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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
I have to say Dr. Watson cracks me up. Oh, I adore his character.
adventurous
An improved follow-up to the first book, this one had a lot of mystery-solving part than its predecessor. The book slowly became an adventure towards the end. Conan Doyle is still trying out a lot of things to see what works. This book has a lot of parts that are good on their own but overall reduce the quality due to being out of place.
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Sign of the Four opens with Sherlock Holmes doing some cocaine because, lacking a crime to solve, he's bored, and then asking Watson if he'd like some too. It's an event so casually related, that it's jarring to a 21st Century reader accustomed to the immense stigma that the war on drugs has placed on cocaine use, and I found it hilarious. Also very funny to me is an exchange between Holmes and Watson at the end of the book, where Sherlock tells his friend that he shall never marry, because if he were married, then he would feel emotions towards his wife, and feeling emotions would make him worse at solving crimes.
I think these moments stick out to me, however, because on the whole, The Sign of the Four doesn't have much to recommend it. As with Arthur Conan Doyle's first Holmes novel, A Study In Scarlet, the book is frequently very tedious; it's not very long, but there are several sections which feel like they drag on and on, particularly a long narrative given by a captured criminal near the end of the book. Doyle clearly hadn't figured out how to pace or structure a mystery by this point in his career. Sherlock Holmes exhibits a couple of mildly entertaining (if perhaps a bit unrealistically perceptive) feats of deduction at various points throughout their novel, but most of the story is taken up with padding out a mystery that feels like it would have benefited from being about a third as long.
An action sequence at the novel's climax wherein Holmes, Watson, and London police officer Athelney Jones give chase to a steam-powered boat down the Thames, would have been pretty good if it weren't for one big problem. And that problem would be racism. The villain's sidekick is a native of the Andaman Islands, and he is described in a viciously racist way, with Watson remarking how horrifying he finds it to even look upon the man's face. Fearing that they may be shot by a poisoned blow-dart, Holmes tells Watson to shoot the man dead if he so much as raises his hand, a revolting command that brings to mind modern police and vigilante shootings of people of color in a truly sickening way. It's arguably not even the most racist part of the book, for in the villain's seemingly interminable narration of his backstory, we get a ton of profoundly racist commentary on white supremacy in Britain's imperial rule over India as well as the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Without all of this racism, The Sign of the Four is not a very good book, but it has its moments and it's arguably even a somewhat enjoyable light read. But the book's racism (which is incredibly hateful without ever losing a rather casual tone, leading one to wonder what Arthur Conan Doyle or the characters in his fiction would have had to say about people of color when he was really worked up) makes it an altogether unpleasant book which I don't plan to revisit.
I think these moments stick out to me, however, because on the whole, The Sign of the Four doesn't have much to recommend it. As with Arthur Conan Doyle's first Holmes novel, A Study In Scarlet, the book is frequently very tedious; it's not very long, but there are several sections which feel like they drag on and on, particularly a long narrative given by a captured criminal near the end of the book. Doyle clearly hadn't figured out how to pace or structure a mystery by this point in his career. Sherlock Holmes exhibits a couple of mildly entertaining (if perhaps a bit unrealistically perceptive) feats of deduction at various points throughout their novel, but most of the story is taken up with padding out a mystery that feels like it would have benefited from being about a third as long.
An action sequence at the novel's climax wherein Holmes, Watson, and London police officer Athelney Jones give chase to a steam-powered boat down the Thames, would have been pretty good if it weren't for one big problem. And that problem would be racism. The villain's sidekick is a native of the Andaman Islands, and he is described in a viciously racist way, with Watson remarking how horrifying he finds it to even look upon the man's face. Fearing that they may be shot by a poisoned blow-dart, Holmes tells Watson to shoot the man dead if he so much as raises his hand, a revolting command that brings to mind modern police and vigilante shootings of people of color in a truly sickening way. It's arguably not even the most racist part of the book, for in the villain's seemingly interminable narration of his backstory, we get a ton of profoundly racist commentary on white supremacy in Britain's imperial rule over India as well as the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Without all of this racism, The Sign of the Four is not a very good book, but it has its moments and it's arguably even a somewhat enjoyable light read. But the book's racism (which is incredibly hateful without ever losing a rather casual tone, leading one to wonder what Arthur Conan Doyle or the characters in his fiction would have had to say about people of color when he was really worked up) makes it an altogether unpleasant book which I don't plan to revisit.
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Much less enjoyable than A Study in Scarlet, but not without its charms. I still enjoyed witnessing the dynamic between Holmes and Watson, but the mystery at hand wasn’t very interesting to me. Their investigation was fun but the mystery was all but solved far too quickly, as early as halfway through. The second half of the book is devoted almost entirely to chasing the perp which I didn’t find very engaging. And the final chapter in which the culprit tells all was absolutely boring. We already knew everything we needed to know about his motives, but the whole story is told in exhaustive detail. A Study in Scarlet devoted half its length to the culprits backstory, a surprising structure I enjoyed. This however tries to jam the same thing into just one chapter, making it heavy on (boring) plot and light on character. So it doesn’t work as well.
Looking forward to continuing my adventures with Holmes, but this was not his finest outing. A bit racist, or at the very least xenophobic in its portrayals of POC as well.
Looking forward to continuing my adventures with Holmes, but this was not his finest outing. A bit racist, or at the very least xenophobic in its portrayals of POC as well.
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No