stories. Usually literary conversation with DT is about his fascinating theory regarding the witches in Macbeth. But this time, he was looking for suggestions on mystery fiction.
A number of possibilities came to mind beginning with Dorothy Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, "The Nine Tailors" considered by many, including Sinclair Lewis, to be the greatest murder mystery of all time. Another possibility was Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone," technically not the first full length mystery novel in the English language, but effectively so. While these are great works that anyone would enjoy I fell back another classic, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles."
I first read this Sherlock Holmes classic when I was in the fifth or sixth grade and I have always regretted reading it that early in life, for at least two reasons. The first is that it scared me to the extent that I couldn't sleep at night. My mother then read it and said she understood why I couldn't sleep. The other reason is that I was far too young to understand or appreciate the intricacies of the plot, but by the time I was old enough I already knew what happened. On reflection now my negative feelings about having read it at such an early age have changed. While I might have appreciated the plot more when I was older, I don't have any confidence that age would have helped me figure out the mystery. In reading all 60 of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories, the only one I ever figured out was "The Adventure of the Speckled Band."
By coincidence I was on the web site of the Harvard (the St. Leo's of the north) Library the other day looking for information about a Lincoln symposium as part of the Lincoln bicentennial observations. I was surprised to also find information about a Conan Doyle symposium in May due to the fact that this is the sesquicentennial of Doyle's birth. It sounds like something that I might very well want to attend.
Both of these things happening more or less simultaneously re-awakened my interest in reading Sherlock Holmes stories. A couple of years ago Paul and Sarah gave me one volume of the new "Annotated Sherlock Holmes.'' In addition to having all of the stories it contains footnotes with a lot of commentary and background information. I started reading the introduction the other night and plan to start off with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in the near future.
Like most readers there are always some books and stories that I like to reread. Once again I got an idea about this from Elaine at Random Jottings who makes re-reading books and series of books a regular part of her reading schedule. I plan to do that at as well and there is no better place to start than by returning to a world where "fog rolls through the gas lit streets, a hansom cab waits at the door and the game is always afoot." Of course as DT knows the phrase "the game is always afoot" is drawn from Shakespeare - a popular line in Henry V's "Once more onto the breach" speech, but I think it appears earlier in "Henry IV, Part I."
1 comment:
Very interesting post. You look just like Sherlock although one might suggest that you visit Dino to get those sideburns trimmed. This Deep Thinker fellow must be quite a guy. Early morning runner, expert on MacBeth and now interested in classic mysteries.
When this blogga was in fifth grade, he read "War and Peace".
Keep up the good work!
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