. So even though my bookshelves are packed, I regret nothing. Its full title is The Sherlock Holmes Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained. It's a guide to all the canonical adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I love reading Sherlock Holmes, but I am not an expert. I do hope that with this book, if I take time to read it, I will become more knowledgeable and learn to appreciate even more the stories I read and loved and see them in a new light.

Reichenbach Falls

My recent posts (this one and that one, more specifically) about Sherlock Holmes reminded me that there is one place of pilgrimage every Holmes fan, or indeed every crime fiction fan should visit. I am talking of course of the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, the place where the greatest detectivemet his"death" during the events of The Final Problem. It happened on the 4th of May 1891. Switzerland is in my list of countries to visit or, in this case, revisit, for many, many reasons. Maybe when or if it happens, we should make a stop there. It could be fun. Sometimes I find the association of places with legendary or fictitious events to be more interesting than historical ones. And if you have even been there, please tell me in the comments. I'd like to know about your experience.

I missed Sherlock Holmes Day!

 I learned recently, but too late, that the 22nd of May was Sherlock Holmes Day. Which corresponds to the birthday of his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is kind of ironic, given how much he ended up loathing Sherlock Holmes. And now his birthday has been hijacked by his most famous creation. I feel sorry for him, to be honest. I guess if he'd known he'd... cry all his way to the bank. Anyway, I first thought it was the 30th, because the Facebook page of the British Museum made me aware of the Day on the 30th. I thought it had something to do with the anniversary of Holmes' "death" in The Final Problem. Anyway, I should blog some more in the upcoming days about this short story. And, while I did not observe Sherlock Holmes Day, there is one Holmes novel I hope to read before the end of summertime. And I have now put it as a special yearly event in my calendar.

The Valley of Fear to explore

I am not a regular reader of Sherlock Holmes, but I should be, especially since I love the character and it's always a fun read. Be that as it may, from time to time, I read or reread his stories. There was one book I had always wanted to get my hands on: The Valley of Fear, so far the only cannonical Holmes novel I haven't read yet (for the short stories, that's a diffeent matter). And I couldn't find it anywhere! Well, thanks to my local bookshop, this is no longer a problem: they ordered it for me and I now am the happy owner of this (maybe lesser known?) classic. I know close to nothing about the plot, only that Professor Moriarty is featured in it. And that's enough to make it a worthy read, the Napoleon of crime being rather elusive in the original canon. And because I have a bit of an obsession for Moriarty. Anyway, I am reading something else now, but The Valley of Fear is the next crime fiction title I will explore.

Aquila and Sherlock

I said it before and I will say it again: Wolfie receives the best mail. A few days ago, he got the latest edition of Aquila Magazine, the magazine with "big ideas for inquisitive kids". So yeah, the February issue is all about forensics, crime investigation and, well, crime fiction, with  Sherlock Holmes on the cover (because well of course). I need to teach him about Sherlock Holmes, by the way, he barey knows him. But anyway, it has lots of fun stuff and it's a pleasure to read together.

Sherlock Holmes for #Noirvember

For my first book to read this year for #Noirvember, I decided to go classical with an early adventure of Sherlock Holmes that I have been wanting to rediscover for a while. I have thus decided to read The Sign of Four (or The Sign of the Four, which is its original title, but I think it sounds lame). I had first read it when I was something like 14 and I had wanted to read it again in the original language. It may sound a bit too old for Noirvember, but rediscovering the work of Arthur Conan Doyle as an adult is one of my ongoing projects, for one, and there is plenty of violence and brutality in it. I also find the character of Jonathan Small to be a very modern and dark character: ruthless and villainous, but with at least some sense of justice and fairness, and some excuse for his actions. He ends up a rather tragic character, come to think of it, and the ancestor of many villainous protagonists in crime fiction. And I cannot forget that this is where Holmes is first depicted as a cocain user. So in many ways, it is very Noir indeed, certainly Noir enough for this month.

221B Baker Street

I wonder if 2019 will be for me the year I rebound, so to speak. with Sherlock Holmes. At the end of last year I read one of his adventures and I have been wanting to read more for a while. Furthermore, my wife bought me 221B Baker Street as a Christmas present. I had been curious about this board game for quite a while. I love board games that are based on crime fiction or have a criminal element in them, like Cluedo or Scotland Yard. From what I understand of 221B, it is a more elaborate Cluedo, set in the universe created by Arthur Conan Doyle. Well, his version of London really. I have not read the rules, but I intend to do so soon and then invite some friends for a few games. In the meantime, I will read Sherlock Holmes stories again to get myself in the right mindset.

