The first novel down in my quest to read The Complete Sherlock Holmes by the end of 2018. Though I have seen numerous adaptations of Sherlock H[image]
The first novel down in my quest to read The Complete Sherlock Holmes by the end of 2018. Though I have seen numerous adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories over the years, I only managed to read a handful of the actual source material as a child (and The Hound of the Baskervilles is the only one I remember with any clarity). I never managed to read this one, which gives us the introduction between Mr. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, and Dr. John Watson, his friend and biographer. I knew a lot of the beats, though! (Mostly because this novel is adapted loosely to be the first episode of the 2010 BBC Sherlock, and later, we get a Victorian dramatization of their meeting as well in "The Abominable Bride.")
A great deal of this small novel is actually devoted to the meeting between the two men, and it is narrated mostly by Watson, as he comes to terms with the strange and fascinating man he has ended up sharing rooms with. I found it amusing that Holmes never told Watson what he did, leaving it to the poor doctor to work out on his own. He never manages to figure it out, because Holmes's skills and interests seem simultaneously very limited and too far-ranging to be of use in any profession Watson has knowledge of. His detective vocation only becomes apparent when Watson is pulled along with Holmes to the scene of a murder. "Rache," the German word for revenge, has been written on the walls in blood, but the victim has no wounds upon his body.
The thing that really threw me was the extended flashback sequence to Utah. Holmes catches the murderer, and then immediately we're back in time thirty or so years, with characters we've never met, lost in the Utah desert. Then there's this whole thing with early Mormon settlers, and forced polygamy, and to say I wasn't expecting it would be an understatement. I suppose this would have read as pretty exotic to a contemporary Victorian readership. It doesn't read as very flattering, that's for sure! Wikipedia informs me that ACD based the story off of what he believed were historical facts, but he ended up apologizing later in life for the way he had portrayed the religion.
All in all, I enjoyed this. It was kind of fun to see how the flow of the mystery and the reveals/denouement compared to the way mystery novels play out today. The murderer was caught halfway through the book! When that happened, I had to check how much time was left. I thought surely it wouldn't take the rest of the book to explain how it all went down. But I think the pacing did end up working, in the end, once I caught on to what was happening.
I'm also glad I didn't have it spoiled for me by the BBC show, since the motives and means differ greatly, even if the murderers share names.
Lastly, shout-out to Watson here, because it is clear his feelings for Holmes are already pretty intense even though he barely knows the man. He's so offended when the papers give all the credit to Lestrade and Gregson! It's adorable.
Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
The Marquis de Sade was an absolute maniac. A lot oThanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
The Marquis de Sade was an absolute maniac. A lot of people have tried to justify him as a free thinker, an artist, a revolutionary, someone on the cutting edge of everything. I think he just did whatever he wanted because he couldn't control himself and damn the consequences. I don't think he was that deep. Similarly, people try to say that 120 Days of Sodom is a work of literature, pushing boundaries, and cataloguing the variety of human sexuality. I've read the book. I think Sade just wanted to document his sexual fantasies and then retreat into the corner of his cell in the Bastille with his custom dildoes (fun fact I learned in this book) and have himself a good time. He also perpetrated actual harm on actual people! No murder, as far as anyone is aware, but definitely kidnapping, assault, sexual assault, poisoning, and who knows what else. His contemporaries would have also charged him with such crimes as sodomy, blasphemy, and other "sexual crimes." The French government hanged and burned him in effigy because they couldn't catch him. And I find him incredibly interesting to read about.
And he continued to inspire mania in others long after his death. People were fascinated by his life throughout history and made important political and scientific decisions because of him and his work. And the manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom, famously lost in the storming of the Bastille, has just as intense a legacy as the person who wrote it. Joel Warner traces the movements of the scrolled manuscript throughout history, and it has certainly had an interesting journey.
The book is equal parts a biography of Sade and the tracing of this manuscript. I found both parts fascinating. Sade's life was a trainwreck of pleasure-seeking gone awry. And the manuscript changed hands many times, intersecting with NAZIs, Sade's direct descendants, investment schemes, and more. My favorite part of the book is that Warner takes the time to detail the people involved in a very fun way, and lets himself go off on historical tangents that were so informative. For instance, I had NO idea that there was such a vibrant queer community developing in post-WWI Berlin, and that the government was on the verge of decriminalizing homosexuality before it collapsed and the NAZIs took over.
Anyway, this was one of the most entertaining non-fiction books I've ever read, so I'm definitely buying myself a copy and will be re-reading in the future. Highly recommend....more
This book was infuriating, but very interesting. If you're looking to rage-out at the patriarchy, The Woman They Could Not Silence will certainly do tThis book was infuriating, but very interesting. If you're looking to rage-out at the patriarchy, The Woman They Could Not Silence will certainly do the trick. But also, because Elizabeth Packard was a badass who changed things for thousands of people in her lifetime and many more into the future, you get a happyish ending as well to lift you back from your cleansing rage.
Elizabeth Packard was committed to an asylum in the 1860s by her husband; because he said she was insane, she was insane. This was legal at the time. Her mistake? Thinking for herself and questioning him, particularly on the subject of religion (he was a pastor). What follows is Elizabeth's journey to come to terms with her years-long imprisonment, to help her fellow "patients" (some of whom are genuinely mentally ill, but many of whom are not), and upon finally winning her release, spending the rest of her life campaigning for mental health reform, and women's rights. And winning!
This was a bit slow to engage my emotions at first, but as soon as things started going wrong at the asylum, I was hooked. The horrors she saw enacted on the mentally ill patients, the punishments dealt to those women they just wanted to keep in line, the gaslighting and manipulation of the doctor Elizabeth had placed her trust in, and the disregard of her humanity will all make your blood boil. But that slow start is the reason it's not getting five stars.
I did the audiobook and it's narrated by the author. She does a great job, and will read to you in a British accent, so I recommend that option if you like audiobooks....more
This book probably deserves a more thorough review than I'm about to give it. I wasn't planning to review it at all, but I need to express some thoughThis book probably deserves a more thorough review than I'm about to give it. I wasn't planning to review it at all, but I need to express some thoughts!
