Discussion Post: The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Hello, 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.

Comments

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

HA! Yes, i think Holmes is a little OOC in this one, as if Doyle had been a little non-plussed himself by the (tall)tale - which is certainly more melodramatic and macabre than the norm.
Owes a definite debt to Poe.

Oh - and, yes, it is an excellent job of writing - always sounds fantastic on the radio etc. A very well written narrative.

edit: oops, sorry about the typo! :(

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I need to find a radio version of this one!

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

We used to use Fuller's Earth to treat athlete's foot in the 60s...

About Holmes at the end: I'm not sure it's particularly brutal, it's a bit on a par with a lot of 'gallows humour' you often find - the "if you don't laugh, you'd cry" sort of thing. Slightly more acceptable if the joke is oneself, though, I agree.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

It's not all stiff upper lip though, because Hatherley does laugh hysterically at the beginning and there is nothing Watson can do until he calms down. Watson takes it all in his stride and carries on as if nothing has happened which must have been reassuring.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

This is one where I really wish there had been a "but we later heard about this other disaster in which the criminals most likely died" epilogue; poor Hatherley doesn't even get the satisfaction of seeing his captors arrested.

I do love Holmes's deduction that the house is near the railway station rather than an hour's drive away; it's a great moment of Holmes putting the subtle clues together to reveal the truth.