Our featured writer today is Vicki Delany Let’s give her a warm welcome!
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The Enduring Appeal of Sherlock Holmes
by Vicki Delany
What is it about Sherlock Holmes that has captured the popular imagination arguably more than any other figure in fiction? Is it his incredible intellect that has us all enthralled? Is it the gaslit streets, the extravagant dresses and hats, frock coats, walking sticks, and top hats? Maybe it’s the sometimes-stiff, formal language. Is it Dr. John Watson himself, ever confused but always loyal, or the simple friendship between two such different men?
Regardless of the reason, there’s no doubting the continuing popularity of the Great Detective.
When I first had the idea of setting a mystery series in a store dedicated to all things Sherlock Holmes, I wondered if it might be a stretch trying to stock such an establishment. After all, it sounds like a very specialized niche, and there aren’t that many books. Are there?
A quick bit of research quickly showed me that such a thing would be not only possible, but easy to pull together.
And thus, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, located at 222 Baker Street, West London, Massachusetts, was born and I set about stocking my virtual store.
Aside from the original sixty Holmes books and stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, there’s a plethora of pastiche novels and short story collections, either continuing the adventures of Holmes and Watson or other individuals mentioned in the original books or reimagining new characters in their image. Modern interpretations are no longer limited to the gaslit, fogbound streets of the greatest city in the world, the ‘smiling and beautiful countryside’ or the ‘lowest and vilest alleys in London’ but are set in just about any time or place imaginable.
Every book mentioned in the books for sale in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium exists in the real world. (Except for the obvious exception of a visiting author who drops dead at the signing table in the second book in the series, Body on Baker Street!)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for the detective he created, but he wrote many other books, and there are numerous biographies of him and his contemporaries, plus non-fiction works to do with the Canon and their offshoots. And then there are the stage plays, TV shows and movies, virtually countless, of which some of the best-known star actors ranging from Basil Rathbone to Jeremy Brett to Benedict Cumberbatch. There are many books on the making of those productions.
For the Emporium part of my fictional store, I stock games, puzzles, mugs, decorative plates, dolls, finger puppets, socks, T-Shirts, calendars, cardboard cut-outs of the actors. The choices are endless.
The protagonist in my Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, Gemma Doyle, is herself a recreation of Sherlock. I had great fun reimagining Sherlock Holmes as a modern young woman, with the ever confused but always loyal Jayne Wilson at her side. Jayne runs Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room, at 220 Baker Street.
One can find Sherlockian societies in almost all corners of the world. I don’t know for sure if there’s one in Antarctica, but I would not be surprised. When I began writing my series, I was concerned that I might offend some of these illustrious scholars and amateur enthusiasts, but they have taken my books in the spirit in which they are intended: good, affectionate fun. Members of the group nearest where I live, The Bootmakers of Toronto, have helped me with book titles. It’s not easy coming up with a book title that 1) says cozy mystery 2) says bookstore mystery 3) says Sherlock Holmes related.
I believe much interest in Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson is because they are more than just fictional characters, they’re faithful representations of their times and attitudes (or those of their creator). I have an essay in the book Villains, Victims, and Violets: Agency and Feminism in the Original Sherlock Holmes Canon by Resa Haile and Tamara R. Bower, focusing mainly on the situation of the Stoner sisters in “The Speckled Band” my personal favourite of all the stories. (The word “Violet” in the title refers to the most commonly appearing female name in the Sherlock Holmes Canon.)
Whether in bookstores, at the movie theater, in front of the TV, or gathered around the games table, the game is indeed afoot. And may it always be so.
I’d love to hear the Balloon Juice community’s thoughts on the continuing appeal of Sherlock Holmes, and any theories as to why that is.
🌼 Upcoming book, release date January 9!
On January 9, 2024, Crooked Lane Books will release The Sign of Four Spirits, the 9th Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery. (The Sign of Four is one of the four Holmes novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
When a psychic fair arrives in West London, Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, wants nothing to do with it. But somehow, at the urging of Donald Morris, an enthusiastic Sherlockian, she finds herself talked into attending a séance, along with baker and best friend Jayne Wilson, store assistant, Ashleigh, and former pop star Bunny Leigh.
