Country: Scotland
Genre: Crime Fiction/Short Stories
Pages: 286
It wasn't before I sat down to read The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes that I realized how literature is such a contemplative medium. From a writer or reader point of view, the variables of storytelling (plot, pacing, setting, characterization) are like a comfortable couch you sink in deeper and deeper if the writer did his job properly. The short stories featuring Doyle's iconic character are a completely different kind of animal. Remember when James Patterson answered Stephen King's punking by saying "I'm not much of a writer, I'm more of a storyteller, per se". I don't want to compare both writers, but Doyle is also about the story first and foremost. Other variables of literary creation are secondary to him.
The complexity of Sherlock Holmes' stories, juxtaposed with their short length make them somewhat of a difficult and frustrating read. His vocabulary is somewhat common and his prose straightforward, but it always follows the same twisted pattern. The crime is hinted by a third party character visiting or sometimes by a single object and Holmes works and deducts the living hell out of it, like he was following a wire to see where it leads. There's a detail in the first part of the story that betrays the criminal and your challenge is to find it before Holmes, which is often difficult because the more he deducts, the more he brings new data to the table and confuses you about where this is going. Doyle taunts you, saying: "I knew it all aloooong".
To appreciate The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes to its fullest, you have to get a little perspective about where it's coming from. These are old stories. They have been written at dawn of the twentieth century, at the peak of modernity. Humanity was caught up in scientific triumphalism and wanted nothing to do with the deus ex machina of fiction creators. For Holmes, it all starts with the objects. There is something wrong with an object somewhere. A mud stain or a tear, which he can deduct something from, then he deducts something from his own deduction, etc. etc. My old teacher Mr. Savoy, who gave me a class on the objects in literature would love this book.
It's hard to review short story collection. There are so many different plots that you can only draw a sense of setting for the readers. The stories are narrated by Watson, his eternal sidekick and friend. There is a sense of friendship between both and especially in the way Holmes always invites him everywhere he goes. The tall, gaunt-faced Holmes shows his affection to Watson in manly, self-effacing ways and it's charming, more often than not. Their friendship is exposed best in The Red-Headed League where they keep taking pot shots at ginger people. Both men are otherwise serious and task-oriented, what makes for a high pace and an attention to detail that will confuse readers.
Overall, I had a positive experience with The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. It's not a stupid read and it's not insidious the way Paulo Coelho is, for example. I was just not marked. The intellect of the detective lives up to its hype, but the rest falls a little flat, without falling out of line. Doyle did just enough for me to want to come back and read a full novel. If I get my hands on that Baskerville story, you might get another Sherlock Holmes review, if not...no more of his short stories I'm afraid. For the mystery fans that like solving riddles more than they like reading novels.
