Canon Discussion: The Mazarin Stone
Nov. 16th, 2014 08:31 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60This week we’re having a look at The Mazarin Stone. As always, I’ve typed up a few thoughts to get the discussion started.
So, let’s start with the big mystery. Playing the Game, who wrote The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone? This article by Rosemary Michaud runs you through a few suspects. I personally incline towards Billy. It has to be said that it would be a subpar story for Watson: it’s rather flat and it doesn’t seem to have Watson’s wonderful way with language and suspense. But written by a teenager, it immediately becomes quite impressive and demonstrates a promising and developing talent. Also, there’s that line: Billy, the young but very wise and tactful page. That’s a self-insert if ever I saw one. And it’s a fairly substantial role for a page boy—a Baker Street servant doesn’t get mentioned to this extent in any other story.
Something else to consider: is it an actual case or has the author made it up—as this article suggests? Certainly details of MAZA suggest other cases: there’s the stolen precious stone, which echoes BLUE and Holmes’ wax figure, which echoes EMPT. The article also brings up the point that Billy was last mentioned in VALL, which takes place in the late 1880s. MAZA, according to Baring-Gould, takes place in 1903. Pretty unlikely Billy would still be working as a page boy. Different Billy? Or is the original Billy combining his past (and imagination) with modern times (including the gramophone, for example)? Though then we’re back to an adult writing a not terribly good story…
“To-day he was an old woman. Fairly took me in, he did…” Can I just query this? I have no doubt that Holmes looks delightful in a frock. I would imagine he has the perfect figure to carry it off. But a six foot man making a convincing elderly woman in Victorian/Edwardian times? Just seems unlikely no-one would twig.
"We used something of the sort once before." "Before my time," said Billy. So Billy tells us (indirectly) that EMPT was before his time. Which does rather suggest that the Billy in VALL must be someone else.
“You bear every sign of the busy medical man, with calls on him every hour." Apparently Watson is definitely working as a doctor now. Any thoughts on why he’s gone back to working as a doctor?
"Take a cab to Scotland Yard and give this to Youghal of the C. I. D.” Any thoughts on Youghal?
…his thick stick half raised, he approached the silent figure. Sylvius is prepared to kill Holmes. Admittedly he’s surprised to find that he was about to attack a wax figure, but why does he obey Holmes and sit down when the detective appears? Holmes isn’t openly armed at this point. Why doesn’t Sylvius just finish carrying out his attack? He appears to stop simply because Holmes looks at him with “that steady gray eye”.
Holmes seldom laughed, but he got as near it as his old friend Watson could remember. This is an odd remark. REDH and SIGN come immediately to mind as occasions when Holmes roared with laughter. If the statement is true, why is Holmes laughing less as he gets older? He still seems to have a sense of humour and to be doing his practical jokes.
MAZA is, of course, an alternative version of the playlet The Crown Diamond by ACD. In The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes, which features the text of the play, Richard Lancelyn Green mentions that it’s not absolutely certain which came first—the evidence isn’t conclusive. (MAZA isn’t the only story not narrated by Watson, and in its early stages VALL too was written in the third person. (The Holmes and Watson section, I assume. The second half is, of course, still in third person.)) Which surprised me. To me, the static nature of the piece and the heavy reliance on dialogue strongly suggests a play having been quickly turned into a story. (Incidentally, in order to allow the actor playing Holmes to change positions, the play version features a safe which, when approached, causes the lights to go out and a big sign saying “DON’T TOUCH” to light up. Hmm.)
Next Sunday, 23rd November, we’ll be having a look at The Three Gables. Hope you can join us then.
So, let’s start with the big mystery. Playing the Game, who wrote The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone? This article by Rosemary Michaud runs you through a few suspects. I personally incline towards Billy. It has to be said that it would be a subpar story for Watson: it’s rather flat and it doesn’t seem to have Watson’s wonderful way with language and suspense. But written by a teenager, it immediately becomes quite impressive and demonstrates a promising and developing talent. Also, there’s that line: Billy, the young but very wise and tactful page. That’s a self-insert if ever I saw one. And it’s a fairly substantial role for a page boy—a Baker Street servant doesn’t get mentioned to this extent in any other story.