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

‘Tis the season to be reading. And I can’t believe it’s ten days until Christmas already and it’s only my second Christmas reading suggestion this year (in my English posts at least). So today’s festive reading suggestion: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, an adventure of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. A stolen gemstone with a dark and troubled past (the Blue Carbuncle of the title) is found in a roasted goose. While the gemstone is quickly given back to its owner, the whole plot is about finding the thief and discover how it got there... and incidentally where the goose is from. This is a proper Christmas read not only because it is set in the season, but because along the criminal investigation we witness a good deal of Christmas spirit, a few acts of kindness and generosity. Beyond the thinking machine that we often think he is, Holmes is shown as compassionate and benevolent. And like in every Sherlock Holmes story, you read it for the characters and atmosphere as much as the investigation and the resolution. This is so far my best literary discovery for Christmastime.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Tonight's reading suggestion is an oldie but a goodie: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The first Sherlock Holmes novel (but not story) I read and a case of first love for me. A crime fiction story that takes the guise for a moment of a supernatural one, based on old British legends of hell hounds. Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate on the death of Charles Baskerville and protect Sir Henry Baskerville, last heir of the family. The former having seemingly been victim of and the latter being seemingly threatened by an old family curse that takes the form of a devilish hound. Most of the story is set in the Devon moorland (read it in Devonshire for extra enjoyment) that could well be haunted, but the resolution is perfectly rational (if a bit far fetched). It's a detection novel, but it has plenty of atmosphere, suspense and characters that are actually pretty developed for the genre.

Sherlock Holmes gamebooks

As I mention two months ago, I am rediscovering, or about to rediscover, the universe of Sherlock Holmes. And I am considering not only reading original stories and watching the many adaptations, but also reading some interactive gamebooks. There are many, from different publishers and different collections. As a child, there was one I used to read and enjoy, but they were a publication of French origins. I am more curious about the Sherlock Holmes Solo Mysteries collection, which I have seen very often on the shelves when I was a child, but never got myself round to try one. I saw the second title in a café in Montreal once. I checked it quickly, but never played the whole story. Its title, The Black River Emerald, sounded pretty good if you ask me, eerie and mysterious and akin to many titles from Conan Doyle. In any case, I want to read it and the other titles. And if somebody has read/played them, is it any good? Any title you'd recommend? It could be from any collections, not necessarily this one.

Sherlock Holmes and speedball?

Which is it to-day," I asked, "morphine or cocaine?"
He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened.
"It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?"

Remember my post a bit more than a year ago, about King George V dying of speedball overdose? Well, it struck me that there may have been another famous user of the infamous cocaine and heroin (or morphine) cocktail: Sherlock Holmes himself. He was of course a drug user when he did not have a case, which shocked me discovering it. We discover this in The Sign of Four that he is a user of both cocaine and morphine, as you can see from the quote above. It is not much of a stretch to think he may have used both at the same time. I was shocked as a child, but it is now one of the aspects of the characters I find most fascinating. He was not only the ancestor of the super sleuths of whodunits, but also of the anti-hero private eye with his cliché drinking addiction. There is something far more elegant, almost glamorized, in Holmes' drug consumption. Something far more fictitious too. Still, what a fascinating trait.

Rediscovering The Hound of the Baskervilles in Devon

My next holidays, and the first summer holidays I had in years (literally), will be in Devon, which I have never seen yet, but been wanting to see for quite a while. They are not until a little while, but I have already started preparing them. It means, apart from finding accommodations and places to visit (which the Devon has plenty of), finding books to read for the journey and my time there. It was easy for me: I bought The Hound of the Baskervilles in this bookshop. I choose the books I read according to seasons, I also choose them according to some settings. The novel being mainly set in Devon, I thought it was the perfect occasion to rediscover it. I had read the novel decades ago, in French, when I was still a child. It was not my first Sherlock Holmes story, but it was my first Sherlock Holmes novel. And such a great read too.

I am surprised I did not decide to rediscover it earlier. I guess because there are so many books to read, I forget there are so many books to reread. What I loved about it, apart from its atmosphere, was the elements of veiled supernatural, never becoming concrete of course: in the end, the old legend of the demonic hound is rationalized. Evil in old crime fiction, like in new crime fiction, is most definitely human in origins. Then again, the story is inspired about British folklore, the hellhound legends, very potent and evocative in itself. I am sometimes almost disappointed that Arthur Conan Doyle made a Sherlock Holmes adventure of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Keep the supernatural, take away Sherlock Holmes, and it could have made a brilliant horror novel. In a way, I will read it as a transitional novel, getting myself in the mood for horror stories while enjoying a great classic crime novel. In any case, it is a great atmospheric book and I cannot wait to read it where it is set.

Pr. Moriarty (the grandfather of all modern villains?)

I have been wanting to rediscover Sherlock Holmes recently, I don't know why. I haven't read a Sherlock Holmes story since 2009, I think. And I suddenly got in the mood to read some. I might borrow a book or two at the library (yes, I know they are online, but I don't want to read it online). Sherlock Holmes is, after all, the grandfather of all modern detectives, whether they are private or from the police force. That said, I think my interest is not so much about Holmes as it is about his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, the "Napoleon of crime". I know he was never really conceived as his nemesis by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who simply invented him in The Adventure of the Final Problem to find a worthy adversary to kill his cumbersome creation. He is then mentioned in other short stories, and I believe I read them all, but I did not read yet The Valley of Fear, in which he plays a role in the plot. This is going to be my next Sherlock Holmes story, I think.

