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I've previously read A Study in Scarlet (as well as the first few Holmes short stories) and had mixed feelings about it. Despite the conventional wisdom that various adaptations changed Watson from a normal person to an idiot, Watson kind of comes across as an idiot in ASiS anyway (especially when he gives a long catalog of Holmes's areas of knowledge and interest, but can't figure out from that that Holmes is a detective). Then again, I haven't seen the older adaptations; maybe they do somehow make Watson even dumber. The parts with Holmes figuring things out were neat, as was the murderer's backstory. Apparently Doyle later acknowledged that his depiction of the early Mormon church was somewhat unfair, but it works as a story. The problem comes at the end, where we find out how the murderer did it. He tracks two people who are trying not to be tracked across 19th-century Europe all by himself...somehow. Then he does the whole game with the pill-boxes, and is willing to let the guys he's gone to so much trouble to track down go if he loses, despite the odds being 50-50, because he's superstitious or something. It's extremely contrived. Anyway, I'm interested in seeing if The Sign of the Four has a better ending.
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Feb 12, 2018 08:08
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 17:30 |
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Just finished chapter 4. I thought Thaddeus Sholto was going to be a bad guy, between giving Miss Morstan the sort of instructions a kidnapper would give and his general characterization (nervous, aesthete, rich but lives in a shabby neighborhood), but by the end of the chapter it seems he's just there to introduce the plot. Did he come across as a shady guy to readers at the time?
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Feb 16, 2018 09:18
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