Discussion Post: Thor Bridge

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Welcome back, friends! It's discussion time again, so let's get to it. How did you all find The Problem of Thor Bridge? As always, I've written up a few of my random thoughts and questions about the story to get you started. Please add your own!

- "A problem without a solution may interest the student, but can hardly fail to annoy the casual reader." Oh, Watson could not be more wrong. A problem without a solution can be fascinating, and I'd love to watch Holmes struggle against a puzzle he can't unravel until eventually he has to concede defeat. We only ever see him succeed but characters shine through adversity. Plus, several of the named "unfinished tales" sound compelling. I very much want to know more about the strange disappearances of James Phillimore and the cutter Alicia. And a "remarkable worm said to be unknown to science"? That's just the right level of ridiculous. Sign me up for that one too.

- There's a certain perfection in Holmes' use of fixed charges for his services. It allows him to focus on the things that matter: the quality of the puzzle and the quality of the client's character, not their pocketbook.

- Sherlock Holmes gives a bravura performance in THOR, from his perfect handling of the overprivileged and domineering Neil Gibson to the dramatic display with the gun on the bridge. He is at his snide, clever, self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing best. And he certainly is appreciated by his biographer for his efforts. Watson calls him "the man whom above all others I revere" here -- high praise to the point of absolute adoration. And there is an entire dispatch-box at Charing Cross filled with superlative love letters case write-ups just like this one.

- It's a bold business, killing yourself to frame someone you hate. How much could Maria have loved her husband if she was so easily willing to part with him? Why did she remain so attached to a man who treated her terribly, by all accounts? Surely her "tropical" nature can't be the only explanation.

Comments

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

The way Maria is described always bugged me, I must admit. She was Gibson's wife and was entitled to feel slighted and betrayed not only by his horrid treatment of her but by his open attachment to someone else. And as we all know, being treated badly by someone does not necessarily kill love. I think Gibson was not being especially honest when he said that's why he did it, either: there's a satisfaction in the use of power to humiliate and he's a man who enjoyed power by his own admission.

Personally I think Doyle was doing a little projecting here - the idea that a "spiritual" love was superior to the merely physical helped him feel justified in having carried on (platonically) with Jean Leckie behind his, at the time of writing, late wife's back.

That's not to say the characterisation of Holmes is warped - he does look down on emotional and physical passion (canonically) and elevate the mental and moral aspects of relationships pretty consistently.

[hisietari.livejournal.com]

And a "remarkable worm said to be unknown to science"?

BEHOLD! THE ALIEN WORM LIVES!! Maybe it was a particularly enthusiastic noodle?

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

This always struck me as a very underrated story, you are right; Holmes puts on a grand display.

It is easy to overlook, (while discussing Maria) the story's treatment of the Governess. Holmes seems to give them both some sympathy (in his fashion), and Gibson indeed it is that emerges as the emotional villain of the piece.