But to her surprise, Gemma finds herself banned from the séance and shown the door. Curious, she listens in from outside the room. The medium informs a disappointed Donald that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will not be able to make it tonight. Then, Gemma hears a voice cut off, a cry for help, a scream. Gemma bursts into the library to see that someone has collapsed on the table–dead. The windows are all locked, and Gemma was guarding the only door. Someone in this room is a murderer. But who?
The game is once again afoot for Gemma Doyle, as she hunts a killer. But, this time, is the killer of flesh and blood or had the medium summoned doom from beyond the veil?
You can find Vicki’s books here.
On The Road – ema – Dyker Heights Christmas Lights 2023
WaterGirl
Vicki, thanks for doing this, and please let us know when you get here!
Alison Rose
I’ve had the first one in this series on my TBR list for a while (as is the case with most of the books on that list, LOL). Just put it on hold on Libby!
Jess
Sounds fun! I’ll check out your work.
Vicki Delany
@WaterGirl: Thank you for allowing me to chat to the group today.
schrodingers_cat
Some of Sherlock Holmes stories are incredibly orientalist, borderline racist, I am thinking of the Sign of Four, which came to mind when I read the title of the upcoming book. I have read all of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and I enjoyed them as a child and a young adult but some of them haven’t aged well
The premise of this book sounds interesting, reminds me more of Christie’s books than Doyle’s.
CliosFanBoy
Cool! My wife and I visited that bookshop in 2014. One of her friends was living in London for work and lent us her
apartmentflat for a week that was about a block or two away.I guess Enola Holmes is copywritten, so you can’t work her in.
Alison Rose
My mom is a massive Sherlock Holmes fan, has read all of the original stories probably a dozen times, at least. She’s verrrrry picky about remakes and reimaginings, but I think she might like this series!
Vicki, do you have a favorite Holmes portrayal? Mom and I are both very partial to Jeremy Brett. I grew up watching his TV series with my mom, and I think he was just absolutely perfect.
schrodingers_cat
@Alison Rose: I agree with your mom about Brett. Cumberbatch was good too but I felt the show went of the rails in later seasons.
Alison Rose
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, an unfortunate side effect of reading classic lit is the “whoo boy, here’s the prejudice!” moment. I’ve encountered that a few times in Agatha Christie and Edith Wharton, among others. With some things, I can just sort of grimace and get past it, if the overall work is good enough.
Rand Careaga
Years ago I read some critic’s observation that reading the tales made him think that Conan Doyle had not so much created Holmes and Watson as summoned them forth from some archetypal Platonic realm.
Also, Conan Doyle was allergic to secret societies and cults generally, and not merely those hailing from the Raj. I can’t imagine many Mormons were pleased with A Study in Scarlet.
M31
Series sounds great will check it out!
I’ve always been partial to the Jeremy Brett Sherlock, in fact went to see him himself in a play in London back in the 80s, can’t remember the plot but I assume Irene Adler was in it :-)
Dorothy A. Winsor
That series looks great! I pre-ordered the new one. I hope I can read it without having read the previous ones, but I wanted it.
PaulWartenberg
Best luck with this Vicki!
As for who committed the murder:
(doffs deerstalker cap)
It was Professor Plum, in the Kitchen, with the Wrench
…
what?
band gap
I’ve read all the bookshop series and am looking forward to the next installment. I’m glad my library has them all.
I also like the Constable Molly series (not Sherlockian) set in the Canadian Rockies. Any plans for new books in that series?
pacem appellant
I love the care that went into crafting the fictional bookstore. Meticulous world-building details make a place stand apart both in its own universe and ours.
M31
Speaking of takes on Sherlock Holmes, here’s this insane silent movie from 1916, starring Douglas Fairbanks as a totally drug-addicted inept detective named Coke Ennyday (yes that’s his name), who snorts and shoots up CONSTANTLY throughout the entire movie, it’s completely bonkers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Leaping_Fish
In 1916, Doyle was still alive and writing Holmes, I wonder what he thought :-)
Alison Rose
@M31: Ooh, seeing him live must have been great!
Vicki Delany
@schrodingers_cat: You are definitely right about that. And some of Holmes’s opinions on women are also rather offensive. Although in the essay I mentioned in Villains, Victims, etc. I point out that in The Speckled Band Holmes believes Helen Stoner where no one else takes her concerns seriously.