-This book is about the gays that the queer community does not really want to claim as part of its own because they were "evil or complicated" or both. The authors use the term "bad gays" as an umbrella but know its imperfect. -The overall mission of the book, aside from exploring these rejected gays, is purportedly to trace the evolution of our modern conception of what it means to be gay or queer through the lens of these "bad gays," many of whom were white and inextricably part of the patriarchal white supremacist systems that birthed our modern culture. -I've seen a lot of criticism about there not being representation of non-white folks or those who identify as something other than male in this book, but these criticisms miss the point, or at least don't take their criticisms the right point. The book isn't aiming to explore marginalized gays, but the bad gays who were front and center of culture, politics, and the sciences, those who wrote the narrative. So of course there won't be many marginalized bad gays in here, because their voices weren't shaping the dominant culture. Those would be the white, male ones (for the most part; there is one woman in here, Margaret Mead, and one Japanese man, Yukio Mishimi). -Each individual chapter was well-written, thoughtful and thought provoking, well-researched, and well-argued on its own. Some were amusing and some were horrifying. -I do not think, however, the book did a good enough job bringing each chapter into the whole. It felt really disconnected, and it didn't do enough to justify its focus on these bad white queers by tracing their ideas and contributions to culture and the conversation to our modern conceptions of queerness, in relation to women, those outside the gender binary, non-white and non-Western queers. There needed to be more connecting threads between chapters and to the point of the book as a whole. -I still think it's worth reading. I actually learned a lot, and rethought some concepts I'd taken as given. The authors are not writing in a vacuum, and all of the chapters consider those non-bad queers who don't get their own chapter titles, but who are always directly affected by the actions of the bad, evil, complicated queers. -I would read another book by these authors for sure. -I liked the audiobook, but just know going in that it wasn't proofed properly, there are a couple sections where multiple takes of the same line were left in.
[3.5 stars]
Read Harder Challenge 2023: Read a nonfiction book about BIPOC and/or queer history....more
Even though after reading Henry James in school several times and then declaring him my nemesis, for he is the master triumphant of the never-ending sEven though after reading Henry James in school several times and then declaring him my nemesis, for he is the master triumphant of the never-ending sentence, and saying I would never read from him again, I could not then resist the pull of an audiobook narrated by Emma Thompson, and indeed I am glad I did not do so.
Phewf, done with that nonsense. That is what it is like to read Henry James. The first paragraph in The Wings of the Dove nearly killed me. But that is the magic of Emma Thompson. Maybe The Turn of the Screw is just more readable than his other books, but I think most of my enjoyment of it is due to her performance. She brings the story to life, and she brings clarity to James's words. I downloaded this book for free ages ago from Audible, and I am only now getting around to listen to it because I pulled it out of my TBR Jar. That thing does have its uses.
All that said, I'm only giving this three stars because I don't know what to make of the story. I can't make it make full sense in my head, even after reading lots of other people's analysis, and several detailed summaries. It is ambiguous, and I do not do well with ambiguity. The longer it sits with me, the more infuriating the ending is. I know I am in the minority on this one, because even people who don't read classics all that much like this one. I do want to watch the movie adaptation, The Innocents, and maybe The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix, and then we'll see. ...more
Before I get to the actual review, I do want to say that I am specifica30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 11/30
This sure was something, I tell you what.
Before I get to the actual review, I do want to say that I am specifically referring to the version edited by Carmen Maria Machado, with an introduction and footnotes by her. Both things fundamentally changed the experience of reading this.
I am still boggled in the mind that this is a book about lesbian vampires and their young female victims being seduced, and it was written in the 1800s, before Dracula. It's like, he just snuck the gayness in there under the cover of monsters, but I can't help feeling that he was sympathetic to Carmilla's desires. There isn't a peep in here that is fearful of female sexuality (I suppose you could infer it, though I never got that feeling).
I was entertained from first to last with this version of the book. Machado's introduction was, while confusing, informative and opinionated, and I would expect no less from her. I do wish she had clarified a little more about her accusations of plagiarism on Le Fanu's part. The tone she wrote in, and the breaking of the 4th wall she does in the footnotes, lends the whole thing an air of unreality, and part of my brain still thinks she was telling me a story, especially since a cursory Googling leads me to nothing of which she was referring (letters found in a wall, some copied word for word into the text, some left out). It doesn't help that she can't seem to help herself re: poetic language, which is never used for clarity. If these were real documents, I really needed to know more about what was in them, and what Le Fanu changed. And we don't.
The resulting book is still entertaining. This version also comes with some rather startling illustrations.
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Machado's footnotes alternate between informative, contextual, pure snark, and fiction. This was very strange, but I can't say I didn't like it. I ended the book wishing there had been more footnotes.
It is a bit hard to get a modern point of view into the mindset of this time period enough so that Laura and her father don't seem like complete numpties for not putting the pieces together about Carmilla's beyond strange arrival, her absolute obsession (out in the open!) and affection with Laura, and Laura's resulting illness. But they didn't have a hundred years of vampire stories seeping into the cultural zeitgeist, so I think we have to give them a little bit of a pass.
[3.5 stars, rounded up for this edition and Machado's footnotes]...more
I’d never heard of this until last year, but then immediately put it on my TBR after reading a review of it from someone I follow, as it sounded reallI’d never heard of this until last year, but then immediately put it on my TBR after reading a review of it from someone I follow, as it sounded really interesting. And it was interesting! For the most part. Large parts were a slog. It also didn’t really do what I wanted it to do, except in the preface, which was written in 2014 and not included in the original publication.
Edward Ball descends from the Ball family, wealthy plantation owners and people responsible for enslaving thousands of Black people over two hundred and fifty years. He discovered that his family had kept all their papers, a wealth of historical information, including information on the enslaved people the Balls owned. He decided to find out what he could, and in the process confront how his family actually treated the people they owned.
Almost no one in his family was happy about him digging through their past like this; none of them wanted their bubbles popped. Especially as the oral history of slavery in the Ball family was one where they had told themselves constantly and over generations that they weren’t like other slaveowners. They took care of the people they owned, they never beat them, never raped them, etc. So if this was true, why was his family so mad he was looking?
