Holmesian Derivations

*looks left*
*looks right*
*starts blowing dust off things*
*coughs, goes and starts properly wet-dusting, then dry-dusting things*

I’ve decided to blog more about Sherlock Holmes. To help this along, I’ve thought about starting a read/watch/listen-along. I’m still making some decisions about that.

The biggest decision, which specific instances of media to cover, has been made. They will be:

• the original text (duh),
• the Granada TV series (Jeremy Brett),
• and Bert Coules’ BBC radio series.

I’m human and have limited time, so I’m not covering anything else. Also, I don’t have access to Russian Sherlock Holmes, which makes me sadface.

The other big decision is: what to include in this series? I’m still thinking about this. Not all of the Holmes canon stories, like most any canon out there, are fun to read. Or at least, not the same level of fun. There are vastly distinctly different levels of fun, in fact, although everyone disagrees on specific levels for individual stories.

For instance: do I want to cover A Study in Scarlet and the foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Mormonism chapter, thank goodness it’s only a chapter, but doubtless there was implied stuff in there as well that went over my head when I was younger and more innocent? There’s something to be said for not wearing rosy-colored lenses all the time. Doyle, like all human beings, had faults, and sometimes they showed up painfully.

On the other hand, do I want to enjoy myself through most of this? Especially since this’ll be, at best, mostly free work. I mean, I can snark with the best of them about the awfulness of most some of “The Lion’s Mane”, but that at least is fun to me.

I think my decision on that will mostly be based on whether Bert Coules’ BBC radio adaptation for a particular story/novelette are fun or not. I’ve never listened to his adaptation of A Study in Scarlet, but I bet it leaves out the foaming-at-the-mouth stuff and replaces it with more fun Holmes/Watson interactions.

In the meanwhile, I will fit what Sherlock Holmes posts I can at Tor.com, because it’s fun and I get paid for it. But obviously not all of the planned posts can make it in, Tor.com being focused on science fiction and fantasy (and other related topics, like fandom, which is mostly how I get Sherlock Holmes in).

Things to ponder.

By the way, on the New Movie: well, it was like the Star Trek reboot, really. The characters were a fun alternative interpretation. The plot… was basically like the red blobby stuff that deformed the space-time continuum by magic science in the New Trek Movie (only now do I remember it’s called “red matter”). Not that Doyle was a plotting genius all the time either, though.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

But yeah, been busy over at the main blog. As soon as I find a secret pool of time I’ll update this here dusty ole’ site.

Amazon.co.uk: The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Radio Collection)
Original text by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
radio dramatizations by Bert Coules

All. Eighteen. Volumes. Covering. All. The. Short. Stories. In. The. Canon.

Omigod. Omigod. Omigod. Clive Merrison is like the Jeremy Brett of radio!

Bert Coules totally understands Sherlock Holmes…

But what brings them together and what keeps them together is that Watson would love to be Holmes, and Holmes needs to be Watson. Together they make a whole functioning individual. Without Watson, Holmes would probably kill himself, deliberately or otherwise. And without Holmes, Watson would probably die of boredom.

… as well as the fiction around him, and the difference between Holmes and, say, Agatha “Mystery Queen” Christie’s Hercule Poirot:

It doesn’t need to be a good detective story, but it does have to be a very good story about a detective.

Interview with Mr. Coules here.

And he adds wonderful touches like this one here, transcribed by Prof. Pangea.

If I could only get this! I would be in heaven. I’d have to spend a long time ripping, but I would still be in heaven. Thankfully, I can. But… stupid US dollar.

YouTube – Run Sherlock, run

I submit this for the funniness. And because I need some bloody funny right now.