Reviews with content warning for Death - A Study in Scarlet

I enjoyed this book, more so than I would have if I hadn't been obsessed with BBC's adaptation in high school. I loved comparing it to the show and seeing how things were changed and adapted. I wasn't a huge fan of the tone switch in the middle, and would have preferred at least a slight explanation sooner, but glad I stuck it out. I like how the stories wrapped up together, and how it ended. The writing is a bit too old timey for me, my companion, so I don't think I'll be continuing on with the series.

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adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Can I just say, I forgot how much I love Doyle’s writing? I think Doyle was somewhat justified in resenting Holmes’ popularity, which pressured him to continue writing the same type of "cheap," “popular” crime stories instead of exploring his range and moving on to potentially greater things. But Doyle is a good writer, and shows immense range even in the first installment of the Sherlock Holmes stories. People have complained (including myself) about how random the digression into the murderer’s backstory—in Utah of all places—is, but at the same time, it’s a really compelling addition to the narrative. Imagine the Utah episodes weren’t there, written as they are. Imagine all we got of the backstory was what the murderer confesses at the end. Wouldn’t that be dry? Even drier than the pitiless desert Doyle evokes through writing as vividly as Louis L'Amour ever did. Given that Holmes himself called the case “simple” and solved it essentially from his armchair in three days, the added narrative prevents the content of the story from feeling flat. It communicates things to the reader that Holmes could not have deduced in any amount of time with the information he had—emotion, passion, cultish fear, survival, grief. The Utah narrative is also a courtesy of the authorial hand—it is not written by Dr. John Watson, as is the rest of the story. It confuses the form a little bit, but it also places us decidedly on the side of the murderer, which is a bold move no matter how it’s done.

Another thing I didn’t remember from when I first read it is the direct reference included in conversation between Holmes and Watson of Edgar Allen Poe’s deductive reasoner, C. Auguste Dupin. Watson compares Holmes to this pioneer of detective fiction, which Holmes rather resents and, somewhat uppishly, explains why he is in fact not like Dupin. I don’t know whether to chalk this up to Doyle wanting to get out in front of possible comparisons that the audience would make, or a genuine acknowledgement of those whose works inspired and informed the creation of his own. One of the characteristics that so distinguishes Holmes’ character in this introductory story is that he is not showy (part of his criticism of Dupin), he is not dying to tell everyone his methods, and when he does upon request, he frames it in the most straightforward—dare I say it?—dullest way imaginable. He’s not concerned with the drama of discovery, he’s concerned with the truthful results. It may also be inferred that it is difficult for him to clearly convey his processes, as he has automated so many of the steps as to not notice himself taking them, in the same way someone in advanced levels of mathematics might be at a loss as to how to explain the steps of long division—they just do them automatically. And that's another argument for the intermission in ye olde Utah rather than following Holmes doing nothing in particular, which means Watson observing nothing in particular to relate, for those dozen or so pages.

Also, can we pause and appreciate the brilliant introduction of Inspectors Lestrade and Gregson? I felt for those two, and I felt for Holmes’ relationship with them. I completely forgot how much of a sense of humour Holmes has. The amount of times Holmes is said to smile or laugh is a shock to system after being accustomed to seeing him portrayed in adaptation after adaptation as some kind of uptight, pompous, obnoxious, tactless person. The way he humours the inspectors and, though momentarily righteously incensed at their being given all the credit, sees their better qualities while they somewhat rudely overlook his is just heartwarming. And Watson. He is all that a narrator should be—observant, stylish writer, but with a few revelatory emergences of his own personality to make him more than a blank slate for the readers to write their own names on. Of course, that is indeed a part of what he is—representation for the skeptical audience that is then won over to Holmes’ side along with him. It’s a common writing technique, but an essential one when you need to get a story moving quickly and communicate necessary information—have a character enter an unfamiliar environment or meet a new person and then teach the reader about it naturally by having them watch that character learning. But I feel like Watson is more, and is foreshadowed as becoming more, with his background in Afghanistan, his illness, and his honest liking for Holmes after initially being quite indifferent to or wary of him. Because, like I said, Holmes is actually likeable in the way he’s written. And I’m here for it.

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