Trivia Man
@Rand Careaga: I grew up Mormon and i was surprised that ANYONE had a single bad thing to say about Brigham Young. My parents explaned that because mormons had TRUTH and THE REAL GOD it was just haters. They hate us cause they ain’t us.
im surprised they let me keep reading it.
Turns out… Doyle was closer to the truth than i was. (Im a recovering mormon AMA. Or we can wait for a religion Q&A thread sometime)
Vicki Delany
@CliosFanBoy: I can mention the book Enola Holmes (and I have). As long as I don’t appropriate the character, I can name the book as it’s a real thing. Same principal of someone seeing a Toyota Corolla drive past.
M31
@Alison Rose:
Yes! Brett was a previous stage actor so he knew what to do up there :-)
His TV Holmes was the first I saw that portrayed Holmes as the neurotic weirdo he was, lol.
Vicki Delany
@Alison Rose: Brett by far. I consider him the definitive Holmes. I do like Cumberbatch’s spin, as he’s updated the character to suit our times.
Brachiator
Sounds like Holmes with a touch of Christie. Very cool.
If I recall correctly, Doyle surprisingly had a belief in the supernatural even though his friend Harry Houdini tried to warn him away from this stuff. I do believe though, that Holmes was resolutely grounded in the material world.
I think that I was drawn to the detective fiction of Edgar Allen Poe and Conan Doyle early on, particularly the Holmes short stories. I was immediately hooked, but can’t really explain that early fascination.
I enjoy a lot of Holmes related works and spin-offs. I remember in junior high school running across a fun Holmes pastiche in a detective named Solar Pons.
Trivia Man
available on Audible? If its not on yet, I’ll audition as the reader!
Vicki Delany
@schrodingers_cat: The last season of the Cumberbatch show was a total mess.
Vicki Delany
@M31: That would have been fabulous.
Vicki Delany
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thank you so much. The plot in the book stands completely alone, so it can be read as a standalone.
Vicki Delany
@band gap: Nice to come across a reader! I don’t plan on writing any more of the Molly Smith books, although I did like them very much. I have too much else on my plate right now, but never say never.
Vicki Delany
@Brachiator: Arthur CD was very interested in the spiritual and he wrote extensively about it. He refused to believe Houdini, when the latter tried to explain how he did his tricks and Doyle never spoke to Houdini again. I used that believe as the device to get this book started. One of Gemma’s Sherlockian friends persuades her to go to the séance as a matter of ‘research’
CliosFanBoy
@Rand Careaga:
Considering how he went ga-ga over spiritualism and the Cottingley Fairies, that’s kind of ironic.
Alison Rose
@Vicki Delany: Definitive is a good way to put it! Sometimes there are actors and roles that seem like they were destined for each other.
CliosFanBoy
@Vicki Delany:
I have a talk I have started giving on Spiritualism in DC in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Doyle and Houdini sometimes gave competing talks on the issue in different theaters. Congressional hearings on banning phony spiritualists turned into a circus when Houdini testified. One southern Democrat (from Asheville, NC) had never heard of Houdini and was really worried he was promoting “Hindi” or Islamic theology. The bill died in committee as they couldn’t figure out how to ban con artists without also banning true believers for whom Spiritualism was a religion.
Miss Bianca
I too have often wondered at the perpetual fascination with Sherlock Holmes (my own very much included).
This book sounds like fun!
(And I must be the only person in the universe who found Jeremy Brett to be such a dead bore that I quit watching his Holmes after one episode. Basil Rathbone’s was my jam, and the only one I think who really rivals him in my affections is Jonny Lee Miller’s in Elementary. Lucy Liu is easily my favorite Watson as well. Although Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman gave them a run for their money, at least in the first couple seasons of Sherlock.)
M31
@Vicki Delany: I didn’t know Houdini talked to Conan Doyle, that is cool, and too bad he wasn’t able to convince him.
a pretty good book, ‘The Witch of Lime Street’ covers Houdini’s efforts to expose the trickery of fraudulent mediums (lol ‘media’?)
