Dust from the Pages

As Jenny observed over at The Penslayer, we're halfway through December already. December of 2011. Whoda thunk? On the one hand it feels like this year has whipped by in a crazy blur, but at the same time, 2010 seems very far away. Lord willing, before you know it 2012 will be here (and The Hobbit will be coming out!).

In 2010, The Soldier's Cross was published and I upped my - what do you call it? - "online presence." Part of that involved actually using the splendid site Goodreads instead of just having an account, so 2011 has been one of the few years in which I've kept track of the books I have read. I didn't set a goal, liking to go through books at my own speed or lack thereof, and so the quantity wasn't as great as some of you, but I did wander into the worlds of some excellent books. I read some classics; some brilliant fantasies; a heap of rereads that didn't make it on the Goodreads list (Jane Austen, mostly); and some histories and other nonfiction. I didn't enjoy everything, but it was a nice, eclectic year. Here's a taste.

Away back in January I commenced my education proper in Sherlock Holmes. He makes for easy reading, so I have now read all the novels and most of the short stories (having already seen the Jeremy Brett TV-series, I knew how those ones ended and only read the ones I hadn't watched). I read Mutiny on the Bounty at last and just this month read the second in the trilogy, Men Against the Sea; I also added to my collection of sea novels such books as The Line upon a Wind (lift with your legs!), the 1950s novel The Tall Ships, and about the first hundred pages of Master and Commander...until I determined that it is most distinctly a man's novel. I met Jack Easy some time last year, and Hornblower awaits me after I've completed my own novel.

I took a huge bound out of my comfort zone and read The Killer Angels, perhaps the most not-me book in 2011's collection, and yet one that I enjoyed nonetheless. I read a new novel (gasp!), Liz Patterson's charming debut, The Mark of the Star. Just a couple months ago I also got Anne Elisabeth Stengl's newest novel, Veiled Rose, read it and promptly backtracked to read Heartless as well. They're some of my favorites from this year. (Yes! Abigail does read modern novels! ...Sometimes. Rarely. Alright, moving on.) I succeeded in finishing the Puritan Paperback The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (take a bite, chew ten times, swallow, digest, repeat); grudgingly picked up The Odyssey (even Athena recognized that Odysseus was an idiot!); and dabbled in some light reading with James Herriot. I had to read something light, you see, because at the same time I was reading Little Dorrit (you can't just come in saying you want to KNOW, you know).

In June I read my first G.K. Chesterton work, Four Faultless Felons. I can't decide what I think of Chesterton. I'll get back with you at a later date. Then there was...Team of Rivals. (May I remind you about lifting with your legs?) It involved some trudging, but it was very interesting. Then, Jenny having been on to me to read Beowulf, I picked that up (I like Wiglaf better than Beowulf). I read Rosemary Sutcliff's novel Frontier Wolf, which was like having my heart wrung a couple times (but wait, it's Sutcliff, so we expect that). The Forgotten Spurgeon, by Iain Murray, earned one of my rare five star ratings. It was good, accessible, encouraging, convicting, and did I mention that it was good?

For some light reading and inspiration for Sunshine and Gossamer I picked up the little book Dew on the Grass, a sweet read with some inside-out theology. I reread a couple Agatha Christie novels, Towards Zero (a favourite) and Murder at the Vicarage (not so much). I ventured a little dubiously into my first Robert Louis Stevenson novel, the odd Master of Ballantrae. Last week I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, complete and unabridged in its 1400-page glory. I'm not sure if I would read it again; it had its high points and its low points. Last night I (finally) reached the last page of Harry Blamire's The Christian Mind. I believe the crowning jewel of the year, however, was Howl's Moving Castle. This little book was clever, light and serious at once, and absolutely hilarious; after finishing it I loaned it out to various family members, and have yet to get it back.

The year is not quite finished; I hope to complete Thomas Costain's The Magnificent Century before January rolls around. But I am pleased with the books I've read and I enjoyed just about all of them. Unlike Jenny, many of my books had little (or little that I can pinpoint) to do with The White Sail's Shaking, and yet so many of them were beneficial in expanding my horizons. I read my first Dumas, my first Stevenson, and my first Chesterton this year. I found some new writers whose works I can watch for. I ventured into some very different eras, including the Civil War and the Age of Sail. And then of course there were those wonderful rereads.

what have you read this year?

John H. Watson, M.D.

Watson is underrated. Perhaps understandably so; after all, compared to the brilliant Holmes, Watson is hardly remarkable. But, then again, no one in Conan Doyle's novels is very remarkable when examined in the light of Sherlock Holmes (a fact of which that detective is keenly aware). Watson never fails to be startled by the minutiae of his friend's deductions, but is not quick enough to pick up on them himself, and his frequent inability to guess at the trail of Holmes' thoughts leaves many readers to conclude that he is a dunce.

Not so. Watson is no idiot, as he shows in The Hound of the Baskervilles, where he spends most of the book attempting to solve a mystery on his own; rather, he is the perfect foil for the eccentric genius of Sherlock Holmes. Whereas Holmes' talents lie in the realms of careful planning, plotting, and not a little deception, Watson is a man of action, generally ready with a pistol in his pocket to help his friend out of a tight spot. If not brilliant, he is brave, and never one to back out when the danger is high. His job is to fire at pygmies, throw smoke bombs inside rooms through open windows, and, most importantly, to do everything without asking questions or questioning Holmes' methods. As Holmes himself remarks in Hound, it is in the hour of action in which he turns to Watson for aid - and it is in the hour of action that Watson excels.