Something else to consider: is it an actual case or has the author made it up—as this article suggests? Certainly details of MAZA suggest other cases: there’s the stolen precious stone, which echoes BLUE and Holmes’ wax figure, which echoes EMPT. The article also brings up the point that Billy was last mentioned in VALL, which takes place in the late 1880s. MAZA, according to Baring-Gould, takes place in 1903. Pretty unlikely Billy would still be working as a page boy. Different Billy? Or is the original Billy combining his past (and imagination) with modern times (including the gramophone, for example)? Though then we’re back to an adult writing a not terribly good story…
“To-day he was an old woman. Fairly took me in, he did…” Can I just query this? I have no doubt that Holmes looks delightful in a frock. I would imagine he has the perfect figure to carry it off. But a six foot man making a convincing elderly woman in Victorian/Edwardian times? Just seems unlikely no-one would twig.
"We used something of the sort once before." "Before my time," said Billy. So Billy tells us (indirectly) that EMPT was before his time. Which does rather suggest that the Billy in VALL must be someone else.
“You bear every sign of the busy medical man, with calls on him every hour." Apparently Watson is definitely working as a doctor now. Any thoughts on why he’s gone back to working as a doctor?
"Take a cab to Scotland Yard and give this to Youghal of the C. I. D.” Any thoughts on Youghal?
…his thick stick half raised, he approached the silent figure. Sylvius is prepared to kill Holmes. Admittedly he’s surprised to find that he was about to attack a wax figure, but why does he obey Holmes and sit down when the detective appears? Holmes isn’t openly armed at this point. Why doesn’t Sylvius just finish carrying out his attack? He appears to stop simply because Holmes looks at him with “that steady gray eye”.
Holmes seldom laughed, but he got as near it as his old friend Watson could remember. This is an odd remark. REDH and SIGN come immediately to mind as occasions when Holmes roared with laughter. If the statement is true, why is Holmes laughing less as he gets older? He still seems to have a sense of humour and to be doing his practical jokes.
MAZA is, of course, an alternative version of the playlet The Crown Diamond by ACD. In The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes, which features the text of the play, Richard Lancelyn Green mentions that it’s not absolutely certain which came first—the evidence isn’t conclusive. (MAZA isn’t the only story not narrated by Watson, and in its early stages VALL too was written in the third person. (The Holmes and Watson section, I assume. The second half is, of course, still in third person.)) Which surprised me. To me, the static nature of the piece and the heavy reliance on dialogue strongly suggests a play having been quickly turned into a story. (Incidentally, in order to allow the actor playing Holmes to change positions, the play version features a safe which, when approached, causes the lights to go out and a big sign saying “DON’T TOUCH” to light up. Hmm.)
Next Sunday, 23rd November, we’ll be having a look at The Three Gables. Hope you can join us then.
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no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 09:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 11:44 am (UTC)If I shall make the suggestion, I'd say that Watson was very busy accompanying Holmes on certain (and surely very dangerous) case and simply forgot his deadline at Strand, so that his editor Doyle had to step in and ... well, we all know the dismal result.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 06:14 pm (UTC)Although I lean towards Billy being the author, I can agree that your theory makes a lot of sense - the magazine owners would lose money if a Holmes story didn't appear. It would be tempting for the editor to have a go himself ^^" (^^)
no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 03:54 pm (UTC)I like the Billy theory (though I can't see him handing over a ms describing himself as very wise and tactful - or can I?), and I do think Doyle would have used his pov a lot, even if it wasn't all Billy.
Re the somewhat unbelievable substitution, and the very convenient production of the diamond. I was going to suggest that it wasn't Ikey Sanders who split, or not only Sanders. (Merton might be pale from nerves, since he knows he's a better fit than Sanders.) If Holmes made a deal with Merton, who'd seen the Count's back was to the window, and he produced the diamond, then at least that bit would be explained. But nekomuse's explanation is better.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-16 06:34 pm (UTC)I have to admit it's that flattering description that makes me think Billy is the author - it's something a teenager would say without realising how it's coming across. Watson, in contrast, is always modest about his own abilities.
That is a very interesting theory - that Merton had already made a deal with Holmes to recover the diamond. (You always have such interesting ideas - you always pick things out that would never cross my mind.) It has to be said that Holmes taking the place of the wax dummy makes for a dramatic moment on stage, but as soon as you start to think about the plot properly, it just becomes ridiculous.