Interestingly, Ball does find evidence, both historical and through the oral histories of Black families whose ancestors were Ball slaves, that there was some truth to this family legacy. The Balls, historically, do seem to have been “better masters” than other slaveowners, but to say that they never mistreated their slaves is a) patently absurd, because even if true, owning slaves pretty much tops all those other crimes, and b) of course, there was still evidence that Ball slaves were beaten, imprisoned, raped, etc. Ball slaves were still instrumental in a couple of slave revolts. Ball finds lots of evidence that members of the Ball family had children with their slaves, whether due to rape, a single sexual encounter, or because that Ball family member was in a relationship (as it were) with the slave. (He finds evidence that the people in this latter category were often freed in their master’s wills, left money, or property.)
Also interesting were the conversations Ball had with some of his family members, many of whom display staggeringly paternalistic racism, and a general cluelessness I found astounding (willful ignorance might be a better term).
Where this book lost me was the endless family history of the Balls, especially when unconnected to his larger points, or to larger historical events. I just did not care. I think his perspective might have failed him a little here, because of course he finds the minutia of his own family history interesting. He also has an irritating writing tic, where he has to describe the way people look, and it gets pretty cringey at times, especially when he’s describing Black people. The preface really was one of the highlights of the book, and can’t imagine the book without it. That’s where you get most of the analysis, and more modern thoughts about race and generational trauma. I wanted more of that analysis throughout the book.
Overall, still worth checking out, bearing in mind that it’s over twenty years old, and that you’ll have to wade through 1,000 Elias Balls, or whatever, to get to the interesting stuff.
As always with Jennifer Wright, I laughed the whole book. She also has really good luck with audiobook narrators30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 3 Book 12/30
As always with Jennifer Wright, I laughed the whole book. She also has really good luck with audiobook narrators. Hillary Huber does a great job with her sly (and sometimes not so sly) humor.
This book does exactly what it says on the tin. There are thirteen essays (and a small introduction) detailing in Wright's signature style thirteen of the worst breakups throughout recorded history, starting with Nero in Rome all the way up to Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, and Eddie Fisher. Her style is very informal, and if you don't like it, you won't like the book, no matter how interesting the history is. It's just a very distinct style, but one that I happen to love.
Like with her last book, the one about murderous women throughout history, I consumed this incredibly, incredibly fast, so fast that I really wasn't able to retain much, and because there wasn't really an 'oomph' kind of theme with it, it just ended up being a good time. That lack of oomph is why I'm holding off the fifth star, because I know she can deliver the oomph when she wants to. She did it in her book about pandemics, and I'm really hoping she'll do it again in Mrs. Restell, which was published in March, like with the pandemic book, has a lot of relevance to our current day situation.
Perhaps it is an indicator of my improving mental health (it is), but I really enjoyed this book! In a morbid, worrisome, fun kind of way. Get Well SoPerhaps it is an indicator of my improving mental health (it is), but I really enjoyed this book! In a morbid, worrisome, fun kind of way. Get Well Soon is a book about famous plagues and diseases (and lobotomies? for some reason?) and not only was it a fast, interesting read, it was also funny (obviously, humor is subjective, and I've seen several reviews saying the humor missed the mark for them, but it hit 100% for me—it helps that the audiobook narrator Gabra Zackman has a great deadpan delivery).
This is not a hard-hitting in depth examination of any of these diseases, but more of a broad overview, which is fine! I think it worked really well for the format. If I want more info any of these plagues there are books available. She cites many of them in the text of the book. She has a knack for zeroing in on a main point in a chapter, so they all feel really focused. She covers the Bubonic Plague, the Dancing Plague (also, what the hell is with this disease that sounds like something out of a horror movie??), the Antonine Plague, Cholera, Typhoid, Smallpox, Syphilis, Tuberculosis, Leprosy, Lobotomies (which was really interesting, and it works in context), Encephalitis Lethargica (which I had never heard of, and no thank you, please), Polio, and the 1918 Spanish Flu. (She also briefly covers the AIDS epidemic in the epilogue.)
One of the best parts of the book is how Wright just calls out everyone who deserves it, dead or alive. A not insignificant portion of this book is just Wright talking smack about historical figures who did dumb or terrible things. But she also goes out of her way to highlight the heroes, as well, emphasizing over and over how one of the most important keys to fighting epidemics is human kindness. Diseases don't respond to fear or shame, and they are not symptoms of moral failing.
(I will admit it was disheartening and not a little eerie to listen to the introduction (and to a lesser extent, the epilogue) after COVID-19 has been with us for a year. This book could not have been more prescient if it tried.)
I will most definitely be listening to this one again. If you like audiobooks at all, and this sounds interesting, I highly recommend you go that route. I flew through this one.
This was a really good book for what it was—a survey of Black women's roles throughout 400 plus years of North American history—but the relatively smaThis was a really good book for what it was—a survey of Black women's roles throughout 400 plus years of North American history—but the relatively small 219 page count just wasn't enough space to really get into the sorts of details I really love when reading about history. I don't think we can discount the impact of the purpose of the book, though, since its entire aim is to place Black women back into the historical record, and it very much succeeds in that goal.
The book is also a hybrid creation of historical scholarship and popular writing, as the authors plainly state in their introduction that they wanted the book to be accessible, even approachable, by the general public. Honestly, I'm not quite sure they succeeded in that second aim. I don't think anyone who doesn't already like reading about history will much enjoy this as it's pretty dryly written, and especially in the first half when historical details are less plentiful, the authors use a lot of generalizations. (By this I mean, they make well-educated guesses based on the historical evidence they have, it's just there isn't very much of it to work with.)
Basically, this book was very informative and will be very helpful going forward as a way to place Black women in more historically active narratives, but I wanted more detail and less of a general survey feel, which was not this book's aim. Each chapter is structured around a particular era of history, and named after an individual woman, but again this is sort of misleading. The chapter on Shirley Chisholm, for example, features about a page and a half, maybe two of Shirley Chisholm, and about twenty pages of a bunch of other Black women we only meet very briefly. I think it would have been helpful for me to know going in that I wouldn't be getting a deep dive on any particular woman or era out of this book.