Houdini knew all the tricks and he’d happily replicate them to show how they were done
Vicki Delany
@CliosFanBoy: Interesting bit of history
Vicki Delany
@Miss Bianca: I don’t know about the universe, but you are the first person who ever told me they didn’t like Brett in the role.
Ironcity
You never know where you will find a Holmesian. Some 24 years ago I remarked to the pediatric surgeon that was in the process of saving my then 8 month old daughter’s life that it was a capital error to theorize in advance of the facts, as it inevitably biases the judgment. His double-take was priceless, turned out to be a real Holmes fan.
pacem appellant
@Miss Bianca: Miller and Liu as Holmes and Watson was definitely one of my favorites. I found the writing uneven at times, but the actors did the absolute best with what they had.
My all-time favorite actors in the role were Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely from the 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. My disappointment with that version was that the writing and cinematography were awful, making my admiration of the actors even more profound.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Miss Bianca: @Vicki Delany:
I have been a devoted Holmes fan since childhood. I still have my copy of the Annotated Sherlock Holmes.
I am also an Elementary fan. I feel it was very true to the spirit of the character. Both Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are great in it.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’ve read and reread all of the original Doyle stories, but also I’m kind of fond of stories where other authors play with the Holmes and Watson characters.
Shadows over Baker Street is a fun anthology where all the stories are set in a merger of H.P. Lovecraft’s and Arthur Conan Doyle’s universes. Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Holmes is sitting on my to-be-read pile, which as always is getting higher and higher.
J
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m going to disagree, at least in part. I acknowledge that the portrait of the Andaman islander in The Sign of the Four is open to the complaint you level, but more often it’s the breadth of Conan Doyle’s human sympathies that is striking. The Yellow Face is an amazing example of anti-racism. Don’t forget the ACD’s real life anti-racism, the story told in Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George. A recurring theme in the stories is how the crimes of empire (to be sure, it would be more accurate to say ‘made possible by empire’ rather than ‘of empire’) have consequences that reach the metropolitan country. As far as a I can tell, the stories have no sinister Jewish characters–an incredibly easy and common cliche at the time and long afterwards (cf., e.g., Buchan).
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@M31: There was a hoax early in the 20th century involving photographs of “real” fairies with two sisters. To modern eyes the fairies are very obviously what the sisters eventually admitted (at the end of their lives) they were: paper dolls. But much to my disappointment, Conan Doyle was one of the people utterly taken in by the hoax.
Miss Bianca
@Vicki Delany: Maybe it was just listening to everyone rave about how great he was that led me to expecting more than I found. I thought he *looked* like a picture-perfect Holmes, but that was it for me as far as affect went. Anticipointment – it’s a thing!*
*Thank you, Paul McCartney, for this wonderful neologism.
Barbara
I am always looking for new mystery series in between my serious reads. I have found the last few books I have started to be disappointing so on the look out for fresh material. Riffing on Miss Bianca’s comment, I think it would be an interesting theme for a Medium Cool post to know about a book or artist or movie that you just couldn’t understand why everyone else liked it or why it received such glowing reviews when you found it so flawed or disappointing. Not just contrarian “I don’t like anything that everyone else does” but really just found that it missed the mark in some obvious or profound way for you.
Miss Bianca
@CliosFanBoy: I’ve always been blown away by the thought that Sherlock Holmes would have been *horrified* by his creator’s belief in fairies and spiritualism! And wondered if Doyle ever pondered that thought himself!
Vicki Delany
@Ironcity: Great story.
Miss Bianca
@J: Ugh. John Buchan. He was one of my father’s favorite authors, but every time I’ve tried to read anything else of his beyond The 39 Steps (which I still have a fondness for), I’ve wanted to throw the book against the wall. Finally gave up on him.
Rafael Sabatini, on the other hand, another of Dad’s favorites who definitely has his problematic aspects as well, I still love and read to this day.
That’s what makes horse races, as my momma always used to say.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Any fans of Enola Holmes with Millie Bobby Brown? I like them (two movies on Netflix) even though they’re very far from canon. And I hate how Mycroft was demoted to kind of an idiot. But Henry Cavill as Sherlock is OK, and after all Enola (goddamit, stupid spell check, her name is not Ebola!) is the star. It’s a nice twist on all of the characters (except again Mycroft) and I like those kinds of twists.
