Discussion Post: The Adventure of the Norwood Builder

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Sunday sneaks up on us again. Seems like this was a short week. Hi, everybody! What did you think about The Adventure of the Norwood Builder? As always, I have a few questions and thoughts of my own for the story -- please add your own!

- So last week in The Noble Bachelor, Watson was just about to leave their Baker Street rooms for his marriage. This week, Holmes is back (from the dead) at Baker Street and he lures the now-widowered Watson back as well, buying him out of his practice by proxy, "an incident which only explained itself some years later." What do you think Watson thought and said when he discovered this secret scheme to ensure his presence? It's both insulting and extremely complimentary, which is very Holmes indeed.

- A problem with The Norwood Builder is with Oldacre's method of faking his death. Holmes claims "a couple of rabbits would account for both the blood and the charred ashes", but does that make any logical sense? I find it hard to believe that the carcass of a rabbit or two could ever pass for human remains, no matter how severe the fire. There would be bones left surely, and they would be very wrong. Granada's version of NORW has Oldacre killing a tramp to pose as his body, a much more plausible scenario.

- The gamesmanship between Lestrade and Holmes is interesting. Lestrade almost gets the upper hand for once and relishes it, but of course Holmes is the victor in the end as always and puts the inspector back in his place with a showy case-ending reveal. At least Lestrade can console himself with the credit, even if he never gets the solutions right.

- Are we missing something that happened between John McFarlane's mother and Jonas Oldacre? She says he turned a cat loose in an aviary, an act of cruelty which led her to break off their engagement which in turn caused Oldacre to curse her, send her the mutilated photograph, and spend his years wishing for revenge upon her. This cannot be the whole story, can it? What do you think really happened between them?

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

We know that Holmes would always win, but I have a certain sympathy for Lestrade in wanting to get one up on him just once.

And thank you for your final question, it inspired a second drabble as my answer.

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

I like Lestrade too. He tries his best, the poor thing.

Oh, I'm really happy to hear that one of my questions got your muse going! Terrific!

[wild-huntress.livejournal.com]

The cat in the aviary thing bugs me... Torturing and killing animals like Sir Eustace in The Abbey Grange is horrible, but letting a cat into an aviary for a few minutes where he may have eaten, like, one bird (when cats need to hunt and eat too) is eh. Maybe there something much more serious that happened between them but that wasn't for explaining to strangers, and the cat is just a cover story?

And I love that Holmes bought out Watson's practice just so he can get his friend back, aww... But that does beg the questions, what does Watson actually do for a job after this point? Is he just just writing professionally? Is he somehow existing as a professional hanger-on to Holmes? And why is he apparently unable to move his practice somewhere closer to Baker Street? This has been bugging me for a long time.

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

100% agreed about the cat being a cover story. It's not a good thing to do, certainly, but the fallout from it seems insane. There has to be something much more ugly and personal that they kept to themselves.

I think Watson makes his money writing, but also living off of Holmes, who seems more than happy (and able) to take care of both of them. But it's never made totally clear, so make of it what you like. :)

[wild-huntress.livejournal.com]

I think Watson makes his money writing, but also living off of Holmes, who seems more than happy (and able) to take care of both of them.

So apparently we're to infer that Watson is a kept man after this point? =p And on second glance, it seems fairly unlikely that he's making his money by writing - at least by writing about Holmes - as he says that Holmes only sporadically gives him permission to publish acccounts. Curiouser and curiouser...

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Maybe he works as a locum. We see him later reading a medical journal.

[snycock.livejournal.com]

Re: your second point. That's what I thought when I read it - kind of insulting, but so Holmes. He needs Watson with him and anything he can do to remove any obstacles to that is warranted. And he insured that Watson got excellent value for his sale - I can just imagine him being confounded at Watson's outrage when he finds out.

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right -- Holmes totally wouldn't get why Watson would be angry about this. That's kind of endearing in itself.