The perspective the authors bring from telling the familiar (aka white) stories of historical eras from this new perspective was really interesting, and in most cases, quite damning. For example, in just one act of fuckery, infamous explorer Francis Drake once marooned a pregnant Black woman on an island with two Black men because she was pregnant after his crew (and possibly himself) had gang-raped her. But the authors don't just aim to illuminate all the bad things that happened to Black women throughout history, they also aim to chronicle Black women as movers and makers of history, and key drivers of progress. If anything, I felt the book was often missing the middle of the road perspective between those two extremes. The book is also full of small details I'd never learned before, like that Black women were sometimes slaveholders themselves, but mostly they did so in order to keep their families together when some members were free and some were still enslaved.
Definitely worth checking out, especially if you like history, or have an interest in Black women's history....more
So, I wrote this upon finishing this book: "Ummmm. Give me a while to pull some thoughts together. This was definitely a book. I will not be rating itSo, I wrote this upon finishing this book: "Ummmm. Give me a while to pull some thoughts together. This was definitely a book. I will not be rating it."
That was mid-October. I don't think I've managed to pull those thoughts together. I don't think I ever will. I mean, I read some reviews going in to this book, but even the ones that were explicit about the contents didn't prepare me.
I picked this book up because of the Read Harder Challenge. One of the challenges was to read a book that was written in prison. And sure, I could have picked any one of a bunch of different potential books. But I chose this one for two reasons: 1) The manuscript was lost for decades after the storming of the Bastille, devastating de Sade that he would never get to finish his "masterpiece," and there seemed a sort of historical romanticism to the book because of that; and 2) My curiosity monster got the better of me. Why read any number of normal books when instead you can read one of the most famously perverse books ever written?
Before I get into what I will loosely call "the plot," I do want to talk a bit about the historical context, which I find fascinating. The introduction to this book was in many ways much more interesting than the book itself.
The Marquise de Sade is one of the most famous Libertines, a philosophical "movement" (for want of a more accurate term) wherein the adherents did not subscribe to any social morality whatsoever. Instead, they devoted themselves to the pursuit of pleasure, which was to them their highest calling and the only thing that mattered. de Sade actually spent most of his life imprisoned (or hiding from imprisonment) due to the various pleasurable acts he committed, which ranged from the harmless but morally sanctioned (same-sex sexual relations, threesomes, orgies, "sodomy," and what we would term kink today, i.e. watersports or bondage) to proclivities that harmed others and that were (and are) justifiably illegal (rape, kidnapping, sexual acts with minors, the giving of pain without consent). He was also later imprisoned for his prolific and shameless writings on the same subjects. In my opinion, as a man he was a selfish, privileged shithead, but as a historical figure, just for his sheer boldness and lack of shame in pushing back against the restrictive norms of his time, I do sort of kind of have a strange affection for the guy. The thing that's important to remember about de Sade is that he drew no moral distinction between any of the acts I've listed above. To him, they were all the same, in that they were capable of giving him pleasure, and even imprisonment wasn't enough deterrent to keep him from seeking that pleasure.
*It's worth noting, though, that even though the term sadism derived from de Sade, BDSM today is a very different beast. de Sade himself never would have agreed to a culture where safe, sane and consensual were the expected norms, so the thing he inspired has grown beyond him. Whether or not the person acts were being performed upon had agreed to them did not seem to matter to him, and in fact, their lack of consent seems to have been a turn-on for him, if the text of this book is anything to go by.
Trigger warning for pretty much everything:
So now, "the plot." de Sade called this his masterpiece, because it is essentially an escalating documentation of the depths of his sexual fantasies. There are four men who are the main characters, and they are all pretty old and gross and perverted. (I could never decide while reading if this was de Sade's attempt to distance himself from their depravities.) They come up with an idea to have the ultimate Libertine vacation (essentially). They will find the eight most beautiful and pure young girls, and the eight most beautiful and pure young boys, and get them one way or another (voluntarily, through kidnapping, bribing or slavery) to this old castle, where they will set up for themselves a months-long sexual experience. They hire old, ugly nannies, and wizened prostitutes to augment this experience. They are systematic about it all, and there is an extensive section of the book devoted to that planning, where all the men relish in the idea of the forthcoming pleasurefest. They structure it so that their days will be spent in various types of pleasure, and the nights will culminate in the prostitutes telling stories of their exploits, which all become increasingly deviant. They document and plan for the deflowering of each child, and each child's specific orifice. They also all bring along their adolescent daughters, whom they all take turns having sex with (oh yes, did I mention the incest?). At any point, acts of depravity may also bust out.
At first, before the "pleasures" really escalated, I was morbidly fascinated by the book. But the longer it went on, it became clear that even as a piece of erotica it was very flawed. When something is designed like this, solely to titillate, you become numb to it after a while. The worse things got for these poor kids, the more numb to it I became, and my fascination towards the end turned to disgust. I assume this is probably also a problem with actually being a Libertine. If all you are seeking is pleasure, nothing real or concrete or genuine to back it up, you're going to need to escalate your behaviors. The same things won't you give that pleasure burst anymore, and like the men in this book, you'll end up resorting to true depravity. There is no proof that de Sade himself ever actually committed a lot of the acts in this book (which get very, very extreme; when the men become bored of plain old sodomy, they start in with what is just actual torture and eventually, murder). Some scholars see this as a purely fantastical creation, and claim that de Sade was exercising the bounds of his literal fantasies, but I say if this is the stuff that got him going, it's probably a good thing that he was stuck in the Bastille most of the time.
I do not ever want to revisit this book again, but I may do more reading on de Sade himself, or in some of the scholarly writings that have come from intellectual thinkers grappling with this text (it has incredibly been used by sexologists like Masters and Johnson, and people interested in kink as an educational tool, and seems to have been very influential).
All this to say, I do not really recommend reading this book unless you are prepared to live with the images you'll then have in your brain until someone finally invents brain bleach.
Read Harder Challenge 2019: A book written in prison....more
Project: Catch Up On Review Backlog, review #3 out of 11
Of the four Holmes books I've read so far, this one has been my favorite. Even my least favoriProject: Catch Up On Review Backlog, review #3 out of 11
Of the four Holmes books I've read so far, this one has been my favorite. Even my least favorite stories are solid, and there are several that are excellent.