Vicki Delany
@J: Good point. I also fell that although Holmes can be openly dismissive and almost rude sometimes, particularly to those he thinks aren’t keeping up with his though process, he is a genuinely nice person. (i forget which is the story in which he pretends to be servant and woos an innocent maid. That was not nice)
Vicki Delany
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: He even wrote a book about the existence of fairies.
Denali5
There is a serious link from the Spiritualist Movement to the Theosophists of the early 20th century. Spiritualism began with the Fox Sisters near Rochester, New York claiming to be able to communicate with the dead. The movement spread rapidly with many others also holding seances. Madame Blavatsky founded the Theosophy Society with an infusion of Asian beliefs and many prominent artists including Kandinsky, Frank Lloyd Wright, and other joined in. I am really summing up a cultural part of history rather poorly. I never understood the roots of abstract art, and finally have been able to make some connections through reading about this period of history.
Vicki Delany
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I liked those shows. I thought Millie Bobby Brown was great as Enola, and I loved Helena Bonham-Carter as the Holmes mother. Henry won’t ever be one of my favourites but he did a fine job.
Vicki Delany
I should mention that my absolute favourite of all the Holmes TV shows and movies, is Murder by Decree with Christopher Plumber as Holmes and James Mason as Watson. A great story with great atmosphere, as they hunt for Jack the Ripper
Miss Bianca
@Vicki Delany: Ooh, I’ll have to look for that one!
Alison Rose
@Miss Bianca: To each their own :) I always tell people (usually in regard to books) that there is nothing that is either universally beloved or universally despised. There are people who hate Dolly Parton and there are people who love Nickelback. Takes all kinds!
Dare I ask how you feel about David Suchet as Poirot? :P
Alison Rose
@Vicki Delany: I feel like Holmes was the kind of genius who had endless booksmarts and such but very very little social intelligence, and didn’t think the latter was all that necessary, LOL.
Miss Bianca
@Alison Rose:
From what I’ve seen of him (not much), he is *the* Poirot! Although I am curious to see what Kenneth Branaugh’s take on the character is in A Haunting in Venice.
(Another movie I wish we had gotten at my theater when we had the chance. My boss opted for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 instead, which bombed. So I guess I’ll have to wait for the DVD.)
band gap
@Vicki Delany: I first became aware of your books several years ago right here on Balloon Juice. You had made a comment on some post and also said something in passing about your books. So I checked with my library, and sure enough they had them. That got me started.
Then, in one of those first books I read you listed a few of the Sherlock pastiche books stocked in Gemma’s bookshop, and for fun I checked the library. They had Laurie King’s books, and now I’ve read all the Mary Russell books (Sherlock’s wife, even smarter than him). So thanks for that!
Jeremy Brett: just the best. Every little facial twitch, raising an eyebrow or a lip 1mm was just amazing to watch.
Vicki Delany
@Alison Rose: Totally agree. People have written to me and written reviews in which they said they didn’t like Gemma Doyle as she is sometimes too brusque. But – she is my interpretation of Sherlock Holmes so I think she has to have a few deficiencies in social intelligence (as you put it). In my books, I have Jayne try to point out when she might not be acting totally correctly. Sometimes, it doesn’t work
BlueGuitarist
@Vicki Delany:
Reminds me of the film Time After Time in which HG Wells chases Jack the Ripper through a Time Machine, to late 1970s San Francisco, and when questioned by police says his name is Sherlock Holmes.
Iirc screenplay by Nicholas Meyer, author of The 7% solution.
Alison Rose
@Miss Bianca: I adored Suchet in the role. Another one made for it, IMO.
I love Branagh though haven’t yet seen any of his Poirot. He definitely seems to ham it up a bit, which is typical for him, but I always find it charming :)
kalakal
@Miss Bianca:
I’m a huge fan of Sabatini, got hooked as a kid.
kalakal
I’m a great fan of Holmes, Doyle somehow managed to basically invent the perfect template for detective fiction .The stroke of genius was inventing Holmes & Watson, without Watson Holmes would be insufferable. Watson isn’t half as dim in the books as he is in the films, the Cumberbatch/Freeman series got that right.
kalakal
@Vicki Delany: Thank you for doing this,
I’m always on the look out for Holmes pastiches
Alison Rose
@kalakal: Yeah, the relationship of Holmes and Watson is one of the most fascinating in literature, I think.
