Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Bored in class one day, I decided to find a Sherlock Holmes story online and read it. I’m pretty sure I’ve read nearly all the Holmes stories before, but it’s been so long I can’t properly remember. I don’t normally write reviews for rereads, but though I’m not sure if this is a proper re-read or not I wasn’t particularly interested in writing reviews for the series. So I thought instead it might be fun to do a sort of compilation post of the things I noticed while reading whatever, much like when I was reading The Woman in White in January.

So! I’m calling this series Rereading Holmes, and I’m starting with A Study in Scarlet, the very first Holmes story. I’m reading this online copy, though I do have a complete Holmes book somewhere. (It’s hardback, double-columned and kind of unwieldy. I tend to forget where I’ve left it for months at a time.)

This format does sort of assumes you’ve already a) read the book or b) seen a movie/TV show that adapts it. I don’t know how interesting this’ll actually be, but I’ve stuck in some pictures anyhow to try and keep things spicy.

Chapter 1: In Which Holmes and Watson Meet

The Meeting

• Epic meeting between Holmes and Watson!!
• Funny how whats-his-face is all “you should totally live with him (Holmes) but he’s nutzoid so…yeah.”
• Things noticed about Holmes: Holmes’ stained hands (stains which can’t come out?), the various cuts and bandages, how enthusiastic he is to meet Watson and about his work
• How rich is Holmes? Why does he need a roommate? Isn’t his family some noble-thing– or am I transposing that from fandom? Whats-his-face says he needs help paying rent, so maybe he spends all his money on chemicals and things.

Chapter 2: In Which Watson Adjusts to Being Holmes’ Roommate

• lol Watson not asking Holmes what he does for a living. Isn’t that, like, the FIRST THING you’d ask your new roommate? To know if they’ll have enough money to pay their own rent? But I guess it’s some Victorian thing to not ask people basic personal details.
• Watson is all “Who are all these strange people coming in and out of our apartments?!” I think he thinks Holmes is a drug dealer, for real.
• Holmes doesn’t know about the universe, but then how often does that come up in Victorian mysteries anyway? Hardly ever.
• “You see I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those rules of deduction laid down in that article which aroused your scorn, are invaluable to me in practical work. Observation with me is second nature.”
• “It is simple enough as you explain it,” I [Watson] said, smiling.” — I think this drives Holmes nuts? Where did I read that? I remember him being all, “yeah it’s simple when I tell you how I did it, but you couldn’t do it so how simple was it really?” Is that fandom again?
• Other famous literary detectives, Dupin, Lecoq. Holmes hates them, which made me giggle. Was Conan Doyle this antagonistic to other detective novels?
• Plus it’s funny that later detective novels’ authors are so antagonistic to Sherlock Holmes. It just all circles around, doesn’t it?

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