For context, these stories were all published between 1892-1893, at the height of both Conan Doyle's and his famous hero's popularity. Conan Doyle was growing extremely tired of his creation, and he wanted to write other, newer and more challenging things (he did, almost none of which is read now by anyone other than Conan Doyle scholars and really dedicated Sherlockians). He knew this would be at great expense to his finances. Writing Sherlock Holmes, though it bored him, was a profitable enterprise.
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My favorites of the collection include "The Adventure of the Yellow Face" (one of the few stories where Holmes gets it wrong), "The Adventure of the Reigate Squire" (which features Holmes and Watson being adorable, Holmes being tricksy, and an exciting confrontation at the end), "The Adventure of the Crooked Man" (because it had a human element to it that I quite enjoyed, in addition to being a good mystery), "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" (for Mycroft, whom I quite enjoyed in his literary form), "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty," (the longest story so far, by about double), and of course, "The Final Problem," which though only introducing Holmes's nemesis Moriarty here for the first time, was really very well done. You can see Conan Doyle's giving it his all, as he really believed he would never write Holmes again and wanted to go out on a high note. Quite literally.
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None of the stories struck me the wrong way, though. My edition (the Stephen Fry audio) includes "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box," which most American editions move to His Last Bow, because originally American publishers didn't want to include a story that featured adultery? I guess. That one had severed ears, so: fun! We also got two stories narrated by Holmes for the first time. I thought one was much more successful than the other. "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" had a strong enough story to overcome the loss of Watson's narrative voice (which comments so nicely on Holmes' eccentricities), but I thought "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott suffered for it.
Starting The Hound of the Baskervilles today, and very excited about it, as it's almost universally acclaimed....more
“Draw your chair up, and hand me my violin, for the only problem which we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.”
“Draw your chair up, and hand me my violin, for the only problem which we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.”
This was a fun book to dip in and out of all month. I'm glad I did it the way I did. I think otherwise it might have been easy to grow tired of Holmes and his Watson. The stories are short and a bit slight, so they make excellent little auditory treats every couple of days or so (I've been listening to the Stephen Fry audiobook) in between larger offerings. Some stories I of course enjoyed more than others.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collects the first twelve Sherlock Holmes stories, originally published in The Strand magazine throughout 1891-1892. The first story in the collection, "A Scandal in Bohemia," is the story that made Holmes and his creator a household name. The first two Holmes novels never made much of a public stir, but in short story format, contemporary readers ate that shit up.
I hadn't read any of the stories in this one before, though I knew the premises of a couple, and had been spoiled for several as well, either by TV or movie adaptations, or as in the case of "The Red-Headed League," by this one fanfic I read one time. (I'm sure this will continue to happen as I make my way through the rest of the stories. I've read a LOT of Sherlock Holmes fanfic, and I have not by any means been discriminatory about it.)
[image] "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", Sydney Paget, 1891
All of the stories here were enjoyable, but I enjoyed some more than others. The only two stories that come close to being stinkers are "A Case of Identity," because Holmes is a patronizing shit to his female client in that one, and withholds the solution to the mystery she paid him for, the outcome of which will significantly affect the rest of her life; and "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb," simply because Holmes doesn't actually do anything in that one. He's just along for the ride. Side note: Okay, now I'm remembering how rankled I was at the end of "A Case of Identity," and now I'm becoming even more angry about it. It's just not professional, Holmes! Oh, wait. Wikipedia is informing me that I'm not the only who is upset about this. Warning, spoilers:
"Much as I admire Sherlock Holmes, I am always seized with impotent fury at reading the end of 'A Case of Identity'. What a patronizing arrogance, to decide for her whether or not she could stand hearing the truth! Anyway, he was manifestly unethical to his client. She engaged him to find Hosmer Angel. He found Hosmer Angel. He should have given his client the information she wanted and let her decide what to do with it. ... Anyway, what is this nonsense about the villain being beyond reach of the law? In British law of that time, a man could be sued for breach of promise. Even a bachelor who proposed to a woman with complete sincerity and then changed his mind could be sued. All the more so a married man who went through an elaborate charade and fallaciously courted his own daughter in law! Any half-decent lawyer could have broken him in court. Of course, the young woman might have chosen not to sue him – but Holmes should have left the choice to her. For me, this story is a dark blot on the otherwise admirable career of Sherlock Holmes." —Margaret Brown
My favorites here, by quite a large margin, are "The Man with the Twisted Lip" and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." Both of them set the atmosphere so well, of creepiness and mystery, and both of them have solutions that are far from obvious, so they're greatly satisfying when you finally get the reveal from Holmes. I would probably put "The Red-Headed League" in the same category, except as mentioned previously, I already knew what was really going on, so the fun in reading that one was more in seeing how it played in its original format, rather than the way it played out in the contemporized version I read, which was written as if the BBC's Sherlock and John were hired to solve it in like, 2011 or something. (Tried looking up the specific fic so I could link it here, but couldn't find it. Alas and alack.)
[image] "The Man With the Twisted Lip," Sidney Paget, 1891
But even in the stories I didn't enjoy as much, you've still got Holmes and his lofty intelligence combined with Watson's deprecating nature. They play off each other so well, and it's cute to see Watson's descriptions change depending on how he's feeling about Holmes at the time. He can be quite biting towards his friend, and he isn't afraid to ding him when he feels he's wrong, or being ridiculous. But he is also incredibly fond of Holmes. Conan Doyle's prose just drips with affection between the two friends. That Holmes, who is supposedly so cold and logical, "the most perfect reasoning and observing machine," is the same man who plays his friend to sleep with his violin, is just so perfectly lovely.
Tackling The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in June. I think the only one I know about in that one is the infamous "The Final Problem," so hopefully some good ones in store....more
Honestly, a teensy bit disappointed in this one. It was more fun in bits and pieces than it was as a whole.
This is the novel that famously originatedHonestly, a teensy bit disappointed in this one. It was more fun in bits and pieces than it was as a whole.
This is the novel that famously originated at a dinner between an American publisher, Conan Doyle, and Oscar Wilde. Out of that meeting came The Sign of the Four (which is often shortened to just 'The Sign of Four') and The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I think most people would agree is the superior output (ACD thought it might be good fun to resurrect that Holmes fellow he put in that novel that one time). Maybe even good old ACD himself, who was known to have been so affected by meeting Wilde that bits and pieces of the author can be found in the Holmes stories (Holmes's dressing gowns and some of his affectations in particular). It wasn't a huge success in his native England, and Holmes and Watson wouldn't become a phenomenon until after he published the first short story in the The Strand a year later in 1891 ("A Scandal in Bohemia").