Miss Bianca
@band gap: Another Holmes pastiche I found very enjoyable was Carole Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler series (spoiler alert: she *doesn’t* die in that train wreck, she and her husband miss the train, but in a very Holmesian manner she discovers that being “dead” has certain advantages.)
They are narrated by Penelope Huxleigh, Irene’s version of Watson, whom Irene A. befriends in the first book, Good Night, Mr Holmes, which among other things tells the story of A Scandal in Bohemia from Irene’s – and Penelope’s – POV. Fun stuff!)
Timill
@kalakal: Have you met “W G Grace’s Last Case”, by Willie Rushton?
It opens at Lord’s, in the shadow of the Martian war machine. WG batting, AJ Raffles the non-striker, and when the bowler is shot, he is pronounced dead by Drs Grace, Jekyll and Watson…
BlueGuitarist
@kalakal:
Yes!
Basil Rathbone very good as Sherlock, but the Watson in those films, um, requires a patient and forgiving audience.
kalakal
@Timill: No, thanks for the heads up, Willie Rushton was hilarious
@Miss Bianca:
One of the most interesting pastiches I’ve read is George MacDonald Frazers Flashman and the Tiger. Fraser somehow manages to take his own fictional character,the appalling Harry Flashman ( fiction’s greatest cad and bounder, being a continuation of the life of the bully in Tom Brown’s Schooldays) and insert him into The Adventure of the Empty House without altering the plot of the Holmes story at all.
kalakal
@BlueGuitarist: Yep, it was the Nigel Bruce portrayal that did it. Rathbone’s great but the Watson is terrible
Eyeroller
@kalakal:
The early Holmes-Watson movies really established that stereotype, especially the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce movies IMHO. The Granada (Jeremy Brett) dramatizations stuck very close to the stories and I always felt Watson was basically competent in them as well. He saves Holmes on more than one occasion.
I am another vote for Brett as THE Sherlock Holmes. In modern terms we would probably say that Holmes was “on the spectrum” and I thought Brett captured that. I also liked that the dramatizations were very faithful except when the ACD ending was either lame (The Priority School, which they changed to end up pretty much like “Tom Sawyer” rather than just having the culprit quietly shipped off to South Africa) or ridiculous (Silver Blaze, in which they revealed the horse’s identity before the race, since running an imposter horse would have gotten the horse disqualified and the owner banned) are the two that come to my mind.
billcinsd
I also like the Warlock Holmes series.
Miss Bianca
@kalakal: Oh, my. Can’t stand Flashman, I’m afraid (quite the contrarian today, ain’t I?), so unlikely to check that one out, but along with today’s poster I *do* find it fascinating that so many authors in so many ways have worked their will and creative talents on Holmes and Watson!
Are there any other characters in literary history who have had such a profound impact as archetypes? I mean, in terms of having been appropriated by others for stories beyond Doyle’s canon. If so, I’m drawing a blank on ’em.
kalakal
@Eyeroller: I too would pick Brett as the best. It’s a tragedy that Brett himself was terminally ill during the last series.
kalakal
@Miss Bianca:
He’s quite divisive, people either find the books hilarious or dreadful. I loved the way they played merry hell with the taught narrative of British history that was in style in England when I was a kid.
The only character I can think of that comes close is Dracula
Vicki Delany
@BlueGuitarist: I love that movie.
Vicki Delany
@kalakal: Agreed. It is the Watson character that makes the series. Watson is ‘us’ the everyperson confronted by the temperamental genius. In my series I deliberately made Gemma (not Jayne) the POV character as I am trying to be funny and I think first person works better for that, less inclined to sound mean.
kalakal
@Vicki Delany: Was that the one with Malcolm McDowell as Wells?
Miss Bianca
@kalakal: Ooh, Dracula! Good one!
Vicki Delany
@kalakal: Love Flashman!
Vicki Delany
@kalakal: It’s been a while since I saw it, but that sounds familiar.
