Canon Discussion Post: The Creeping Man
Oct. 13th, 2013 12:16 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60Welcome back, everyone! Let's have some canon Sherlock Holmes discussion, shall we? What did you all think of The Creeping Man? As always, I've written up a few of my own random thoughts and questions, which are behind the jump. Please add your own in the comments!
Discussion about the Granada TV adaptation of this story is available in this week's Granada discussion post.
- It's the end of the line for Holmes' career and similarly, we're nearing the end of our second run through the canon. We have two stories left, The Lion's Mane, set firmly in retirement, and His Last Bow, Holmes and Watson's last hurrah. When we wrap those up, we'll be wrapping up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sherlock60 too. After more than a hundred and twenty weeks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes canon stories and the multitudes of minature 60 word fics inspired by them, this comm will be coming to a close. All the great work will stay up, however, as one of the most amazing collections of Holmesian fic available anywhere. I'll be posting a separate closing post soon with more details, but for now, I just want to thank you all for coming along with us on this crazy little adventure, and for keeping Sherlock Holmes canon readership and fic writing alive!
- So it's finally time for retirement. We don't get many details of how and why Holmes stops with the detective game, but we can take some guesses. For instance, he's frequently and increasingly chastised himself for being slow to put the clues together on cases, and we get some of that here. Although, how he was supposed to have figured out earlier that the real problem was monkey serum is beyond me.
- This case may be but one of Holmes' last, but I don't think Watson had another with him until retirement after this one. It's a rough one for our good doctor. He is shamefully mistreated. At this point in their partnership, Watson feels he is considered more a tool, an object, a habit to Holmes rather than a partner or even a friend. After an extended absence from Baker Street to be with his wife and his busy practice, he is called back even "if inconvenient" to his old rooms and his old chair to find Holmes as neglectful and thoughtless as ever, if not more so. Watson is ignored for the most part, and when he does get to offer any opinions, he is either ridiculed for them or condescended to about them. After Presbury gets mauled and is saved through the doctor's quick work and battlefield skills, Watson's surgical recommendations are summarily overruled too. He doesn't seem to know why he's there with Holmes anymore. He's not getting much if anything out of it, and Holmes isn't really taking anything out of it either, not on a working level at least. And so, with a whimper, one of the greatest professional partnerships in literature comes to a close. I found their ending to be very sad. Watson deserves better than Holmes in many ways.
- This is as close to science fiction as canon Sherlock Holmes stories ever get. What do you think of Holmes investigating the borders of the fantastic or supernatural? He is a realist, as are many of his readers, I suspect. Speaking personally, I find love a realist forced to expand his idea of what reality is. But at the same time, there's something just as undeniably grand that comes about when Holmes gets to disprove the paranormal as well. Skirting these lines in either direction really appeals to me, even if this particular case does not.
Comment away, and join us starting next Sunday for The Lion's Mane!
Discussion about the Granada TV adaptation of this story is available in this week's Granada discussion post.
- It's the end of the line for Holmes' career and similarly, we're nearing the end of our second run through the canon. We have two stories left, The Lion's Mane, set firmly in retirement, and His Last Bow, Holmes and Watson's last hurrah. When we wrap those up, we'll be wrapping up
sherlock60 too. After more than a hundred and twenty weeks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes canon stories and the multitudes of minature 60 word fics inspired by them, this comm will be coming to a close. All the great work will stay up, however, as one of the most amazing collections of Holmesian fic available anywhere. I'll be posting a separate closing post soon with more details, but for now, I just want to thank you all for coming along with us on this crazy little adventure, and for keeping Sherlock Holmes canon readership and fic writing alive!- So it's finally time for retirement. We don't get many details of how and why Holmes stops with the detective game, but we can take some guesses. For instance, he's frequently and increasingly chastised himself for being slow to put the clues together on cases, and we get some of that here. Although, how he was supposed to have figured out earlier that the real problem was monkey serum is beyond me.
- This case may be but one of Holmes' last, but I don't think Watson had another with him until retirement after this one. It's a rough one for our good doctor. He is shamefully mistreated. At this point in their partnership, Watson feels he is considered more a tool, an object, a habit to Holmes rather than a partner or even a friend. After an extended absence from Baker Street to be with his wife and his busy practice, he is called back even "if inconvenient" to his old rooms and his old chair to find Holmes as neglectful and thoughtless as ever, if not more so. Watson is ignored for the most part, and when he does get to offer any opinions, he is either ridiculed for them or condescended to about them. After Presbury gets mauled and is saved through the doctor's quick work and battlefield skills, Watson's surgical recommendations are summarily overruled too. He doesn't seem to know why he's there with Holmes anymore. He's not getting much if anything out of it, and Holmes isn't really taking anything out of it either, not on a working level at least. And so, with a whimper, one of the greatest professional partnerships in literature comes to a close. I found their ending to be very sad. Watson deserves better than Holmes in many ways.
- This is as close to science fiction as canon Sherlock Holmes stories ever get. What do you think of Holmes investigating the borders of the fantastic or supernatural? He is a realist, as are many of his readers, I suspect. Speaking personally, I find love a realist forced to expand his idea of what reality is. But at the same time, there's something just as undeniably grand that comes about when Holmes gets to disprove the paranormal as well. Skirting these lines in either direction really appeals to me, even if this particular case does not.
Comment away, and join us starting next Sunday for The Lion's Mane!
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Date: 2013-10-19 09:15 pm (UTC)I wouldn't mind having a crack at the occasional discussion post too - I don't know as much about Holmes as you and some of your members, but it would be the perfect opportunity for me to do a bit more digging, and you do know how I like my long comments ^_^
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Date: 2013-10-20 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-20 10:04 am (UTC)(Btw, hope you didn't get multiple "pings". The system kept declaring my comment had been marked as spam ^^")
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Date: 2013-10-20 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-20 10:24 pm (UTC)