Discussion Post: A Study in Scarlet
Jun. 3rd, 2012 04:00 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
- So this is how it all begins, how lives and partnerships come together and legends are made. It seems as if Holmes was almost waiting for Watson, and he takes to the doctor immediately. Watson certainly needs a friend, a home, a place to belong after his long death-defying battle with injury and illness. He finds all of that in Baker Street and Sherlock Holmes. For his part, Holmes, ever the magician on his perpetual stage, finds a loyal and enthusiastic audience, and he seems grateful for it, watching over the doctor, making sure he gets rest when he seems tired, talking to him when he seems upset, and playing his favorite music as payment for suffering through Holmes' atonal caterwauling on the violin while he thinks.
- Personally, I have somewhat favored the novels we've read over the short stories for the extended involvement in the cases and the deeper depictions of the relationship between Holmes and Watson. That continues here with the all-important meeting and the budding of their friendship as well as the ever-present investigation and explanation, although we are unexpectedly derailed in the middle by the long, bleak interlude telling the story of John and Lucy Ferrier and their failed savior but eventual avenger, Jefferson Hope.
- What do you make of that strange second section, The Country of the Saints? It is blackly beautiful in a way, as harsh and unforgiving as the barren land it describes. It also is unlike anything else we have read, a direct third person narrative fully unrelated to Holmes or Watson, full of information and detail neither of them could have had. Even Jefferson Hope wouldn't have known the fine details of the original discovery of John and Lucy lost in the desert by the Mormon caravan. So who wrote it? Where did it come from? What did you think about the depiction of the Mormon religion? Or for that matter, the interior landscape of America? As foreboding as its name may be, even Death Valley is not nearly as lifeless as STUD would have you believe.
- Drebber and Stangerson were devoted to the religious system that served them so well, giving them eleven wives between them, yet at some point they defect and leave Utah entirely. We had been told previously in no uncertain terms that there was no hope of leaving the fold, yet that is exactly what they do (and John and Lucy do not). What happened? How did they manage it? Was there retribution? And what became of their wives?
- Doesn't it seem awfully convenient that Jefferson Hope dies so immediately from his aneurism, sparing everyone the problem of how to deal with his murderous yet righteous actions? Vigilantism, however justified, cannot be allowed in a civilized society bound by law, can it? If he hadn't died on his own, how would you have treated Hope and his crimes? He hunted Drebber and Stangerson for twenty years. Was there any way they could have ever made up for what they did to the Ferriers? Can there be any statute of limitations on crimes of the heart?