Holmes: "And when I raise my hand - so - you will throw into the room what I give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire. You quite follow me?"
Watson: "Entirely.... I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and at the signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street."
Holmes: "Precisely."
Watson: "Then you may entirely rely on me."

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia.)

Another point that is often missed is that only a character like Watson could be written as a loyal friend of a man like Sherlock Holmes. If Watson were as brilliant as Holmes, it would be unreasonable to think that the two would be friends, for their talents would lie in the same areas, they would clash, and it would ultimately diminish from the grandeur of Conan Doyle's masterpiece: Sherlock Holmes.

Watson is most important, however, in his capacity as a filter between Holmes and the reader. While readers may be disgusted with Watson for not always "catching on," this only shows that they don't realize how very much in the dark they would be if there were no character in the story to whom Holmes explained his logic. There are only two other options: first, that there be no explanation at all; or second, that Holmes' thought processes would be explained in narrative form rather than in dialogue. The first would alienate readers by making Holmes into an unapproachable, and incomprehensible, character, as, without an explanation of his conclusions, Conan Doyle's detective would seem absurd. Indeed, many of Holmes' seemingly random conclusions do seem absurd until he has languidly explained them to Watson.

As for the second, this means would make the prose tedious and parenthetical. Something along the lines of, "'You took the train back from the country this morning,' said Holmes. He knew this from the little splotch of mud on the threshold, which was not one of the five hundred samples known in the city of London and which naturally indicated that he had been out in the country. 'And you were late.' This, of course, came from the fact that the mud was rounded into the shape of the flat of Watson's shoe, which indicated that he had been sprinting." It is so much nicer to set out this information in dialogue form, rather than having the author feed it to the reader in such a way as to indicate the former's assumption that the latter is an idiot.

Instead of burdening his stories with either of these options, Conan Doyle created the character of John H. Watson, M.D. As an intrepid friend, supporting character, intelligent sidekick, and narrator of Holmes' cases, he remains a classic and oft-overlooked figure in the familiar mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.

(Maker of graphic unknown.)

A Bit O' The Classics - Sherlock Holmes

Years ago I read one of the more famous Sherlock Holmes mysteries, The Sign of Four, and attempted to read a few others, but was put off by the main character's egotism and could not manage it. Over the past months, however, I have watched almost all of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes adaptions, including the Adventures, the Casebook, the Return, and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Something about Brett's portrayal of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective had me hooked, and I hastily bought both Bantam Classics volumes of The Complete Novels and Stories of Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes is a character that most people either love or hate; there is not often a middle ground (except, of course, for those who haven't read any of Conan Doyle's detective works at all). Hating him would be perfectly understandable, judging from his cool arrogance, his occasional petulance, and his scorn for those without minds like his own. He goes through highs and lows like a roller-coaster, spending his days, when he is without a case, either sulking with his long-stemmed pipe or sprawled out on the sofa in a daze, probably narcotic-induced. He apparently has little regard for anyone. He lives, generally speaking, in his own little world.

With a description like that, it seems a wonder that anyone likes him. Yet the fact that people do means that there is something more to Holmes than this, or that Conan Doyle managed to write such an egotistical character with charm. In reading Holmes, I found it was both.

This is not to say that anything in my description of Holmes is wrong; he is, by turns, arrogant, petulant, and scornful, and no mistake. But he is not merely all these things, else he would not have become nearly as popular as he did. For one thing, though his arrogance can be a little grating, one does at least have to concede that he is not conceited without reason; he is not like Inspector Lestrade, who preens over having solved a crime, while nabbing the wrong fellow. He is a genius, and keenly aware of the fact. However, Holmes is not without his failures, and not above being disgusted with himself when he overlooks a clue or finds himself (as he does, albeit rarely) stumped. There is a limit to his conceit.

"'Watson,' said he, 'if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little overconfident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper "Norbury" in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.'" (The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Yellow Face.)

As for his petulance during times when he is without a case, the very childishness that on the one hand can make his behavior irritating can also make it endearing. Holmes is very much like a child in some respects - quick either to fling himself wholeheartedly into work, or to give up all pretense of labor; ascending rapidly to the pinnacle of delight, and plunging again two seconds later into Anne Shirley's "Depths of Despair." These wild mood swings are amusing to watch, and it is always satisfying to watch him bound back out of his dejection with the arrival of a new, challenging case.

His scorn for Scotland Yard is also understandable, as Conan Doyle surrounds him with inspectors like Gregson and Lestrade, who are occasionally effective, usually blundering, and always looking down their noses at Holmes' "methods" until the last minute. Coming to Holmes is always their last resort, and though he always manages to solve the case for them, they then kindly inform him that they will "make something of him yet." Yet Holmes is generally good-natured about allowing them to take the credit for problems he has solved, and rarely asks for more than the enjoyment a case provides for him.

Besides these points, Conan Doyle's major weapon for making Sherlock Holmes likable is the fact that the story is told, not from the detective's point of view, but through the first-person narration of Dr. Watson. However, Watson deserves a post of his very own, so I will enlarge on that later.