Canon Discussion: The Valley of Fear, Part 1

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

This week we’re having a look at the first half of The Valley of Fear. I’ve typed up a few thoughts and questions to get the discussion going—please leave your own ideas in the comments!


Chap. 1

"Really, Holmes," said I severely, "you are a little trying at times." “Being the seventh of January…” Holmes is quite irritable at the beginning of the story, and as the story proceeds says some rather cutting things. By tradition, the day before—the sixth—is his birthday. Has Watson perhaps forgotten and Holmes is rather firmly pretending he doesn’t care in the slightest?

"Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. Any thoughts on ‘Porlock’ and why he is willing to help Holmes at such a risk to himself?

laurose8 came up with some great ideas last time we discussed this and I hope it’s OK if I quote them here: A possible, if not probable, explanation, is that 'Porlock' felt wronged by Moriarty. I did wonder if it was a maid, or some other female. Besides the Victorian obvious: organised crime is pretty male chauvinist, and she might have been tired of men getting more pay for less work, and felt Moriarty owed her. Also, laurose8 suggested that the nom de plume meant he or she wanted to stop Moriarty's grandiose dreams. [To quote Wikipedia: The Person from Porlock was an unwelcome visitor to Samuel Taylor Coleridge during his composition of the poem Kubla Khan in 1797. Kubla Khan, only 54 lines long, was never completed. Thus "Person from Porlock", "Man from Porlock", or just "Porlock" are literary allusions to unwanted intruders who disrupt inspired creativity. Just in case I’m not the only person who needed to look that reference up... (^^”)]

“You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?" Well, here we have a major problem with continuity: in FINA, set in 1891, Watson has never heard of Moriarty. In this story, set at the end of the '80's, apparently he does know who Moriarty is. Any ideas?

"But why 'Douglas' and 'Birlstone'?" Holmes’ solving of the code is so elegant and so flaming unsatisfying. Surely those two words clumsily inserted into the code would have been enough just on their own? And then Inspector MacDonald turns up with the news Douglas is dead anyway.

Those were the early days at the end of the '80's, when Alec MacDonald was far from having attained the national fame which he has now achieved. I rather like MacDonald and the friendship between him and Holmes. (I notice they have matching “bushy eyebrows”—has Holmes started a trend?)


Chap. 2

"That painting was by Jean Baptiste Greuze." Why does Moriarty have it openly on show like this? Arrogance? Is he absolutely certain that no criminal activity can be traced back to him?

“His younger brother is a station master in the west of England.” Surely this can’t be the brother mentioned in FINA: Colonel James Moriarty? Professor Moriarty could have two brothers I suppose, but it seems odd that Holmes doesn’t mention the other one at this juncture. He’s trying to make the point that Moriarty’s family isn’t wealthy—surely Holmes would have mentioned other siblings if there had been any?


Chap. 7

“You will excuse these remarks from one who, though a mere connoisseur of crime, is still rather older and perhaps more experienced than yourself." This strikes me as an odd thing for Holmes to say to MacDonald. If this story does indeed take place “at the end of the '80's” and if Holmes was indeed born in 1854, then he’s at most 35. MacDonald is an Inspector—surely he’ll have had to work his way up. He can’t be that much younger than Holmes.


NB Next Sunday, 27th December, instead of a discussion post for the second half of VALL, someone from the Marylebone Monthly Illustrated has kindly offered to stand in for me and do something perhaps a little more fun and festive.

But do please feel free to read the second half and post 60s for it next week, if you wish to. And if there’s anything you want to discuss about the second half, you can always leave a comment on this post. I will still be around next Sunday—I just won't be formally putting together a discussion post.

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

It does seem bizarre to send a coded message, but leave the most important facts uncoded.

The only thing we can be sure of regarding the third Moriarty brother is that he was almost certainly called James.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

It's so annoyingly clunky because Holmes' deductions about the code are so elegant and clever. I wish ACD had just taken a bit longer over that bit.

The only thing we can be sure of regarding the third Moriarty brother is that he was almost certainly called James. Very, very true ^_^

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Just to say that's a good point, among all the others, about displaying an original Greuze. I wonder if he expected people to take it as a copy (and perhaps some did), and was rather amused by this.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I love the idea that Professor Moriarty is displaying an original Greuze in order to amuse himself. It gives a very interesting insight into his personality.

And it would work of course - seeing a very expensive painting being displayed by a poor professor, people would override their own suspicions: "Oh, it obviously can't be an original." But Holmes sees things as they actually are and takes things to their logical end - it is an original, therefore Moriarty can't be just a poor professor.

I think I accept your idea as headcanon ^_^

[debriswoman]

My thoughts on the identity of Porlock, and the clumsiness of the code, and Moriarty's general world view, are here...

http://sherlock60.livejournal.com/203592.html

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Your poem does make an awful of sense. Porlock is apparently helping Holmes at great personal risk and we're given absolutely no indication as to why. Now that you've pointed it out, it does seem far more likely that Porlock is writing on Moriarty's orders - the obvious coded message just adding to that theory.

If Holmes is unaware of my misdeeds,/ It spoils my fun" sort of ties in with laurose8's theory that Moriarty keeps the Greuze on show because it amuses him. He needs to always be running the risk that he might get caught because it feeds his ego with the belief that he can't get caught.

[godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com]

This is another late entry (I was at commencement and then on the road all at Sunday).... but I was thinking about Conan Doyle (insofar as I was also thinking about PG Wodehouse and Miss Read) and how much weird lack of continuity seems to occur in very late works in a super popular corpus generated late in life by an author who was kind of done with the characters and forced to keep going.

So I wonder how much of these weird ideas and continuity problems had to do with the fact that Doyle was (in fact) nearly 20 years out from being done with Holmes and maybe not paying terribly much attention to finer details...

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

So I wonder how much of these weird ideas and continuity problems had to do with the fact that Doyle was (in fact) nearly 20 years out from being done with Holmes and maybe not paying terribly much attention to finer details...

The thing is though, ACD doesn't pay attention to continuity right from the beginning ^_^ In SCAN Watson is apparently a married man in March 1888, even though in SIGN he didn't meet Mary Morstan until Sept 1888. And I think with VALL ACD just wanted to do another story involving Moriarty somehow and chose to deliberately not pay attention to the details in FINA.

[godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com]

Ok, so I totally over-read Doyle's continuity problems. I'm trying to reconcile married Watson in March and then meeting Mary Morstan in September (unless Mrs. Watson 1 died in childbirth in June or thereabouts?)

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

You certainly aren't the first person to theorise there was a Mrs. Watson before Mary Morstan ^^ I personally incline towards Watson just being absolutely dreadful with dates ^__^

[godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com]

Really? That wasn't a terribly serious theory on my part... I was alluding (badly) to the near-constant pretense of young women conveniently dying in childbirth to forward the plots of novels (I was thinking about Trollope's Phineas Finn....should probably have said.)