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The story is a bit meandering for me. Holmes is bored out of his mind without a puzzle to solve, crimes to untangle, when young Miss Mary Morstan, a governess, shows up at Baker Street asking them to help them solve the mystery of her missing father, and the pearls that have shown up once a year in the post since his disappearance. It's more of an action adventure, treasure hunt, pseudo romance than I like my Holmes stories to be. I wanted to see more of Holmes's infamous brainwork, less boat chases and flimsy love stories (Watson falls in love with Mary Morstan after only several meetings and barely any conversation, although, Victorians, hmmm, who am I to judge?) I did enjoy the final confession, though.
Mostly, this was fun to listen to because I kept spotting things that have cropped up in Holmes pastiches and fanfic and adaptations, etc. This is really where ACD began to set the mood, the "formula", even though it wasn't 100% yet, and is kind of bloated. Also, Victorian ideas about colonialism and race abound here (it centers on a treasure from India, and soldiers who were stationed there).
Things that originated in this book that I know well:
-Holmes needing to be occupied at all times with brainwork; "I abhor the dull routine of existence" -Holmes's drug habit to alleviate that boredom: his "7% solution", the morocco case -Playing Watson to sleep with his violin -Agra -The name Sholto -The introduction of Mary Morstan -"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" -Toby the dog -Wiggins mentioned specifically as the de facto leader of the Baker Street Irregulars, who were only mentioned as a group in the first book -Holmes using disguise for the first time -"You know my methods. Apply them." -The introduction of Inspector Athelney Jones -Watson calling Holmes "a machine"
And probably more that I've forgot.
Anyway, it was fun to listen to, but not my favorite by far. Super excited to get to the short stories now. Much less chance of bloat, and a lot of classics coming my way....more
September 2016:This is the fifth in my series of posts wherein I write reviews for classic books in the form of letters to the characters so a[image]
September 2016:This is the fifth in my series of posts wherein I write reviews for classic books in the form of letters to the characters so as to avoid actually writing a review for a book that has been written about by everyone’s mother’s second cousin’s uncle twice removed from a monkey. I’m re-reading all of Jane Austen’s books in 2016, and it has so far been a fun experience. July was Emma month, and I was very much looking forward to it, since I’ve liked it more and more every time I’ve read it (first three stars, then four, and now five!). (Spoilers for a two hundred year old book to follow. Seriously, all the spoilers. Don’t read this if you haven’t read the book yet, which I do highly recommend the audio on, by the way. Juliet Stevenson continues to be a great narrator.)
– – –
Dear Mr. Frank Churchill,
‘Sup. You bought Jane Fairfax A PIANO.
Dammit, I want someone to buy ME a piano. My mother sold mine for the money seven years ago and I have never gotten over it. There is a baby grand shaped hole in my heart.
(If you had any sense at all, you would have done much better than a piano right from the beginning, but I suppose a piano is better than nothing at all. I’ve never had a rich relative threaten to take away all my hard-earned money for marrying a person said relative didn’t like. I guess I don’t know your “pain.”)
I was also gonna yell at you a little for messing around with Emma’s feelings, but then I remembered that you told her you knew she didn’t actually have feelings for you. I guess you picked a good target for your little ruse, even if you didn’t do it on purpose.
- - -
Dear Harriet,
If I was a crueler person, I might tell you to grow a spine, but I suppose it’s not really your fault that you’re so easily led. It is, of course, extremely fitting that Emma chose you of all people to latch onto. You see, my dear, you’re a pushover. Your opinions are so fragile. I don’t get people like you. Is it because you have no confidence in yourself, you just think the nearest person with a strong opinion must be right? I wish someone would explain it to me.
- - -
Dear Miss Bates,
You are quite a bit to deal with, you know. I would suggest maybe learning to embrace the quiet. You don’t have to fill up all the silences. They won’t bite you. I think you would be surprised how people would respond to you if you did so.
- - -
Dear Mrs. Weston,
Like, do you even have a first name, or . . . ?
(Wikipedia tell me it’s Anne, but that was nowhere in the novel, so I’m still skeptical.)
- - -
Dear Mr. Elton,
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- - -
Dear Mr. Weston,
You, quit it with your matchmaking. You’re worse than Emma!
Also . . . there’s this huge piece of the story missing from your narrative, and I’ve realized just as I’m typing this to you, I want to know about it! Why didn’t you raise your son, Frank Churchill, yourself? Everybody seems to take it as a given that he was raised by his aunt and uncle, and sure they’re wealthy and all, but he also had to play mindgames with them about his love life (and probably many other things) so they obviously didn’t have that healthy of a relationship. Was it because you believed yourself, as a man without his wife, incapable of raising your son? Was it because you were thought too young (if I do the math right, you were in your early twenties)? Was this your decision or his aunt and uncle’s? And if it was theirs, why did you give in?
Inquiring minds wish to know.
(And also to pass judgment.)
- - -
Dear Mr. Woodhouse,
You are infuriating. I am probably a bad person, but look, it is ALL IN YOUR HEAD. I think what annoys me the most about you is that while you are essentially a harmless old man, if you look a little deeper, underneath that harmless veneer is a streak of pure self-interestedness. You literally cannot fathom the world beyond your own opinions of it. I would task you with learning a little empathy, and to embrace reality, but I fear it’s too late for you. Emma and Knightley will coddle you until the day you die, and they will do so willingly. WHY DOES THIS MAKE ME SO ANGRY I DON’T KNOW.
Please feel free to disregard my letter. I have a feeling it says more about me than it does about you.
- - -
Dear Jane Fairfax,
Look, I get it. You’re so put upon and alone. And Emma is such a pain, and FRANK of all people, why did you have to pick FRANK to fall in love with? I also get why you don’t want to be a governess for someone else’s snot-nosed privileged brats. You want your own life, your own babies, your own husband. But damn, girl. You’re so hard to get to know!
