book of books- The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is one of the biggest characters around and when you pick up a collection of stories by Arthur Conan Doyle about the great detective you know that you are in for an enjoyable ride, which is why it is such a good choice for holiday reading. But there is also a connection that is still very much kept alive in Switzerland to commemorate the place where the fictional hero met his demise wrestling on a precipice with arch enemy Moriarty. Being able to go and visit the place where Holmes fell on holiday was special and certainly anyone who falls down the Reichenbach falls is not going to be getting back up.

Plot summary
This is a collection of tales told by Watson in the form of a memoir that is filling in the blanks trawling through the earliest cases of Holmes’s career introducing his brother Mycroft and some of his University background before moving to the finale. The Final Problem, where Holmes fights with Professor Moriarty, is notable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is surprisingly short for such an emotional and critical tale in the Holmes history; and secondly it seems to come out of nowhere without any of the preceding stories acting as a springboard into the Moriarty storyline.

Up to that point the collection looks back over Holmes’s career revealing the way certain mysteries including the death of a man in a locked room, the twin brothers conning a bank clerk and the torture of a Greek translator are all solved. Without going into any great detail of the individual stories (previous posts will do that) it is safe to generalise that all of them are a mixture of suspense, darkness and Holmes amazing ability to solve the crime. The end comes with Holmes going out on a high ending the career of his opposite the criminal mastermind Moriarty. It is worth waiting for and delivered through the friendly pen of Watson who is the loyal narrator until the bitter end.

Is it well written?
Some stories work better than others with some lacking a great deal of depth – a one-dimensional problem that is impressive until Holmes has shown how it was solved. But in terms of mood this is a great collection of stories that would have kept readers gripped when they first appeared and still have the ability to keep you wanting to read more. The combination of maverick detective, dark crimes that appear to be unsolvable by the police and some seedy characters might be lifted from Poe’s Murder in the Rue Morgue but to be able to deliver again and again at this level is an achievement that is Conan Doyle’s own.

Should it be read?
You have to read the Final problem at some point because it is one of the most famous Holmes stories after The Hound of the Baskervilles. Even people relatively unfamiliar with the actual contents of Sherlock Holmes books know about the fight with Moriarty. But there is another reason to pick this collection of stories up, the simple benefit of pure enjoyment. These are puzzles delivered by an expert storyteller who knows that he has you as a reader in the palm of his hand waiting for the moment when Holmes finally shares all of the secrets with Watson.

Summary
A collection of victories over crime that ends with the greatest of them all requiring the greatest sacrifice

Version read – Penguin paperback

bookmark of the week

Mislaid the Swiss holiday purchases so for the moment this one is courtesy of my mother who sent me this after visiting the Art Institute in Chicago. This is a bookmark showing the Boy in Red by Paul Cezanne and comes in one of those plastic protective slips that bookmarks always seem to come in when you get them in the US. Looks like the Boy in Red is dressed up but judging from the expression not that pleased about where he is about to go...

Who really has the time?

No time for reading today because it was a big family get together for my mother-in-law's birthday. But the subject of holiday reading came up and it gave me a chance to share my observations.

Those national newspaper supplements that interview the literati who all announce plans t head off for the sun with armfuls of books both fiction and non-fiction paint an aspirational but exaggerated picture of what is possible. Those people who read more than a couple of books must either not have children or have chosen to visit somewhere that requires very little movement off a sun lounger.

For most people - even those of us who pride themselves on reading for pleasure - it is just not possible to read great amounts and I suspect given my wife's amazing ability to find things for me to do even on holiday things won't change even when retirement comes in many years time...

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Well these things happen but I headed off for work leaving Mr Pye on the dining table so all there is to blog about today is the Poe which following the brilliant Murder in the Rue Morgue was always going to be a bit of let down. One passing thought reading the first story is that of course in pre aeroplane travelling times the sea was unavoidable and no doubt seen as dark and mysterious with only a few people being able to master it. Not quite sure if the storyteller in this tale has been totally mastered by the swirling whirlpool.

Highlights from A Descent into the Maelstrom
A sailor taking a tourist up the cliffs points out to him the raging sea below and the whirlpools that form then suddenly disappear and then tells him a tale about how he was sucked into one on his boat with his brother. They were caught in a great storm and dragged towards the whirlpool and went into it and were slowly sucked down. The surviving narrator threw himself off the boat onto a barrel and was eventually spat out but his brother was smashed with the boat at the bottom of the whirling sea. After he was rescued the man’s hair had turned from “raven black” to white and despite his graphic detail none of the fishermen who had saved him believed his tale.

