Sherlock Holmes Short Stories Read Along!

[InspectorCaracal]

Yeah I don't think Monday is part of the weekend

/runs

Well, yes, agreed, but my definition of the weekend is Saturday and Sunday, with the optional inclusion of Friday evening if you insist. It's not Saturday or even Friday evening in any of our time zones?

Now if this is about late-posting that isn't until Wednesday.

I was in college for so long, Wednesday afternoon is already the weekend. Thursday evening at the absolute latest tbh.

dang, I always had Friday classes lol

[Bee]

Well, yes, agreed, but my definition of the weekend is Saturday and Sunday, with the optional inclusion of Friday evening if you insist. It's not Saturday or even Friday evening in any of our time zones?

Now if this is about late-posting that isn't until Wednesday.

I was in college for so long, Wednesday afternoon is already the weekend. Thursday evening at the absolute latest tbh.

dang, I always had Friday classes lol

Meanwhile my sister nearly always had classes Monday-Saturday lmfao (her department basically only offered morning classes)

But yeah no my schedule was usually packed Monday morning through Thursday afternoon/evening, but most Fridays were free

[thiskurt]

I was in college for so long, Wednesday afternoon is already the weekend. Thursday evening at the absolute latest tbh.

dang, I always had Friday classes lol

Meanwhile my sister nearly always had classes Monday-Saturday lmfao (her department basically only offered morning classes)

But yeah no my schedule was usually packed Monday morning through Thursday afternoon/evening, but most Fridays were free

I had the Monday - Saturday classes thing too after I dropped out of college and took equivalent degree adult education classes to finish the degree, but it was one or two classes per day too, although some were in the evening. One one day I had morning classes at 9am and then evening classes at like 8pm. That wasn't the best.

[InspectorCaracal]

J has the day off so it counts as the weekend for me!

So I find the whole thing with "Doyle thought the adultery theme was too much for children" to be hilarious because the thing that always stuck with me the most was, you know, the eponymous cardboard box containing two severed ears????? C'mon, that's pretty damn horrifying.

Anyway. This one isn't, generally speaking, one of my favorites, but it has some good points - in particular, it's got one of two openings where Holmes does the "reply to Watson's thoughts" thing.

I took especial glee in this bit, this time:

"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe's sketches [...]"

Remember in A Study in Scarlet when Holmes is like "PAH those fictional detectives are DRIVEL, let me tell you about their flaws in detail" and I was like, this just shows that Holmes reads them? Not only does this prove it conclusively, but he's actually reading it aloud to Watson??? IT'S ADORABLE??!?!

I'm envisioning him reading these stories and complaining aloud to Watson about how Extremely Disappointing they are and Watson being annoyed and defending the stories and then Holmes is like "look I can do everything they can but better, see, like this example" and Watson is like I HIGHLY DOUBT IT and then Holmes just spends the next like two weeks waiting for an opportunity to do the thing, and this is the result.

I also really enjoyed the bit where he's thinking aloud in Miss Cushing's back yard and going rapid-fire through all the missing connections of the case. Especially when followed up shortly after by Holmes being all like:

Simple as the case is,

The investigation really was a very simple one

Also, him going over the case to Watson later is so obviously him trying to teach Watson his methods, which is an ongoing thread through all the stories which I absolutely adore and which so few people remember is a foundational part of their friendship.

I really enjoyed this bit of snark inserted into the part reading Lestrade's letter, too

In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test our theories" ["the 'we' is rather fine, Watson, is it not?"]

I found myself skipping over the whole jilted lover confession story again, which I expect I did the first time as well and which explains why I never remember what this story was "about". I pretty much always get bored of the confessions if they're more than, I dunno, 3-4 paragraphs.

[Bee]

Too tired to think much but I honestly really Did Not Like this story :|

[InspectorCaracal]

Too tired to think much but I honestly really Did Not Like this story :|

i am 100% behind you lol

i could do without this story being there

[Bee]

So I find the whole thing with "Doyle thought the adultery theme was too much for children" to be hilarious because the thing that always stuck with me the most was, you know, the eponymous cardboard box containing two severed ears????? C'mon, that's pretty damn horrifying.

TBF that was published in an era when public hangings were a spectacle? IDK. I'm also not sure if it was just the adultery thing or the fact that a woman wanted to steal her brother-in-law and then ruined her sister's marriage when he rejected her advances. That's a hell of a lot darker than the usual adultery fare...

Anyway. This one isn't, generally speaking, one of my favorites, but it has some good points - in particular, it's got one of two openings where Holmes does the "reply to Watson's thoughts" thing.

I took especial glee in this bit, this time:

"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe's sketches [...]"

Remember in A Study in Scarlet when Holmes is like "PAH those fictional detectives are DRIVEL, let me tell you about their flaws in detail" and I was like, this just shows that Holmes reads them? Not only does this prove it conclusively, but he's actually reading it aloud to Watson??? IT'S ADORABLE??!?!

I'm envisioning him reading these stories and complaining aloud to Watson about how Extremely Disappointing they are and Watson being annoyed and defending the stories and then Holmes is like "look I can do everything they can but better, see, like this example" and Watson is like I HIGHLY DOUBT IT and then Holmes just spends the next like two weeks waiting for an opportunity to do the thing, and this is the result.

This WAS the best par of the story, yes! :D

I found myself skipping over the whole jilted lover confession story again, which I expect I did the first time as well and which explains why I never remember what this story was "about". I pretty much always get bored of the confessions if they're more than, I dunno, 3-4 paragraphs.

yeah I skimmed it and just desperately wanted the whole thing to be over >.<

[InspectorCaracal]

So I find the whole thing with "Doyle thought the adultery theme was too much for children" to be hilarious because the thing that always stuck with me the most was, you know, the eponymous cardboard box containing two severed ears????? C'mon, that's pretty damn horrifying.

TBF that was published in an era when public hangings were a spectacle? IDK. I'm also not sure if it was just the adultery thing or the fact that a woman wanted to steal her brother-in-law and then ruined her sister's marriage when he rejected her advances. That's a hell of a lot darker than the usual adultery fare...

That's a good point. And yeah, this story is just, like... I was gonna say darker than a typical Holmes story, but I dunno. It's like if the usual dark gothic-style Holmes stories are Jane Eyre dark where there's some pretty awful stuff but the hero(ine) overcomes it in the end, and this one is Wuthering Heights dark where it's just like a bunch of people doing terrible things for no good reason and everybody loses.

[Bee]

So I find the whole thing with "Doyle thought the adultery theme was too much for children" to be hilarious because the thing that always stuck with me the most was, you know, the eponymous cardboard box containing two severed ears????? C'mon, that's pretty damn horrifying.

TBF that was published in an era when public hangings were a spectacle? IDK. I'm also not sure if it was just the adultery thing or the fact that a woman wanted to steal her brother-in-law and then ruined her sister's marriage when he rejected her advances. That's a hell of a lot darker than the usual adultery fare...

That's a good point. And yeah, this story is just, like... I was gonna say darker than a typical Holmes story, but I dunno. It's like if the usual dark gothic-style Holmes stories are Jane Eyre dark where there's some pretty awful stuff but the hero(ine) overcomes it in the end, and this one is Wuthering Heights dark where it's just like a bunch of people doing terrible things for no good reason and everybody loses.

Yeah I'm not sure if it's darker exactly, but it's definitely a lot more disturbing.

As Miss Marple would say, there's great evil at work there. >.<

[Bee]

Btw I'll be offline for the Easter Triduum, do you guys want to skip this weekend, or should I post early/late?