I realize this is largely a function of us seeing your story through Emma’s eyes. Most of the time she’s so, you know, EMMA, she doesn’t leave room for you in the narrative.
Mostly I just want to get to know you a bit more, give you the benefit of the doubt that I’d like you. I want to like you.
I swore I would never read any of that published Jane Austen fanfiction, but I might have to make an exception. There’s apparently a book (aptly titled Jane Fairfax) that features your take on the events of this story. I’m very curious to read it.
- - -
Dear Mr. Robert Martin,
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, largely on Mr. Knightley’s recommendation, that you fell in love with Harriet because of how essentially sweet and kind she is, and one pure soul can recognize another, blah blah blah. I really hope you aren’t one of those patronizing assholes who fall in love with women to “protect them” or because you can tell they’ll follow your every lead, or whatever else bullshit they’ve got going on.
There is no way to know. You are not real.
- - -
Dear Mr. Knightley,
I think you are dreamy. I do not think it is a big deal, or a deal at all, that you are seventeen years older than Emma, nor that you fell in love with her when she was thirteen. It was an innocent time, and you are a gentleman. You fell in love with her spirit and her attitude, and I think that is just fine.
Also, your incarnation in Emma Approved is my fave.
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I need a rewatch STAT.
- - -
Dear Mrs. Elton,
Kindly deflate your noggin. It’s not like you married the blasted crowned prince of England. And yes, Emma is much prettier than you and everyone likes her more than they like you, even though (as my mother would say) she is a pill. Such is your lot in life. DILL WITH IT.
[image]
- - -
Dear Emma,
This is now the third time I have read your book, and I can’t even believe I’m saying this, I finally get it. Getting older is sucky a lot of the time, but it does have its benefits. For example, being able to finally and truly appreciate a much beloved piece of literature and its titular heroine. Your creator, the dear Miss Jane, famously described you as “A heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.” And she was right, but not because you are an inherently unlikable character. You are joyful and fun to be around. You have a zest for life that is infectious.
You are also spoiled, privileged, and incredibly sure of yourself, even when you are wrong. Especially when you are wrong.
Here’s the thing, nobody likes admitting they are wrong. And most people when they are young think they are right ALL THE TIME. There is an arrogance that comes with being young but not a child. You’re old enough to think you know what you need to know, but not young enough to need anyone’s constant guidance, and your experience doesn’t yet exist to an extent that your confidence could be justified. You don’t yet realize that you know nothing. And so reading about you? It just isn’t fun, because reading about you presents young readers with a version of themselves that is hard to reckon with. Here is a person so sure in her opinions, so well-liked and brought up, in such a sure position. And here is her being wrong. About everything. We see her being so wrong, and messing up everything, and it makes us deeply, deeply uncomfortable. Maybe we don’t even realize that’s what’s happening, it’s so deep.
It’s so uncomfortable, even the happy ending isn’t enough to assuage us.
Basically, your story is a story about growing up, for people who have already grown up. Some people never really do that, and so I think some people indeed, will never much like you.
August 2016: This book seriously gets better every time I read it. I'm contemplating upping it to five stars when I write my full review, but I dunno, I guess we'll seeeeeeee.
April 2010: Second time through I've decided to add a star.
The thing about this book is that you have to sit through the first two parts to get to the third part where it's all worth it. And that's a lot to ask, considering that there is only one likable character in the whole thing (Mr. Knightley, of course). Even Jane Austen knew that Emma would be hard to deal with. But the third volume brings everything together so nicely as to almost erase the impression that the first two volumes leave behind.
I definitely don't see how anyone could call this novel Austen's masterpiece, though, when Pride and Prejudice is clearly sitting over in the other corner being superior in every way....more
This is the third in my series of posts wherein I get weird and write reviews for classic books in the form of letters to the characters. I’m r[image]
This is the third in my series of posts wherein I get weird and write reviews for classic books in the form of letters to the characters. I’m re-reading all of Jane Austen’s books in 2016, and it has so far been lovely, even with this one. May was Mansfield Park month, and I was looking forward to it, as it has been my least favorite Austen since I first read it, and thought that might make for an interesting reading experience. In fact, until now, it's the only one of her books I hadn't re-read. (Spoilers for a two hundred year old book to follow. Seriously, all the spoilers. Don’t read this if you haven’t read the book yet, which I do highly recommend the audio on, by the way. Juliet Stevenson is a great narrator.)
(Also, I finished this book in May and it is almost August. This review was not easy to write--this book is just not one that engages me.)
– – –
Dear Sir Thomas,
I think I'm supposed to like you, but I don't. You raised two largely useless children, and one that is sort of useful some of the time, but has an annoying propensity to mansplain things and fall for questionable women. You also treat your niece Fanny with indifference for most of her life. I know she doesn't make being her family easy (you could probably just look at her little face to see she's quietly judging you, and she probably doesn't make for a great conversationalist). But still, you don't pay attention to her until she's pretty. I don't know how else to interpret your actions.
And then you start playing favorites with her against your own children. I suppose it's nice that Fanny ends up with a father figure in her life, when her own is nothing special, but it makes you look like an ass. Raise frivolous, morally suspect children and then turn on them, that's what you do.
(When you yelled at Fanny and made her cry for refusing to marry a man she found unsuitable (and rightly so), I did hate you very much indeed. And I don't even like Fanny all that much! I just hate arrogant bullies.)
- - -
Dear Mr. Rushworth,
I think I'm supposed to find you ridiculous, but I just feel sorry for you. Nobody takes you seriously even before you marry Maria and she cheats on you with Mr. Foofy Pants I'm So Hot Right Now I Can't Even Contain Myself.
That's . . . all I got.
- - -
Dear William,
Mehhhh. You're okay. I'm really trying here, but Fanny likes you, and that's really your only identifying characteristic: being her only loved sibling.
- - -
Dear Susan,
But then you show up in the end, and I guess Fanny learns to love you, too, and you should be grateful for being taken out of that disgraceful uncivilized household and brought into a REAL household where you can learn to be a REAL person just like Fanny did. That is the lesson here.
- - -
Dear Mrs. Price,
I just feel like you don't care. You married for love, right? How did that work out for you? You're just basically like, TAKE MY CHILDREN, JUST TAKE 'EM, all the time. I don't get you, and I don't care to. I said Good Day.
