Do you guys like Sherlock Holmes? I read all of his stuff and while the short stories were interesting and holmes was shown to be brilliant the explanation always felt like a copnout that the only person who could even hope to figure it out is Holmes. It's probably intentional but I prefer it when I have some semblance of a clue to go on or hints in the story before that leads to a conclusion.
I also found the stories too short to match for how complex the stories seemed. the full length books however I adored but the general short stories always felt similar. Person has some strange unexplained problem. Person goes to Holmes/Watson, something strange and seemingly unexplained happens in the events. Holmes deduces what happened and what happened with the thief/murderer/what have you. And it's over.
What do you guys think about the famous detective
>>7995088
you need to put the stories in context
they were intended for a mainstream audience, the readership of a popular magazine (i.e. The Strand).
also consider the date. in the late 19th century the detective genre was still relatively new and not as developed as it became later
SACD knew his readership and targeted the stories accordingly.
pic related: best holmes
About as good as the Hunger Games.
>>7995119
>pic related: best holmes
well that was an elementary mistake
>>7995088
A good story is really about Rituals and the Contradictions faced within rituals.... the point of the Sherlock Holmes structure is really the superstructure of British politesse itself.
When the 19th Century politesse is thrown into disorder, whether by a criminal, or by a social undesirable (The Irish Catholics, the French Huguenots, the Spanish Jesuits, the German 'Hun' or Ruslander or what have you) you have to seek out a cultivated, yet eccentric mind that can navigate between cultural lines, and thereby grant order to the society again. Someone intimately familiar with History, Geography, The Holy Bible, Professions, Class, etc. Watson is the star of every Sherlock Holmes story, because he is obliged to analyze the culture, while Sherlock merely has to be brilliant.
So it's a meditation on a very rigorous form of politesse, but it's also assessing what the aristocrat has in common with the outsider.
The best Sherlock Holmes stories however are when he solves the problems of dead aristocrats, and we are invited to puzzle out their more eccentric habits of mind (locked doors, time capsules, hidden dungeons, and horrendous proclivities, ritualistic beliefs stemming back to the ancient world, etc.).
>>7995474
>I shouldn't say 'social undesirable' but the social element which is viewed as extraneous by some members of the population
I read a lot of Holmes's stories when I was a kid, and loved them all. Recently I bought a collection with all the tales and novels, and found that I still quite enjoyed them.
>>7995088
I agree they end up formulaic, but I still enjoy them immensely as a light bedtime read. Plus, I adore Victorian era English prose.
I guess you'd say that Sherlock Holmes is a great Naturalist, but that Watson tries to set things down Authorially, in order to make more extended observations.
It's worth remembering that Dr. Watson is conceived as being a Physician, while Sherlock is really only a rising star, or a jobber (as well as an opium addict).
Sherlock Holmes might be a celebrity, but he's on a sort of social probation and not really among the highest ranks of English society. He has to seek out patrons and this would put him on shaky ground without a Doctor to introduce him. So there's a distinction to make between a Sherlock and a more communitarian 'Sam Spade' character.
If you could recommend 3 stories to someone who doesn't read Holmes, which stories would you choose?
>>7995574
adventure of the dancing men
the bruce partington plans
silver blaze
really you could pick any three stories from "adventures" or "memoirs"
hound of the baskervilles is the best of the novels
>>7995633
This is correct. I'd agree that picking any story that sounds good would work and the hounds of Baskerville is amazing