Highlights from The Island of the Fay
A short and whimsical tale about fairies – Fay’s - that streak like shadows across the woods until their shadow is no more. Compared to what has gone before there is not much in common here in terms of mood with it being more melancholic and reflective than inspiring horror but of course there is the supernatural element to unsettle.

More hopefully over the weekend…

Mr Pye - post II

It is quite hard to describe but what you start to appreciate about Peake’s writing is his ability to build up an imaginary world that is then possessed by a central character that cranks up the tension in an already weird universe. Pye reminds you of Steerpike with his planning and scheming around the midnight feast, although unlike his other literary cousin his intentions are good.

Although this is set on Sark it could as easily be set on the moon because the plain that Peake is working on is not hindered by reality, and as a result is all the better for it.

Bullet points between pages 82 – 140

* Mr Pye draws everyone together at the chosen site of Drebble beach and starts to spread his love around those invited guests but all around the top of the bay are the rest of the inhabitants of the island watching

* Before getting Miss George to descend through The Chimney, a hollow rock that goes down from the cliff to the beach, he calls everyone together and starts to preach about the power of his Pal

* But then as he reaching a crescendo and blows the whistle for Miss George to be lowered a dead whale washes up on the beach and the stink forces retching people to head for the hills and a catatonic Miss George is dragged back to her room

* She remains in bed cursing the whole enterprise and Miss Dredger has to try to cheer up her friend Mr Pye who has two bites on his back on his shoulder blades and is worried about the symmetry of the bites

* After a few days he wakes without feeling pain and as he checks his back discovers tiny white wings have broken through the skin and he is completely thrown by it and the narrative skips quickly on to find him back in London seeking help from specialists to help deal with his full size wings

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Sorry for the lateness with this post but on the magazine Thursday is press day so it is all hands on deck and I ended up writing a couple of stories so had to work through lunch break.

Mind you this is worth the wait because the couple of stories today included the Murder on the Rue Morgue. The echoes in the world of Sherlock Holmes are obvious but the difference here is that you like Holmes more than the reclusive Frenchman who cracks this crime. Still for atmosphere and style its Conan Doyle in so many ways.

Highlights from William Wilson
This might sound like an odd thing but I was left thinking of the film Fight Club after reading this. William Wilson has what he thinks is a shadow a doppelganger who follows him round and destroys his life but when he finally faces him and drives the knife home several times he looks in the mirror and it is himself he has killed.

Highlights from Murder in the Rue Morgue
A woman and her daughter are found brutally murdered and the police have no idea about how the crime was perpetuated. Two solitary friends live together and one of them Dupin decides to help solve the crime once a friend has been arrested without evidence. He visits the scene and minutely examines everything and then works put that the crime was perpetuated by an orang-utan and manages to entice the owner to his house to look for the missing beast and confess what happened.

There is a darkness that comes from the descriptions of the murders and the bodies but so many things that happen here are repeated in Conan Doyle. There is one scene where Dupin manages to voice his friend’s thoughts and then explains how through a combination of reading his expression and reaction to events he managed to read his mind. Something exactly the same happens in the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes where Holmes interrupts the thoughts of Dr Watson.

Mind you with writing of the standard of both Poe and Conan Doyle questions of originality are not to be too much worried about. Just enjoy the results of their creativity.

More tomorrow…

Mr Pye - post I

It must have been something about reading Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher that made me reach this morning as I left for work for a Mervyn Peake - thinking of the gloomy spires of Gormenghast.

but this is a different book in feel from the Gormenghast trilogy and although you sense some dark twist is looming it is so far enjoyable and pacey as Mr Pye weaves his magic on the island community of Sark.

Bullet points between pages 1 - 81

* Mr Pye gets a single ticket, which raises an eyebrow, for the boat to Sark and from the very start arouses curiosity from everyone who sees the rather portly smiling traveller who keeps himself strictly to himself

* On the island Mrs Dredger is waiting to put him up in her guesthouse and she is portrayed as a woman of strong reserve who doesn’t suffer fools at all and is known on the island as a formidable character

* Mr Pye starts changing the status quo almost from the off by offering the carriage he is meant to be picked up in by Mrs Dredger to Miss George her sworn enemy leaving the boarding house owner stomping up the hill

* At the crest of the hill Mr Pye orders Miss George out and heads off to calm down and take over the Dredger house swallowing on fruit drops all the time – which becomes his nickname on the island – and becalms the woman

* He explores the island from top to bottom in six weeks and then starts to unveil his master plan to infuse the entire population with love aided by his great pal God who he talks to about his plans all the time

* Having turned the world of Mrs Dredger upside down he turns his attention to the rest of the population and particularly Miss George who he invites to live with Mrs Dredger promising to change her life for the better

More merriment and mystery tomorrow…

Truth is the stuff of ficton

Talk about life mirroring fiction. The story on the BBC web site today about a man who was found guilty after a policeman realised that the murder he had described in his book had actually been carried out seven years earlier is ripe for a film script. Krystian Bala planned and carried out the murder of Dariusz Janiszewski in Poland because he thought the man was having an affair with his wife.

