Sherlock60: The Story Continues... with "The Cardboard Box"

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

This Sunday, 17th April, we'll be posting our 60 word ficlets for The Cardboard Box.

On a hot summer's day, Holmes and Watson go to investigate a gruesome package sent to a respectable spinster. Is it a practical joke? Or could it be something more sinister..?

If you haven't tried 60 for 60 before, full information - including our schedule - can be found on our profile. But in essence: you read ACD's story and then you write a 60 word story inspired by it! You don't have to post a story every week - just join in whenever you feel like it.

Each Sunday we will also have our weekly discussion post, where we discuss a topic inspired by the canon story. And there’s Mrs. Hudson's Poetry Page too - any poems written about this week’s story can be left as a comment on her post. Mrs. Hudson informs me that the poetry form being revisited this week is the diamante. And as always, her housemaid Rachel will be suggesting a poem for us to read, to give us added inspiration.

You can choose one activity, or have a go at everything. Or just come along and read the 60s! (And have a chat in the comments.) All options are absolutely fine.

Hope to see you on Sunday. But don’t worry if you can’t join us then - we stay open for posting and commenting all week!

Comments

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

I sincerely hope discussion includes the status of ferrets in Victorian England because the description of 'as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever' is as puzzling as finding two ears in your half-pound box of honeydew.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid we're doing seaside holidays ^^

But I'm guessing the status of ferrets wasn't high ^_^ I think Watson is just trying to give us some idea of Lestrade's facial features: thin-faced with a sharp, narrow nose. I don't think Watson is positively trying to be offensive but it isn't a complimentary comparison. It's a more tactful comparison than "rat-faced" or "rodent-faced", I suppose. And I think it might be a case of an upper middle class man (Watson) being a little snobbish; comparing Lestrade to a ferret is indirectly saying: "Look how working class his features are."

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Maybe we could discuss the role of ferrets at some stage ;) They were domesticated and had a role in Victorian England.

[sanguinity]

I know I'm going to regret asking this (because I always regret asking chronology questions), but whose rough chronology is this? I'm not finding the place in the profile or recent modposts where it says.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Er, it's mine. With input from Small Hobbit, but responsibility for any oddities or awful mistakes falls entirely on me. (And I've just noticed a really obvious blunder in it today...)

[sanguinity]

Would that be Holmes' referring to the earlier publication of SIGN? Because I confess, I was curious about what conflicting data supported CARD before SIGN.

Nah, responsibility for oddities falls firmly on Doyle. Best one can do is try to minimize mean squared error (or its ordinal analog), and make the explanations for the oddities as interesting as possible.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

No, I was thinking of NAVA. I always think it's set just before Watson's wedding but it's actually set just after.

I must admit I only noticed this week, while rereading CARD, that Holmes mentions SIGN. But I have read a theory that Watson deliberately inserted his past works into his stories to remind readers they existed and to go and buy them. Certainly in COPP Holmes and Watson seem to be still living together, yet Holmes refers to stories that take place after Watson’s marriage.

My thinking was that because Watson makes reference to his depleted bank account and being more used to heat, this suggests this story isn't long after STUD. And looking at it now, Watson is bemoaning his lack of money for a holiday but doesn’t seem to be worrying about not having enough money for starting married life. And there’s no reference to him being engaged, and no reference to Mary.

Anyway, that's why I chose to put CARD in that position. It's just my personal opinion though. And I dare say a lot of blunders are going to come to light as we go along ^^”

[sanguinity]

That's sound. And the whole debate about Holmes' similarities/dissimilarities to -- Dupin, was it? Not looking it up at this moment -- smacks to me of them being still fairly early in their relationship.

I hope you don't mind me asking this question again, as we go? Why you put a story in a particular place in the sequence? Because I'm happy to have lucked into an internal-chronology round, and would enjoy knowing more of what you were thinking about when you built the sequence.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Yes, "You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion..." does seem to be a reference back to STUD (though Holmes didn't actually read a passage to Watson) and it does seem to imply that STUD wasn't that long ago.

And please do ask me about the order as we go along ^^ I'm keen to discuss it. I will just say that, though I did give the order some thought, I didn't agonise about it. I had to get on and come up with a list so I could pass it on to the other contributors - and it would have taken a lot longer than the time I had available to do it thoroughly. So, I thought carefully about the position of some stories more than others.

[sanguinity]

Excellent, and understood. :-)

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

My contribution was mainly limited to saying we need to split the novels up a bit. And one other place which will become apparent as we go through.

Interestingly CARD was not included in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894 collection) but was published in His Last Bow</i) (1917 collection), so I think we can presume Watson rewrote it and forgot who had said what at the time, hence his reference to SIGN.