ext_1620665: knight on horseback (Default)
[identity profile] scfrankles.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] sherlock60
This week we’re having a look at The Dying Detective. I’ve typed up a few thoughts and questions to get the discussion going—please leave your own ideas in the comments!

The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem. I’m surprised really how passive and submissive Mrs. Hudson seems. I mean, she’s apparently a widowed woman on her own, responsible for running a household and earning her own living, and responsible for making sure her servants are paid too. Is she just deferential where Holmes is concerned? Is Watson exaggerating things for the sake of the story?

“Good God! Why did you not call in a doctor?” How do you feel about Mrs. Hudson taking so long to get a doctor? Admittedly, Holmes isn’t actually ill and is manipulating her. But what if Holmes had been ill? Do you feel sympathy with Mrs. Hudson’s hesitation? Or do you feel angry that she was so passive?

He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent. I am not convinced Holmes does dislike women. It seems to be one of those generalisations that continually breaks down when it comes to individual women. Holmes worries about Violet Hunter like a brother, and about Violet de Merville like a father. In TWIS Holmes says to Watson about Mrs. Neville St. Clair: “I was wondering what I should say to this dear little woman to-night when she meets me at the door.” He and Watson are alone then: there’s no reason for him to pretend he has sympathy with her if he doesn’t. Also, I always think that Holmes understands women better than Watson. He sees them as they are, rather than romanticising them.

...when she came to my rooms in the second year of my married life… Where is Mrs. Watson? Watson rushes away to Baker Street without speaking to her or leaving a note.

“You are not angry?” he asked, gasping for breath. I realise this is a hugely contentious point: was Holmes right to use this plan? To make Watson and Mrs. Hudson believe that he was truly dying? They both go through a nightmarish experience. (There is that heartbreaking line: Mrs. Hudson was waiting, trembling and weeping, in the passage.)

I don’t want to diminish their suffering—knowing that someone you care about is close to death is terrifying and unbearable. But I do still believe that Holmes was right to act as he did—that there was a necessary ruthlessness to his actions.

...I walked slowly round the room, examining the pictures of celebrated criminals with which every wall was adorned. Odd choice of decoration for a bedroom. I’m sure these are people Holmes finds interesting but why does he choose to have them out on display at all times?

It was a dreadful cry that he gave—a yell which might have been heard down the street. My skin went cold and my hair bristled at that horrible scream. It doesn’t exactly balance things out but this does demonstrate to me how intensely Holmes cares about Watson. He’s not just anxious—he’s terrified when he thinks Watson is about to open the deadly box.

“There are the wheels, Watson. Quick, man, if you love me!” Time is short but should Holmes have still made an attempt to tell Watson that he wasn’t ill and it was a trick aimed at Culverton Smith? Watson doesn’t know he’s hiding in order to be a witness to a confession—at any moment he might have given the game away.

“Coals of fire, Holmes—coals of fire!” Which I gather is a reference to Romans 12:20: "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head"; the next verse being: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Is Holmes overcoming evil with good, or is he using evil to fight evil?

“Poor Victor was a dead man on the fourth day—a strong, hearty young fellow.” Victor Savage is really just a plot point in the story—we don’t know much about him. Any thoughts on him?

“That pretence I have carried out with the thoroughness of the true artist.” This seems an odd statement to make about yourself. Is Holmes trying to convince himself that he made the right choice in what to do? Or does the statement actually come from the author, Watson, because he was trying to convince himself Holmes had made the right choice?

Next Sunday, 20th December, we’ll be looking at the first half of The Valley of Fear: chaps 1-7. Hope you can join us for that.


And the following Sunday, 27th December, should have been a discussion for the second half—however, I believe someone from the Marylebone Monthly Illustrated will be standing in for me then and doing something a little more fun and festive…

Date: 2015-12-13 11:20 am (UTC)
ext_1789368: okapi (Default)
From: [identity profile] okapi1895.livejournal.com
It's not the first time that Holmes has faked his death or used Watson as a witness for that point, so maybe he doesn't actually see anything wrong in his manipulation. I think he is genuinely proud of himself for pulling it off. Just like Mrs. Hudson seeing all kinds of calamities transpire in 221B. Maybe she wasn't sure that she should intervene, head in the sand sort of thingI think Holmes's treatment of women changes a lot from story to story. I mean he leaves poor unconscious Lady Carfax with creepy McCreeps-a-lot Green. Not exactly sensitive. But sometimes he is. And I guess this would mysterious wife #2?

Date: 2015-12-13 01:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com
I was also struck with the description of the room. It's like the sort of room that today would be occupied by a crazed conspiracy theorist and it shows that, in fact, Holmes lacks a personal life. HIs whole world is full of his work.

Or, perhaps, Holmes hides his actual personal life from everyone (including Watson). But that would be too cruel.

Date: 2015-12-13 03:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com
I concur with your assessment.

I was going with the bedroom as being the most personal room in the house (envisioning the wall with VR shot into it in the living room, the bills fastened to the mantlepiece by a knife) and his ability to so completely and utterly fool Watson (a doctor) into thinking that he was dying. What if he his whole detective thing was also a front for something else? Some life he built after (or even before) the Falls? Maybe with the woman?

He is smart enough to do this, I think.

But these are just the sorts of idle wonderings that get one into trouble, perhaps.

dislike and distrust the sex

Date: 2015-12-13 01:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com
I can see why Watson thinks Holmes dislikes and distrusts women--he associates them in general with irrationality and emotion (and possibly sex), which are things he holds no truck with.

So it's not surprising that he can deal with individual women as exceptions to the general rule. It's like he creates a special category of women who are okay despite their obvious fault in being women.