The details of the story are set out by Adam Easton on the BBC web site:

"The body of Dariusz Janiszewski, the young, well-liked owner of a small
advertising agency, was spotted by fishermen seven years ago on the banks of the
River Oder, near the Polish city of Wroclaw.

He had been tortured, starved and tied up in a way that made it
impossible to swim.
For years the police in Wroclaw had no motive and no
suspect for the murder.
Then an officer came across an internet discussion
about a murder in a recently published novel, entitled Amok.

The book was the first novel by philosophy graduate Krystian Bala, and
it contained a description of a murder with similarities to that of Mr
Janiszewski."

The morale of the story is probably that one shalt not murder but if you do then it’s best not to write it down in detail in a thriller.

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Reading a bunch of stories from someone as well known as Poe is a bit like putting a Greatest Hits collection on your iPod. The temptation is to just head for the tracks that were big hits and then gradually expose yourself to the others. That temptation is the same here with some of the less known stories sometimes being seen as obstacles to some of the ‘hits’.

Managed to get to one this lunch break and it is dark and not quite the best thing to keep you in a positive frame of mind at work.

Highlights from How to Write a Blackwood Article
A woman approaches Mr Blackwood and asks how you go about getting an article into his magazine. He advises her to write with a blunt pen and along with other odd recommendations insists that her subject matter should be some sort of personal disaster. Using a story about her choking on a chicken bone as an example he tells her to throw in some French, Italian, Greek and German to spice it up. Fired up she leaves his company and tries to run into some sort of trouble as soon as possible until she finally manages to find something and starts her story, which ends mid sentence…

Highlights from The Fall of the House of Usher
A school friend of the last remaining Usher male is called to visit his friend and finds him and his twin sister in a terrible state. She seems to be dying of some disease and he is mentally falling apart. As the last of their line there is a feeling that with them will go the physical building also referred to as the House of Usher. The brother tells his friend that his sister has died but is contagious so they take her into the bowls of the old house. But he remains in an odd state and as his friend reads an old story about a knight fighting a dragon the sounds of the tale resound around the house.

The brother tells his friend that he has buried his sister alive and the sounds are those of her smashing her tomb and wrenching the gates off the cellar door. Sure enough she bursts into the room and falls on her brother killing him. The friend flees in a state of horror and as he rides off the House of Usher crumbles into dust.

More tomorrow…

Holiday read: Imposture - post VI

Well the holiday finished a few days ago and now so does this book. There are some things that I want to say about it which will be kept for the review that will come in a couple of days. But things end with Polidori becoming the metaphorical vampire feeding off misery, failure and death. Victims he has known include primarily himself, his sister, Eliza and Byron.

Highlights from chapters sixteen to eighteen

* Polidori is now becoming reckless and more details of the past are filled in and he receives a message from Eliza suggesting they spend a night together and he goes to a money lender to get the funds to then take up her offer

* Dressed as a page boy she arrives and they head down in the coach to Brighton and most of the way there Polidori contemplates telling her who he is but decides to tell the story of Polidori from Byron’s point of view

* Having filled Eliza in on his behaviour, which included seducing Polidori’s sister, the young girl is distraught but having gone so far decides to forgive the Lord and go the final step which is soon on them in the hotel room

* After the act is completed he reveals who he really is and Eliza is distraught that her dream world has crumbled around her and he leaves her surrounded by some of the money he has left and heads home

* Once back at his father’s house he retires to bed and refuses to come out even when his sister and father ask him to come down to dinner and give up his bed for his nephew to have a sleep in the room

* At that point Polidori is sipping some poison and taking a step that Byron might have contemplated but never had the guts to make  - suicide - and he muses on the regrets he has had and the misery he leaves behind

A full review will come in a couple of days...

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

There is a writing style that makes it sometimes difficult to follow the stories but now and again there are a few pages of clarity that give a clear indication of the power of Poe’s gothic imagination. One of the stories read today is particularly dark and back in the days when I walked around in a pair of winkle pickers dressed all in black it would have appealed in a quite different way.

