The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Ever since I discovered Sherlock Holmes back in December, I can’t seem to get enough of him! I haven’t been reading the stories in any particular order, as I began with the Adventures and Memoirs of Holmes (together in one volume), went back to A Study in Scarlet, where Holmes was first introduced, and finally came to this last collection of short stories that Conan Doyle published about Holmes a few years before his death.

I found that this particular collection had a completely different feel to it, especially compared to the Adventures and the Memoirs. Part of this can be explained by Conan Doyle’s experimentation with different narrative voices, as unlike the previous collections I read, the entirety of this collection was not narrated by Watson. A few were recounted by Holmes, and one was in the third person omniscient voice. While it was really interesting to read the unfolding mystery from Holmes’s perspective, it definitely gave a completely different feel to the stories (particularly because, unlike Watson, Holmes always knows what’s going on, and has to be careful not to reveal everything from the outset!).

But more than the different narrative style, I found that overall these stories seemed both more dark, and less like adventures. It seems a bit silly to remark that the Adventures has a more, well, adventurous, feel to it than the Case-Book, but that’s really the best way to describe it. Even though eleven out of the twelve stories are titled “adventures” rather than “problems”, they read more like puzzles to be solved. I’m not sure if I felt this way because I’m becoming accustomed to Holmes’s problem-solving style, or if they’re really objectively more like puzzles. I’m not sure how to determine this.

In any case, I still found the stories extremely enjoyable, but would again recommend starting your aquaintance with Sherlock Holmes by reading the Adventures or the Memoirs rather than the Case-Book or A Study in Scarlet.

The ideas of my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedingly pertinacious. For a long time he has worried me to write an experience of my own. Perhaps I have rather invited this persecution, since I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to fact and figures. “Try it yourself, Holmes!” he has retorted, and I am compelled to admit that, having taken my pen in my hand, I do begin to realise that the matter must be presented in such a way as may interest the reader.

The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Volume I: 1888 – 1912 (Virginia Stephen)
Edited by Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann
Originally published in England as The Flight of Mind

The reason I read this book is quite simple: I love Virginia Woolf. I’m slowly making my way through everything she wrote, and I hadn’t read any of her personal writing before this book. I was originally going to start with her diaries, but the letters begin when she was younger so they seemed like a more logical place to start. Besides, I’ve been having difficulty finding copies of them, so I wanted to read at least the first volume while I had access to my university library.

There are 638 letters included in this volume. The first was written to her godfather when she was only six years old, and the last when she was thirty on the day before her wedding to Leonard Woolf. I would guess that the majority of letters in this collection were written to her older, close friend Violet Dickinson. Indeed, Virginia wrote to Violet so frequently for much of this period of her life, that it is possible to get a good sense of her day-to-day life from these letters.

What struck me the most from reading these letters was how Virginia’s voice spoke to me so clearly across the years. Even though these letters are old, and Virginia Woolf has since passed on, and the letters were not written for me in the first place, I feel as though I have become her correspondent in a very one-sided exchange. Reading her letters makes years separating the moment when she laid her words on paper with pen and ink, and the the day when I picked up a copy of this book, typeset and bound, collapse and fold up like a telescope. She can travel time to speak to me as though we were only separated by distance.

A true letter, so my theory runs, should be as a film of wax pressed close to the graving in the mind; but if I followed my own prescription this sheet would be scored with some very tortuous and angular incisions. Let me explain that I began some minutes since to review a novel and made its faults, by a process common among minds of a certain order or disorder, the text for a soliloquy upon many matters of importance; the sky and the breeze were part of my theme. A telegram however, with its necessary knock and its flagrant yellow, and its curt phrase of vicious English — I know not which sense was most offended — hit me in the wing and I fell a heaped corpse on the earth. The sense, if that can be said to have sense which has so little sound, was to discredit the respectability of a house in Fitzroy Square. And there you see me in the mud.
- to Clive Bell, February 1907

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This time I decided to follow up a fantastic read with a complete change of pace: a leap into the criminal underworld of Victorian London, as navigated by none other than Sherlock Holmes.

I became addicted to Sherlock Holmes stories during exam period last semester when I picked up a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and read them when I should have been writing my final essay of the term. I decided on A Study in Scarlet next, because it’s actually the first Sherlock Holmes book, and explains how Holmes and Watson meet.

I’m not going to get into the plot, mostly because I would just spoil it, but also because I find that if you try and explain Sherlock Holmes stories, they come off as ridiculous and far-fetched (which they are) without getting across their charm and humour.

After reading this book, which at 130 pages is much longer than the stories in the book I read, I’ve concluded that I prefer the shorter stories. This one felt a bit dragged out, and as the first book I felt that Holmes wasn’t quite the character I’ve come to love. The major failing of this book though was that there was about 40 pages of back story that didn’t involve Holmes at all! Really, I read the stories for Holmes’s hilarious antics so this section of the novel was mostly wasted on me.

My overall recommendation is to begin with Conan Doyle’s shorter Holmes fiction, and to save A Study in Scarlet for when Holmes has already won you over.

I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in colour and flaky — such an ash as is only made by a Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes — in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand either of cigar or of tobacco.

And finally, a question: Where did the image of Sherlock Holmes in a deerstalker come from? He isn’t described as wearing such a hat in any of the stories I’ve read so far.

Emma by Jane Austen

Sometimes I’m just in the mood for some Austen. (This mood is characterised of course by a desire for wit, outspoken heroines, and neat, clean, unambiguous endings.) I picked up Emma because I felt like re-reading Northanger Abbey but Mum was reading my copy. Besides, I’d never read Emma and am working my way through all of Austen’s novels. Now I just have Persuasion left. (It and Emma were the only ones that weren’t assigned in school!)

I had a bit of trouble getting into it at first, but once I did I found it absolutely hilarious. Emma herself was just too much for me in her complete inability to understand the realities of a situation. The best part about this is that Austen makes it perfectly clear to the reader what is going on, so you get all the smug benefits of dramatic irony. Also the dialogue is fantastic. A couple of specific things struck me when I was reading the book:

1. Whoever it was who said that Austen is embarrassing to read because her novels centre around money was absolutely correct. (How I wish I could find that exact quotation again!) I should elaborate and say that I don’t find Austen’s discussion of money embarrassing, but I do find it significant that it is such a prominent feature in her books, especially in relation to marriage. I noticed it more in this book than in her others, but maybe that’s just because I was paying more attention to it.

2. I kept thinking about the Facebook group I came across called “Reading Jane Austen gave me unrealistic expectations about love.” I know that there are obviously major differences in the way that relationships work today compared to how they worked 200 years ago in high society, but the whole courtship game really stood out to me in an uncomfortable way because I kept thinking about it in light of today. Do people really still have expectations about love based on Jane Austen novels? I honestly can’t imagine being disappointed that my love life doesn’t play out like an Austen novel (and this is no way intended as an insult to my delightful first cousins).

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable house and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her….The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.