Discussion Post: The Naval Treaty
Jan. 29th, 2012 12:38 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60It's Sunday, you know what that means. So what did you think of The Naval Treaty? As always here are some of my thoughts and questions. Please add your own!
- This case is 12,701 words, making it the longest in canon, about 50% longer than the average. Did you like the longer length or do you prefer the shorter ones? Or perhaps you like the full novels, instead. Have there been any shorter cases you wish were longer like NAVA?
- Watson (or ACD, take your pick) loved to hint at other cases the reader never gets to see, but this is a rare time where one of his name-dropped mysteries does eventually find its way to publication. The case Watson highlights, The Second Stain, did have to wait until the new century to see the light of day, arriving in print in 1904, eleven years after The Naval Treaty. We'll be reading it in April.
- Regarding Percy, Watson says, "It seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket." Ouch! Is this just a case of boys being boys, or was Watson a a bit of a bully in his youth?
- Holmes takes the time to indulge his rarely seen philosophical streak here, expounding on the grander meaning of flowers in the middle of his interview with Percy Phelps and his fiance. Later he waxes philosophical again, this time with Watson, imagining rows of school buildings as lighthouses beckoning the future. Any theories to what inspired his abstract outbursts?
- Hypothetically, would Holmes be guilty of manslaughter if one of his elaborate case ending reveals shocks his client into a fatal heart attack?
- This case is 12,701 words, making it the longest in canon, about 50% longer than the average. Did you like the longer length or do you prefer the shorter ones? Or perhaps you like the full novels, instead. Have there been any shorter cases you wish were longer like NAVA?
- Watson (or ACD, take your pick) loved to hint at other cases the reader never gets to see, but this is a rare time where one of his name-dropped mysteries does eventually find its way to publication. The case Watson highlights, The Second Stain, did have to wait until the new century to see the light of day, arriving in print in 1904, eleven years after The Naval Treaty. We'll be reading it in April.
- Regarding Percy, Watson says, "It seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket." Ouch! Is this just a case of boys being boys, or was Watson a a bit of a bully in his youth?
- Holmes takes the time to indulge his rarely seen philosophical streak here, expounding on the grander meaning of flowers in the middle of his interview with Percy Phelps and his fiance. Later he waxes philosophical again, this time with Watson, imagining rows of school buildings as lighthouses beckoning the future. Any theories to what inspired his abstract outbursts?
- Hypothetically, would Holmes be guilty of manslaughter if one of his elaborate case ending reveals shocks his client into a fatal heart attack?
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-29 10:22 am (UTC)As for Holmes...
apart from being a lovely touch of characterisation,(Sherlock's boho persona becomes more of an in-joke in later stories) and a beautiful piece of writing, the flower scene, (now you come to mention it) well...
1892, if i remember rightly - Doyle's first real taste of settled success - but in turn this lead to some sort of metaphysical crisis, which Doyle talked about to his close friends.
Jan 1893 he joined the Theosophical society and though Holmes would later flatly deny any mystical leanings, (just as Doyle would make pains to keep them out of the stories) i think you may have put your finger on the exception that proves the rule.
Then again, Doyle was a canny chap - he'd probably just invested a few bob into Board Schools and the florist trade!
i often wish some of the later stores were longer, Carfax and Vampire for example.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-01 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-29 10:14 pm (UTC)I probably prefer the shorter stories, which leave out the philosophising. This one feels a bit like we're sharing Phelps weeks of brain fever, rather than moving the plot along.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 08:18 am (UTC)Personally, I wouldn't call whacking someone with a wicket a "piquant thing" to do. But according to the BF (who was an Army brat, back in the day), moving to a new school invariably meant being challenged to fight. Afterwards, they would all be friends. He thinks this was quite normal. Me, not so much. :-P
One thing I wondered about: Holmes and Watson left at once for Woking, and caught the early train at Waterloo. They went directly from the station to Briarbrae. After listening to Phelps' story, they were driven back to the station and soon boarded a Portsmouth train. When did Holmes find the time for his "independent inquiries"? And where was Watson?