Contains spoilers. Readers, be warned.
Since I've been reading a lot these few days, I might as well write down what I get from those books. So here is a review of one book that I read during my stay in kampung over the weekend. A very famous book revolving around a very famous fictional detective and his equally famous sidekick. A very famous story indeed! :D
I think most everyone knows or has heard of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson. As a kid, I used to read abridged versions of all his famous investigations, The Sign of Four being my favourite of them all. I haven't watched the 2010 film adaptation starring Robert Downey Jr. However, I did watch an unaired pilot episode of BBC's Sherlock, which is good enough to ignite a long-forgotten passion for investigative works within me. So I got myself a cheap copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes just
before New Year, and boy, I don't regret it for the slightest bit!
The styles are different throughout. There are some cases from other compilations that are narrated by Holmes himself, and some by an omniscient voice. But I enjoy the story most when it is Dr Watson that puts on the narrator's hat. After all, he was the one who started all the sensation with A Study in Scarlet. He's a normal person, just like me. We both do not study the science of deduction, and we both have average minds. So it is interesting to be finding out the wonders of Sherlock's deduction from the point of view of one who is not in the know. Plus, Watson is a funny character. He's someone I would be delighted to have conversations with over dinner.
Sherlock, on the other hand, is a bit of an enigma. Even without his incredibly unbelievable skills of finding out things about people that are not very obvious at first, the way he carries himself is also quite strange. I credit Doyle for this impressive work of character building that not only makes Sherlock intriguing, but also human. I am sure I have never encountered such human-ness before, but it feels human nonetheless. Even his patronizing "Elementary" to our much beloved Watson is a delight to read =)
The first part, the adventures, is straightforward cases presented as short stories, so they work really fine for people who like to read during commuting. Every case is a new start so it doesn't require an immense attention span. Perfect! It is the same for the second part, the memoirs. However, the Memoirs is especially famous because it marks Holmes' involvement with the notorious Professor Moriarty. The Final Problem accounts Holmes last moments before he was said to have fallen down the Raichenbach Fall clutched together with his nemesis, Moriarty. I was deeply moved by Watson's last words on his long-time friend, a sleuth that became an icon for the English speaking world and beyond.
So when I found out that Holmes did not actually die and that he made a return in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, I was not exactly sure how to react. I suppose I should be happy for the comeback but part of me still felt a bit cheated. You know, I know for a fact that it's not true but I still harbour irrational suspicion that old Arthur must have needed money real bad or something. Or maybe people just missed Holmes that much that Arthur felt it was cruel to kill Holmes off just like that. And it was cruel. We were left with no credible explanation of what happened to him in the memoirs. So yea, thank God for The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
I won't review here the longer cases like The Hound of Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear and A Study in Scarlet because I think I should revisit those novels before attempting to review them. And thanks to Feedbooks, I can finally do that without emptying my ever thinning pocket!
So to those of you who find the detective as interesting as I do, get buying paperbacks now! Or even better, visit Feedbooks for free titles here:
Elementary! :D
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