Date: 2015-12-13 01:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com
By this point Watson is actually living with Lestrade, but since he can't put this in print he conveniently refers to his 'wife'. Normally he would imply he was living at Baker Street, but for this case to make sense he couldn't do so.

Date: 2015-12-13 02:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com
You see, it makes perfect sense ;)

Date: 2015-12-13 02:20 pm (UTC)
ext_1789368: okapi (Default)
From: [identity profile] okapi1895.livejournal.com
Ah ha! This is interesting in a sort of John the Baptist is really Mary Magdalene way.

Date: 2015-12-13 03:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com
Except I believe this is more plausible ;)

Date: 2015-12-13 03:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com
Ah! The Lestrade canoodling theorem. I'd forgotten all about that.

Date: 2015-12-13 03:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com
Haha! It does explain a lot ;)

Date: 2015-12-13 04:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] laurose8.livejournal.com
I'm afraid I still incline to a theory which emerged in earlier discussions; that Watson knew about Holmes' deception and he (or Doyle) just wrote it like this to add suspense. To me, the idea of Watson hanging around a sick man's bed for two hours doing nothing carries no conviction whatsoever.

Date: 2015-12-14 01:14 am (UTC)
alafaye: (Default)
From: [personal profile] alafaye
Could it be that because Holmes treats women with respect, as people with full agency, rather than how (and I'm just going from what little I know of the era) men treated women, Holmes' attitude seemed odd?

Date: 2015-12-15 01:29 am (UTC)
alafaye: (Default)
From: [personal profile] alafaye
Where has my brain been?

Thanks :)

a few thoughts on this angst bundle, 1

Date: 2015-12-17 04:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rachelindeed.livejournal.com
Whee! I'm very late to this party, but why not leave a few thoughts on this contentious little bundle of angst? :)

But I do still believe that Holmes was right to act as he did—that there was a necessary ruthlessness to his actions.

With the word "necessary" I think you put your finger on exactly the crux of the writing/reading disjunction that sometimes occurs for me when I read Doyle. So, here's the thing. It's clear that Doyle's goal in writing and my goal in reading are different. Doyle's goal in writing was to present each mystery scenario in as dramatic a fashion as possible, and to maintain basic plausibility for his scenarios so that the audience would be able to suspend disbelief and get swept up in the thrills of the case. He also avowedly made it a goal to keep Watson from acquiring too much depth and to always subordinate his character to the needs of the plot. Doyle wrote to Ronald Knox in 1912:

"Another point –- one of the few in which I feel satisfaction but which I have never seen mentioned –- is that Watson never for one instant as chorus and chronicler transcends his own limitations. Never once does a flash of wit or wisdom come from him. All is [remorselessly] eliminated so that he may be Watson."

Of course, I don't think that Doyle actually succeeded in creating such a limited character at all, and I don't think he understood the appeal of his own creation in Watson any more than he understood the appeal in Holmes. My only point is that I really don't think he paid much attention to the emotional dynamics of Watson as a realistic human being, which means that I am looking for something when I read which he was not necessarily attempting to provide when he wrote.

So, when we get into situations like this where the most dramatic story depends on Holmes putting his dearest friend (and in this case his harmless landlady as well) through emotional hell, and then laughing it off once it's revealed that it was all for the greater good, I tend to hit a personal roadblock. I find that a reprehensible way to work, and of course the only possible justification for it is the idea that there was no other way he could have achieved the greater good. He had to do this hurtful thing, there was no other way. In short, in order to maintain Holmes as a non-awful person, we are asked to accept that in this case, and in Reichenbach, the emotional torment he manipulated his friends into suffering was absolutely necessary.

a few thoughts on this angst bundle, 2

Date: 2015-12-17 04:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rachelindeed.livejournal.com
And that is the point at which my suspension of belief really starts to waver. Partly it's because even I, a non-genius, can think of other ways that a fantastic actor and masterful planner like Holmes could have approached this case. I can imagine him, for instance, writing a series of increasingly pitiful and desperate telegrams to Culverton Smith, begging him for aid and humbly recanting all of his previous accusations. He insists in this story that Smith must be lured out in person, but Smith does not in fact strike me as a man who needs much convincing to gloat, and wouldn't giving the man written evidence exonerating him from suspicion make him feel secure enough in his victory to come crow? If, despite appearances, Holmes was in fact right that Smith was paranoid enough to require convincing in person from a messenger who could establish with authenticity the seriousness of Holmes's medical condition, why not employ Mycroft, for example, as the somber, protective, deeply concerned older brother? Mycroft must be able to dissimulate and manipulate in order to have built the career in politics that he has. Although canonically lazy, I can't believe he would actually refuse to help his brother catch a murderer if Holmes called upon him for a few hours' assistance. That would obviate the need to torment Watson and Mrs. Hudson at all. Just have Watson hide behind the bedstead in full knowledge of the situation and act as witness once Mycroft flushed the fiend out of hiding.

Anyway, more than any of these specifics I just tend to feel that Holmes didn't try very hard to come up with ways of working which extended respect and consideration to his colleagues, friends, and dependents. Whenever he does this kind of thing I get angry with him, and I lose some of my ability to just take his and Doyle's word for it that there really wasn't any other way to handle things. You're a genius, Holmes. If you think you have to make your loved ones terrified and miserable, please think again. Come up with something better.

That's what I'm always thinking when I approach the stories with my eyes fixed on the human relationships first. But that's really not the way they are meant to be read. So I compromise whenever I can by putting my hands over my ears and pretending Holmes didn't really do this kind of thing :)

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Sherlock Holmes: 60 for 60

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