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vivdunstanContinuing my reread, and going to discuss this with some At the start Watson receives an urgent message from Holmes, and they both jump on a train to Herefordshire. This was a rather action-packed opening, but I found the subsequent initial account of the case unusually distant. Holmes told Watson the story on the train, and also gave him a newspaper report to read. Which both, for me anyway, lacked the immediacy of a client coming to speak to them directly in Baker Street.
Once in place the case is relatively simple, even rather predictable. Turner offering McCarthy free rent of a farm is unusual, raising immediate questions for the readers about their relationship. In addition there is their Australian connection. It is hardly a surprise when one murders the other.
Holmes's frustration with Scotland Yard, in this case Lestrade, continues. Although Holmes is condescending to the police, yet again, it is nevertheless rather satisfying when he determines far more details than the police.
There are a lot of familiar reused names in this story. Both Moran and Turner appear, which are used elsewhere in the canon. The surname Anstruther for Watson's medic colleague also, unsurprisingly, jumped out at me!
I liked how both Holmes and Watson turned to books to fill time. Holmes on the train pulled out his Pocket Plutarch. And Watson in the hotel tries to read a "yellow-backed novel", a very cheap type of paperback novel, though it is unclear if Watson had brought it with him, or found it in the hotel, available for guests to read.
There are some marvellous quotes in this story, especially describing Holmes.
Also a very vivid sequence where Watson describes how Holmes is transformed physically when he is examining evidence at the scene of the murder.
There is another mention of Holmes's "little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco."
Reading a reference to diabetes prompted me to read more of its history, and how modern at the time of writing such a diagnosis would be. I'm used from my own family history to ancestors having medical diagnoses then only newly known, and often lacking treatment. In this case, diabetes as a condition was well known back into Ancient times, including in Egypt, Rome and Greece. Though effective insulin treatment would only be developed in the 20th century.
A mention in the story to the enigmatic "George Meredith" sent me scurrying down another rabbit hole. Who was surely the English novelist of that name, largely forgotten now, but nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature seven times. Was this the paperback novel that Watson picked up, before finding his attention wandering too much to read, and threw it to one side? Possibly, though Holmes would be intrigued by Meredith's psychological approach in his novels and may find them just the sort of thing he would like to chat about with a friend. Conan Doyle himself was a particular admirer of Meredith, and gave a lecture about him in 1888, a couple of years before the publication date of this story.
So a rather predictable plot, but nevertheless a good read with some interesting details.
Once in place the case is relatively simple, even rather predictable. Turner offering McCarthy free rent of a farm is unusual, raising immediate questions for the readers about their relationship. In addition there is their Australian connection. It is hardly a surprise when one murders the other.
Holmes's frustration with Scotland Yard, in this case Lestrade, continues. Although Holmes is condescending to the police, yet again, it is nevertheless rather satisfying when he determines far more details than the police.
There are a lot of familiar reused names in this story. Both Moran and Turner appear, which are used elsewhere in the canon. The surname Anstruther for Watson's medic colleague also, unsurprisingly, jumped out at me!
I liked how both Holmes and Watson turned to books to fill time. Holmes on the train pulled out his Pocket Plutarch. And Watson in the hotel tries to read a "yellow-backed novel", a very cheap type of paperback novel, though it is unclear if Watson had brought it with him, or found it in the hotel, available for guests to read.
There are some marvellous quotes in this story, especially describing Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes was pacing up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt figure made even gaunter and taller by his long gray travelling-cloak and close-fitting cloth cap.
Also a very vivid sequence where Watson describes how Holmes is transformed physically when he is examining evidence at the scene of the murder.
Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognize him. His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard, black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whip-cord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him, that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply.
There is another mention of Holmes's "little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco."
Reading a reference to diabetes prompted me to read more of its history, and how modern at the time of writing such a diagnosis would be. I'm used from my own family history to ancestors having medical diagnoses then only newly known, and often lacking treatment. In this case, diabetes as a condition was well known back into Ancient times, including in Egypt, Rome and Greece. Though effective insulin treatment would only be developed in the 20th century.
A mention in the story to the enigmatic "George Meredith" sent me scurrying down another rabbit hole. Who was surely the English novelist of that name, largely forgotten now, but nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature seven times. Was this the paperback novel that Watson picked up, before finding his attention wandering too much to read, and threw it to one side? Possibly, though Holmes would be intrigued by Meredith's psychological approach in his novels and may find them just the sort of thing he would like to chat about with a friend. Conan Doyle himself was a particular admirer of Meredith, and gave a lecture about him in 1888, a couple of years before the publication date of this story.
So a rather predictable plot, but nevertheless a good read with some interesting details.