Discussion Post: The Musgrave Ritual

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Welcome back and hello! After a little bit of a slow patch, we have a classic here with The Musgrave Ritual. What did you think? As always, here are some of my thoughts and questions about it. Please add your own!

- Now this is a good one! The Musgrave Ritual is a canon high note. With both an interesting case, Holmes history and fun Holmes and Watson interaction in 221B, MUSG has it all.

- Lots of Sherlock Holmes and Baker Street goodness here. The Persian slipper! The letters jack-knifed to the fireplace! The VR shot into the wall! The experiments everywhere! In fact, there's so much goodness, it's almost overwhelming. Maybe it's just coming off a few lesser stories in a row, but I would almost prefer the (delicious, wonderful) character bits be spread out more across the stories in a way. Probably just me on that one.

- Watson is "more lax than befits a medical man", but even he has his limits. I love that only Watson has the power to make Holmes concede an argument to clean, but at the same time, Holmes finds a way out of it, telling this story instead. And the best part is that Watson was excited for it. Their friendship adds so much to these stories.

- As for the case itself, there's one big question: Did Rachel kill Brunton intentionally or was his death an accident? Even Holmes isn't completely sure. What do you think?

Comments

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

Mostly i think 'poor Sherlock!'
when it covers to the motivations and actions of women... hardly his strong suit!

i remember reading a pretty good sequel story to this 'The Addington Treasure'? i think.

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Ooh, where'd you find this sequel? I'd be curious to check that out!

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

please excuse my memory (or lack of!); the correct title of the story is 'The Legacy of Rachel Howells' by Michael Doyle and i read it in 'New Sherlock Holmes Adventures' edited by Mike Ashley. also known (in the UK) as The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - a great collection marred only by some awful sub-editing/proofing errors.

http://www.amazon.com/Book-New-Sherlock-Holmes-Adventures/dp/0785818804

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mammoth-Sherlock-Holmes-Adventures-Books/dp/1845299264/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327355393&sr=8-1

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I think the way that Watson knows what Holmes is doing in distracting him from demanding he tidy up is lovely, both in what it says about their friendship and about Watson himself.

The fact that Rachel didn't go for help tends to point towards deliberately killing Brunton, but equally the shock of an accident could have prevented her from acting logically, after all she was a highly strung Welsh girl!

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Agreed 100% about Watson here! He is just adorable here. Everyone should have a Watson to be so excited to hear their stories. :)

[hardboiledbaby]

Yes, lots of yummy Baker Street atmosphere in this one. :)

I was curious about the oak and the elm. Even granting that the trees were already mature at the time the crown was hidden (and those who hid it meant for it to be retrieved fairly soon thereafter), would they not have grown taller in the interim, and at different rates? At least enough to throw off Holmes' and Brunton's calculations....

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is a great point! You definitely hit on something with the growth (and growth rates) of the trees. There's actually another biology puzzle in this one as well. Brunton presumably suffocates down there, but there's enough oxygen in the hole to support fungi growing on the chest. Curious...

[hardboiledbaby]

So true! Of course, ACD wasn't about to let some pesky facts get in the way of his storytelling, eh? ;)