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spacemutineer.livejournal.comHello, everyone! So what did you think of The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb? Here are a few questions and thoughts to get you started. Please add your own!
- FYI: According to Wikipedia, Fuller's earth is "any non-plastic clay or claylike earthy material that can be used to decolorize, filter, and purify animal, mineral, and vegetable oils and greases". In Oxfordshire, it was and still is mined in an area called the Vale of the White Horse. Thank you, Wikipedia!
- Hatherley's story is the stuff of nightmares. Trapped in the machine, he contemplates his options for dying in a hydraulic press in detail. It comes down to how he wants to sense his own death. He can choose to hear it, as his spine snaps into pieces or he can choose to watch it, as the pitch black ceiling drops lower, crushing his head face first. Seriously disturbing stuff. And that's before he gets his thumb hacked off with a cleaver and falls from a 30 foot window.
- Doctor Watson's recounting of his office visit with Hatherley is a bit strange, don't you think? I understand it's the Victorian era, English stiff upper lip and all that, but their interaction seems a little crazy to me with all the decorum and formality on both sides while Hatherley is clearly in desperate need of help. And is he really well enough to travel to Baker Street? He must still look a fright when he gets there, because Holmes treats him with extraordinary kindness, lying him on the sofa with a pillow and a glass of brandy in reach.
- Holmes might be on his better behavior on meeting Hatherley, but his laughing closing statement to him about experience is brutal. Hatherley is still broke and he's missing part of his hand now, but Holmes tells him that at least he got one hell of a story out of it to tell for the rest of his life. Ouch.
- FYI: According to Wikipedia, Fuller's earth is "any non-plastic clay or claylike earthy material that can be used to decolorize, filter, and purify animal, mineral, and vegetable oils and greases". In Oxfordshire, it was and still is mined in an area called the Vale of the White Horse. Thank you, Wikipedia!
- Hatherley's story is the stuff of nightmares. Trapped in the machine, he contemplates his options for dying in a hydraulic press in detail. It comes down to how he wants to sense his own death. He can choose to hear it, as his spine snaps into pieces or he can choose to watch it, as the pitch black ceiling drops lower, crushing his head face first. Seriously disturbing stuff. And that's before he gets his thumb hacked off with a cleaver and falls from a 30 foot window.
- Doctor Watson's recounting of his office visit with Hatherley is a bit strange, don't you think? I understand it's the Victorian era, English stiff upper lip and all that, but their interaction seems a little crazy to me with all the decorum and formality on both sides while Hatherley is clearly in desperate need of help. And is he really well enough to travel to Baker Street? He must still look a fright when he gets there, because Holmes treats him with extraordinary kindness, lying him on the sofa with a pillow and a glass of brandy in reach.
- Holmes might be on his better behavior on meeting Hatherley, but his laughing closing statement to him about experience is brutal. Hatherley is still broke and he's missing part of his hand now, but Holmes tells him that at least he got one hell of a story out of it to tell for the rest of his life. Ouch.
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