Devshirme

I just finished reading all of the canonical Sherlock Holmes stories, and finishing them was, I admit, bittersweet.  I had never read them nor even seen the movies – all I knew of Holmes was just pop culture stuff – the deerstalker cap (which he is never said to wear in the stories), “Elementary, my dear Watson” (again, never said in that order in the books) and so forth.  So reading each of the four novels and 56 short stories was a new thrill, and the bittersweet thing kicked in towards the end when I realized that soon there would be no more…

I first had the idea to finally read the stories when we got a membership at BJs and I rolled the cart by the book section.  Everything was so cheap that I was like “I want this one!  I’ll buy that one!”.  You can imagine.  Well, I did see The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which contained 12 short stories.  I bought it, read it, and was hooked.  I was pleased to find these two complete volumes on Amazon for $6.95 each, ordered them, and began devouring the stories in between all my other readings.

The mysteries are very entertaining but not really the kind where you can anticipate the villain or the solution, which is often bizarre.  They are set in Victorian England but seem very fresh except for the ones involving mistaken identity such as A Case Of Identity, which strikes me as being ridiculous.  Then again, at one point I guess things like this did happen – I remember reading the true story of The Return of Martin Guerre in college.

The dialogue is outstanding and frequently more entertaining than the story itself.  Some examples of the Holmes wit:

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

(from Silver Blaze)

“It was all very confused.  Sir Charles had evidently stood there for five or ten minutes.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar”

“Excellent!  This is a colleague, Watson, after our own heart.”

(from The Hound of the Baskervilles)

“How do you know that?”

“I followed you.”

“I saw no one.”

“That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.”

(from The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot)

Holmes is also a man (as is Watson).  He smokes a pipe, has a drink socially, is a true gentleman yet capable of great feats of physical activity and courage.  He is comfortable with firearms and knows how to use them (and always with strong judgment).  He is heroic yet shuns fame and publicity and is modest about his gifts.  Holmes is equally at home in the bustling metropolis of London as well as the deepest countryside.  He is not after fortune but making his world (and the whole world, for some of his adventures involve foreign sovereigns) a better and safer place.

Great stuff.  The stories are the perfect length to read one here and another another night.  Again, it is bittersweet that I have finished them.  Perhaps on to Solar Pons?

One of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories, The Whisperer In Darkness, is soon to be out as a movie.   I have been trying like crazy to figure out how to actually post the trailer here but I am still not familiar enough with this new software, so you will have to check it out here.  The first guy speaking (playing Charles Fort) sounds exactly like one of the voices on South Park but I couldn’t make the connection based on the IMDB entries.    I am a huge HPL fan; I have read all of his fiction, some of his poetry (much of it is rather dreary and some is incredibly racist), and not enough of his letters.  I am not a fan of his dream fiction but his “weird fiction” or horror stuff is tremendous and not your typical fare.  Movies made from his stories have generally been awful, though, mainly due to too much change or trying to make the stories humorous.  The Cthulhu Lives gang has begun making films true to the original stories, and I have great hopes that these movies will be good.  The trailer is definitely promising.

Thursday morning I rolled to Venerini Academy to read to Sister Roberta’s 5th grade class.  They were having some sort of community reading day thing, and I was invited by Pam G., who is one of the school’s parent-volunteers.  A bunch of us (including a Coast Guard Band musician, an attorney, etc.) were matched up with a specific class and had an hour to talk to the students and read something of our own choosing.  I am not really connected with the pop-culture world of 5th graders, but I figured there was some interest in vampire literature.  Surely enough, when I asked the students what they read, they all answered Twilight and Vampire Diaries.  I told them I had the granddaddy of them all – Dracula – and read a few excerpts from the beginning (Harker arrives at the Castle, the shaving incident, and Harker seeing the Count crawl down the castle wall head-first).  We had a great discussion about suspense, the purpose of the author going into detail of the scenery, etc., and good and evil.  The novel remains a model of the stark difference between good and evil, whereas these modern vampire novels have a different agenda.  The students were fabulous and totally into it. 

After reading to the class I was brought to the library and chatted with some of the mothers, who offer their time to the school with enthusiasm and generosity,  as well as the staff.  The whole experience reminded my of my Catholic elementary school experience – volunteers helping the understaffed school, as well as the astonishing demands on elementary school teachers.  One teacher has the same students all day long and has to make science, math, history, English and whatever else interesting and relevant to high-energy students who are inside for much of the day. 

A final note – we have many Cathedral kids at Venerini, and I got to see a bunch of them.  One particular highlight was seeing Lia M. in her Latin class.  Yes, Latin is required at the school.  I floated the idea of Lia reading the gospel in Latin at next year’s Agape service, and have no doubt she would make a great reader.

This is courtesy of Robert Irwin and his superfabulous book Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism & Its Discontents.  It is a serious work but there are many fun moments.  On page 30 he talks about the enthusiasm with which translators in Medieval Spain took on the works of Islamic science, including some of the more dubious sciences or pseudosciences:  “They translated works on astrology, alchemy, numerology, omplatoscopy (divination from the cracks on scorched sheep’s bones), geomancy (divination from marks in the sand) haruspication (divination from entrails), and similar recondite practices.”  A great read, and I highly recommend it.