- - -
Dear Henry,
[image]
[image]
- - -
Dear Mary,
Friends was after your time (and also you are fictional), but allow me to quote you a poem. It's called "The Empty Vase":
'Translucent beauty . . . My vessel so empty with nothing inside. Now that I've touched you, you seem emptier still.'
An asshole wrote this poem, but you should probably think it over real hard.
In your case the emptiness is mostly because you're morally bankrupt, but you know, it works so I'm going with it. Please feel bad about sullying such a pretty face.
[image]
- - -
Dear Lady Bertram,
I don't know, man. Maybe pay more attention to your actual children than your dog?
- - -
Dear Julia,
You have terrible taste in men, and you are a terrible sister.
- - -
Dear Maria,
You have terrible taste in men, you are a terrible sister, and you make bad choices that hurt people.
(I do feel bad, though, that you will be the one suffering the scandal, and not Henry Crawford. He'll probably charm the skirts off some other gullible heiress and be just fine in the end.)
- - -
Dear Edmund,
The first time I read this book, I thought you were okay. Obviously a bit dim or shallow, to have misread Mary Crawford so completely, and not seen Fanny at all, but that's forgivable. This time through, though, I found you bothersome. You are soooo patronizing to Fanny, and so full of your own righteousness, I very much wanted to kick you in the pants. You think you are so much better than all your family members, including Fanny, but you're so busy being right, you can't even see your own faults. And this is never really rectified, to my satisfaction.
You shoulda groveled, son.
- - -
Dear Tom,
I don't know why, but I like you.
That's all. Go about your day.
- - -
Dear Fanny,
I feel like you are the key to understanding this novel, which is tough because for much of it, you are an empty center the plot just rotates around. You are almost completely passive, and even as you're just sitting there watching events unfold, we get almost nothing of your feelings regarding what's happening. Like, that whole thing with the ha-ha, you just watched those fools cross boundaries with each other and you could see the disaster coming, but you did nothing but sit there and judge them. That's right, people think you're sweet and kind because you're quiet, but you're not kind or sweet, you are silent because you do not feel safe enough to speak your peace. In reality, you are a pretty, judgmental little squirrel, with almost no compassion for the plights of others. Inside, I feel like your brain is just an unending mantra of, "Well, their own fault, really." That, and chains of looping images of Edmund with hearts floating over his head.
This was the key for me:
"The remembrance of all her earliest pleasures, and of what she had suffered in being torn from them, came over her with renewed strength, and it seemed as if to be at home again would heal every pain that had since grown out of the separation. To be in the centre of such a circle, loved by so many, and more loved by all than she had ever been before; to feel affection without fear or restraint; to feel herself the equal of those who surrounded her; to be at peace from all mention of the Crawfords, safe from every look which could be fancied a reproach on their account. This was a prospect to be dwelt on with a fondness that could be but half acknowledged."
You don't desire compassion or generosity in companions, you desire to be their equals. You only remained silent as a child, and even as your cousins committed wrongdoings, because you felt you had no power or right to speak. But your desire for equality does not translate for others to be equal as well. You're just in it for you. By the end, you've got Edmund, you're the center of the family (Julia, Tom, and Maria, we do not speak of). You don't hate them or wish them ill, but you won't try to help them.
You didn't want anyone paying attention to you when you were younger, not because you were modest or shy, but because you were afraid they'd find out what you really thought.
I am perhaps misinterpreting your actions, but I find you and your book perplexing, and the ultimate point of the narrative you're enmeshed in eludes me.
I do wish you well in your new happy life as the Princess of Mansfield Park.
- - -
Dear Mrs. Norris,
I find it fitting that you were immortalized in the minds of young children (and anyone else who loves Harry Potter) as a vicious, nosy cat. Like you, feline Mrs. Norris is a bothersome thorn, but not worthy of hatred, just pity in the end.
I probably chose the wrong time to read this one, as so many of my friends like it quite a bit, even ones who don’t like Thomas Hardy as a writer. ButI probably chose the wrong time to read this one, as so many of my friends like it quite a bit, even ones who don’t like Thomas Hardy as a writer. But it nicely filled a challenge for Read Harder, and because it’s been on my TBR for over a decade, and it was available on SCRIBD, I did it. And I didn’t not like it, I just found it hard to finish, and it never really caught my attention. I missed soooo much while reading because my brain just always wanted to be somewhere else. This is where I confess that I had to do research on the plot and themes and the historical context afterwards to see what exactly the point of it all was. (This was actually really helpful.)
Far From the Madding Crowd follows Gabriel Oak, one-time farmer, now down on his luck shepherd, over the years of his personal and professional relationship with Bathsheba Everdene, a free spirited woman who inherits her uncle’s farm. The novel is structured around Bathsheba’s relationship with the three men who wish to marry her: Gabriel (who is turned down by her at the beginning of the novel as she tells him she’s too independent to marry), Mr. Boldwood (a wealthy but socially awkward bachelor who she sends a joke Valentine to that causes him to notice her and fall into a rather unhealthy obsessive love with her), and Sergeant Troy (a soldier who charms her but who has a dodgy history with women and money).
The why of it all was lost to me, as previously explained by my brain not being into it, but Hardy apparently wrote this novel as a way to preserve in writing the rural English farming culture that he saw disappearing through industrialization. Gabriel Oak is the ideal English farmer: dependable, in tune with nature, hard working, honest, and loyal. I honestly finished this book underwhelmed, and I was glad to be done with it.
Then I heard there was a film version with Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts (from The Old Guard, which is a movie you should all watch if you haven’t seen it yet), and Michael Sheen, and that it was good, so I sat down last Friday night to watch it. It was so lovely it made me retroactively appreciate the book. Everything that failed to land for me in the book (Hardy’s style, mostly, very wordy) hit very hard with the film. I highly recommend watching it even if you have no desire to read the book. Anyway, now that I’ve seen it, I can’t even be mad that I mostly had to force myself through this book for a couple weeks. Maybe I’ll revisit in the future when I’m in a different head space. I’ll definitely be watching the movie again.
Read Harder Challenge 2020: Read a book that takes place in a rural setting....more
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