Highlights from The Assignation
An observer is drifting along in a gondola in Venice when he hears a scream and understands that a beautiful woman has dropped her baby out of the window into the water. People are diving in trying to help her but she is fixed on staring at the other side of the lake and a stranger dressed in black and retrieves her daughter from the depths and then makes as assignation with her. He also asks to meet the stranger who visits him in a luxurious house that is topped off with a full length portrait of the woman that was seen the night before. The stranger clearly loves the woman and then drinks deeply on a goblet and throws himself down on an ottoman. At that moment the door bursts open and a messenger shouts out that the beautiful woman is poisoned and checking on the stranger he turns out to have taken his own life as well.

A lovers pact to meet and be together in the hereafter?

Highlights from Ligeia
Talking of a pact to be together a man who has to watch as his wife Ligeia dies is heartbroken but carries on his life and marries again. His second wife starts to become ill and is convinced in the later stages of her illness that someone else is in the room and even her husband notices it. When she finally dies the corpse keeps returning to life every hour or so each time trying to get off the bed and finally it does and as the man looks for signs of recovery he sees that his first wife has returned.

A dark gothic tale of a spirit returning to take possession of the body of the woman who is married to her husband. You sense that the husband knows what is happening all along and welcomes the return of Ligeia.

More tomorrow…

Holiday read: Imposture - post V

Despite the mounting risk of being unmasked as a pretender Polidori cannot avoid the temptation to pretend to be Byron not just to Eliza but also her father. You just know that this is going to end with one of those scenes where the words “betrayed trust” is used at least more than once.

There is a bit where the last days of Polidori's employment with Byron are covered and it's hard not to side with the poet and agree that this over sensitive rather self obsessed failed doctor has served his purpose. This book is more about the off stage characters and those in the shadows of the famous and while that is great you do rather long for some more Byron.

Highlights from chapters eleven to fifteen

* Polidori goes out to meet Eliza and her father and pretends to be Byron for the afternoon chatting away to the romantic novelist and impressing his daughter who rewards him at the end with a kiss

* He then heads for home where his sister has arrived back from Milan with her son William, a dead ringer for Byron, and although the details are not made cleared enough is sketched out to imply that she was seduced by the poet and produced his child damaging her marriage beyond repair

* Upset and angry about the way his family has been damaged by Byron, who he continued to be in awe of even after he had been sacked, he heads for the publisher’s with the idea of telling the story of how a brother’s and sister’s relationship was destroyed

* At the publisher’s club he starts to sound out the idea of the book but then gets involved with gambling and before he knows it he is in the grip of the game and borrowing money from Colburn to play and loses everything

* Meanwhile following his meeting with 'Byron' Eliza's father can't resist telling his other daughter who recognises that this is an impostor and tries to get her sister away from her but that only makes Eliza more determined

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

One of the things I signed up for before heading off on holiday was to take part in the blogging book reviews that Penguin is running on its classics site. Once you register you get send a book at random and then have six weeks to get through it and post a review – well at least that was my understanding of it. Just before heading off for Switzerland The Selected Tales of Edgar Allan Poe turned up and so for probably the next fortnight will be providing reading over the lunch break.

Highlights from The Duc L’Omelette
The book starts with a story that throws you a little bit because it uses French just in the places that appear to be quite critical so you have a rough idea of what is happening but not a crystal clear one. It seems that a French duke has been taken from his coffin and dragged into hell where he has to accept his vices and then gamble on his future with the king.

Highlights from MS. Found in a Bottle
A man who ends up being tossed around in the storm finally ends up on some doomed ship that is destined to spend its days being tossed around the icy seas of the pole. He writes about his adventures and the other members of the crew, who are all old and don’t take any notice of him, and puts it in a bottle. He seems to be fighting the obvious that he will join the crew and be stranded with them forever.

More tomorrow…

bookmark of the week

Well after a five and a half hour drive from near Verdun (scene of French heroics in the first world war) to darkest south east London just in time to do a bookmark of the week. The next three weeks will be happy holiday reminders with the bookmarks I picked up in Switzerland, where the emphasis is on fabric rather than leather and keeping it natural. As you can see with this bookmark there is also a great deal of pride in the Swiss over their country. Rightly so based on the Bernese Oberland...

Lost somewhere in the bags

There will not be any post today about The Imposture because until we arrive back in London tomorrow night there is little chance of finding the book. It is packed and as a result lost in one of the many bags now stuffed into the car. To mention the fact I might need to rearrange the precarious system in the car, at this late/early hour of 1am Swiss time, might earn me an earful that neither me or the rest of the campsite want to hear at this time of the morning. So until tomorrow - after eleven hours worth of tarmac has been covered - this is all for now...