Why am I so interested by this villain, who is relatively unimportant in Holmes' canon and whose background is inconsistent? Not because of its posthumous fame, when he became, outside the canon, Holmes' archenemy. But because I believe that Doyle created the grandfather of all modern villains, maybe more than Holmes was ever the grandfather of modern heroes. Moriarty was a gang leader whose rarely, if ever, gets his hands dirty, an evil genius, he was also a bit of a mad scientist before his time (as he was a mathematician). His bastard sons are numerous. Among them: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Alain Charnier and the Greeks in The Wire. While heroes in crime fiction have become ordinary men, often intelligent but not to the point of turning into the almost inhuman thinking machine Holmes often was, there are still, even in modern fiction, evil men of exceptional nature like Moriarty. Yes, there are plenty of thugs, low-mind brutes, but even in modern crime fiction, even in realistic shows like The Wire, the exceptional criminal shows up. Crime fiction is a genre where there are still many Napoleons of crime.

Sherlock Holmes on English countryside

I have been watching The Copper Beeches, the Granada Sherlock Holmes TV series episode adaptation of The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. You can read the original story here. Which I have not read yet. But I remember watching the TV episode as a child and it had a lasting impression on me. Not so much the plot, but an observation Sherlock Holmes makes about English countryside. Here it is:

''“Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.”
“Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?”
“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”''

I usually read and watch crime fiction set in an urban environment. But this reminds me that evil dwells in the most pleasant environment. 

Le Colonel Mustard (et pourquoi)

Ce billet est une inspiré d'un billet précédent. J'ai posé tout récemment une question existentielle (la 139e), où je demandais quel personnage de Clue/Cluedo vous préfériez jouer et pourquoi. J'apporte ma propre réponse ici: le colonel Mustard. Je le choisissais pour plusieurs raisons, certaine sstratégiques, certaines sentimentales. Je sais que les personnages de Clue ont changé radicalement au fil des ans et des différentes versions, Mustard est passé d'une caricature ridicule de colonel anglais de la très vieille école à un militaire à l'allure digne et efficace, bien sûr je place de mon expérience particulière avec le jeu et la version que nous avions (achetée vers la fin des années 80). Je lisais beaucoup d'Agatha Christie à l'époque (ça m'a passé) ainsi que quelques Sherlock Holmes (je regardais beaucoup la série avec Jeremy Brett), alors Clue me permettait de jouer un whodunit sur une base régulière.

 Tout d'abord, parce que j'aimais la couleur du personnage, le jaune moutarde. D'ailleurs j'aimais et j'aime toujours la moutarde, alors il y avait déjà une certaine affinité entre lui et moi. À cause du rang aussi, à l'instar de Prof Solitaire. Un colonel dans l'armée, ça avait un certain statut qu'un Mr Green ou Professeur Plum n'avaient pas. Dans la version que nous avions, le colonel Mustard était celui qui avait l'air le plus présentable (voir l'image): athlétique, un flegmatique tout britannique, etc. Green était vieillissant et obèse et Plum avait l'air d'un universitaire coincé. Mustard pouvait être tant un meurtrier d'envergure (s'il s'avérait coupable) ou un détective compétent (sur l'image de la boîte il tenait une loupe à la main, et puis il était peut-être de la police militaire, voire un espion). Il y avait aussi des raisons stratégiques, enfin une: Mustard est le second pion à se déplacer après Miss Scarlet. On oublie souvent ça quand on joue à Clue: Scarlet est la première à jouer, l'ordre n'est pas déterminé par un tir de dés. Mais c'était surtout pour les raisons sentimentales que je jouais Mustard. La stratégie, sur laquelle vous pouvez lire sur Wikipedia,est venue plus tard.

(Note sur la photo: elle a été prise par mon père, à ma demande et envoyée via Dropbox.)

Rediscovering Sherlock Holmes

Hey, I found the old Granada Serlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett on youtube! I don't know if there are all of them there but there are a lot of them.I used to love it when I was watching it back in the 80s, it made me discover the work of Arthur Conan Doyle. Jeremy Brett is magnificent as Holmes, but what I always loved about it is the way they have reproduce Victorian England: you genuinly feel there. It is sober and devoid of the clichés that usually plague period pieces in general and adaptations of Sherlock Holmes in particular. Brett as Holmes seldom wears the deerstalker hat and never does it in London (where it would have been a social faux pas), he does not only smoke pipe but also cigarets and cigars and is a drug user, as he was conceived by Doyle. Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes is free from the false perceptions we usually have of the character and is in many aspects Doyle's character made flesh. Always a pleasure to rediscover the master.

Holmes has an interesting entry in the thrillingdetective website. Was he a private eye, was he hardboiled, or not? They answer no, but I am not so sure about it. I would say that in some of his stories he came quite close, but it is true that he might have been too much of an intellectual.