Another Scott
@Eyeroller:
I haven’t read that story, but that description reminds me very much of an old Banacek episode – Horse of a slightly different color – I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they borrowed the idea from ACD or similar things.
(It’s crazy the things we remember from 50+ years ago…)
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Miss Bianca: Interesting question. Many Dickens stories have been “future forwarded” or otherwise used as a jumping off point for new stories — Jack Maggs is a novel by Peter Carey based on the (fictional) “factual premise” of the story that became Great Expectations. It is a really good novel in its own right.
The closest I can think of are the many imaginative retellings and embellishments of Jane Austen novels.
Mr. Bemused Senior
IMDB says “yes.”
kalakal
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Thank you, it stuck in my head at the time because I think it was the first time I’d seen Malcolm McDowell not playing the baddie or a maniac
BlueGuitarist
@Vicki Delany:
I love the idea of your books and am looking forward to reading them
and giving them as gifts!
Also pleased to discover there’s a dancing stick figures font (based on the “dancing men” cypher Holmes deciphers) so that I can have good accompanying cards
WaterGirl
BJ Peeps, Zoom Reminder:
New Year’s Eve zoom at 7-9 pm Eastern
New Year’s Day zoom at 1-3 pm Eastern, so some of our BJ peeps around the world can join!
send email if you want the zoom link.
Tehanu
@Miss Bianca: I too like Rathbone, Cumberbatch, and Jonny Lee Miller, and I love Martin Freeman, but I have to disagree about Jeremy Brett, who was always good, and Lucy Liu, who always looked fabulous, but couldn’t act her way out of the proverbial wet paper bag. Actually, my favorite Watson ever was also my favorite actor ever, James Mason, in the movie Murder By Decree with Christopher Plummer. “You squashed my pea!” is still one of our family in-jokes.
@Vicki Delany: Oh good, I’m not the only one! And btw, do you know of the Firesign Theatre album The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, starring Hemlock Stones and Dr. Flotsam?
BlueGuitarist
@WaterGirl:
Can’t zoom, but wishing very happy new year to the Balloon-Juice family: A year of creative and energetic efforts to defeat Trumpism/Republicans/fascism up and down the ballot, capped by a fabulous celebration of success.
fired up and ready to go!
Love all y’all
Vicki Delany
@Tehanu: No, I have not heard of that. Sounds like fun. As yes, “my pea”
Shana
Interestingly (or perhaps not) there’s a certain amount of overlap between Sherlockians and Wodehousians. At the bi-annual Wodehouse Society conventions, September 26-29 next year in Nashville, there’s always a breakout session called The Clients of Adrian Mulliner.
Joshua Todd
I love Holmes stories, I got Nicholas Meyer’s newest Holmes, and I’ll add this to my list, thank you!
WaterGirl
Vicki, thanks so much for doing this! I always suggest that the Artists and Authors check back later in the evening, too, and in the morning, because some Bj peeps come to these posts late.
Maybe we’ll even see you at one of the zooms this weekend!
(not actually a) Dr. Th0th Evans
@Brachiator:
I second Solar Pons (author: August Derleth) as a very good imitation Holmes. Hopefully he gets a cameo in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop sometime.
Torrey
@Miss Bianca:
@Vicki Delany:
.
I have absolutely loved Jeremy Brett in everything I have seen him in, except as Sherlock Holmes. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but it feels kind of like I can see the acting, the mental “stand here, do this facial expression, say the lines this way” that I don’t see with him in any other role.
Miss Bianca
@Torrey: Yeah, I think that was it for me, too. To me his performance seemed like a collection of tics and mannerisms cleverly masquerading as a characterization, which I found distracting and irritating.
Which surprized me because so many people had thrown so many bouquets around about it, and I too liked him in other stuff I’d seen him in.
But y’know, chacun a son gout and all that. You and I appear to be the minority opinion here! ; )
Skippy-san
When I was a boy, my Dad purchased the, “Annotated Sherlock Holmes”. It was two huge books with all 64 stories and notes to go with them. On a cross-country car ride to Colorado, I read them all. I love the Sherlock Holmes stories.
Vicki Delany
@WaterGirl: I will check in.
Vicki Delany
@(not actually a) Dr. Th0th Evans: I have not heard of that, but I’ll now rush to look him up.