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mbondlamberty's review
4.0
I love most things by Alan Bradley so this is no different.
Not as well-read on Conan Doyle to agree or not but still entertaining.
Not as well-read on Conan Doyle to agree or not but still entertaining.
bookwyrm_lark's review
3.0
I've just finished a thought-provoking little book by Alan C. Bradley* and William A. S. Sarjeant entitled Ms. Holmes of Baker Street: The Truth About Sherlock. Their thesis is, of course, summed up in the work's title: Sherlock Holmes was a woman.
At first glance, this seems like a ludicrous idea, if not positively heretical. Yet the authors support their claim with quote after quote and incident after incident taken from the Holmes canon -- instances which, taken individually, are insufficient to prove the authors' case, but which in the aggregate do perhaps appear to suggest a female in disguise. Most telling to my mind are Holmes's periodic indisposition and tendency to take to his (her) bed -- periodic being the operative word. Too, there is Irene Adler's emphasis on the masculine appellation when, disguised as a boy, she brushes past Holmes in front of his apartments with a quiet, "Good night, Mister Sherlock Holmes!" Moriarty, in his turn, threatens not to kill Holmes but to destroy him, something Moriarty would have been able to do with ease, had he penetrated Sherlock's disguise.
The authors, like most Sherlockians, treat the Conan Doyle stories as fact. Working within the canon, they believe that even Watson was unaware of Holmes's femininity for many years. (There is no suggestion that Conan Doyle himself ever intended to place Holmes's gender in doubt.)
Their premise is of course an intriguing and amusing or infuriating one, depending on the strength of the reader's own perception of Holmes. Their argument is slightly marred by the fact that the authors, having first conceived of the idea, then looked exhaustively for evidence in support of their thesis without examining in much detail the evidence to the contrary -- the mark of an enthusiast rather than a truly impartial investigator. However, I thoroughly enjoyed "playing the game," temporarily suspending my own concept of Holmes in favor of the authors' as I read. In the end, however, what keeps me from embracing their conclusion wholeheartedly is my own partiality. Holmes to me is not merely the detective of the Conan Doyle stories but the much more complex, human, and admirable man in Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series - a series and a Holmes which have become more "real" to me than the Conan Doyle canon ever did.
ETA (4/22/2019): There are now at least two genderbent Sherlock Holmes pastiches available, Sherry Thomas's Lady Sherlock series and Claire O'Dell's Janet Watson Chronicles. Both are worth reading.
Review originally published on 4/15/2010 at The Bookwyrm's Hoard.
At first glance, this seems like a ludicrous idea, if not positively heretical. Yet the authors support their claim with quote after quote and incident after incident taken from the Holmes canon -- instances which, taken individually, are insufficient to prove the authors' case, but which in the aggregate do perhaps appear to suggest a female in disguise. Most telling to my mind are Holmes's periodic indisposition and tendency to take to his (her) bed -- periodic being the operative word. Too, there is Irene Adler's emphasis on the masculine appellation when, disguised as a boy, she brushes past Holmes in front of his apartments with a quiet, "Good night, Mister Sherlock Holmes!" Moriarty, in his turn, threatens not to kill Holmes but to destroy him, something Moriarty would have been able to do with ease, had he penetrated Sherlock's disguise.
The authors, like most Sherlockians, treat the Conan Doyle stories as fact. Working within the canon, they believe that even Watson was unaware of Holmes's femininity for many years. (There is no suggestion that Conan Doyle himself ever intended to place Holmes's gender in doubt.)
Their premise is of course an intriguing and amusing or infuriating one, depending on the strength of the reader's own perception of Holmes. Their argument is slightly marred by the fact that the authors, having first conceived of the idea, then looked exhaustively for evidence in support of their thesis without examining in much detail the evidence to the contrary -- the mark of an enthusiast rather than a truly impartial investigator. However, I thoroughly enjoyed "playing the game," temporarily suspending my own concept of Holmes in favor of the authors' as I read. In the end, however, what keeps me from embracing their conclusion wholeheartedly is my own partiality. Holmes to me is not merely the detective of the Conan Doyle stories but the much more complex, human, and admirable man in Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series - a series and a Holmes which have become more "real" to me than the Conan Doyle canon ever did.
ETA (4/22/2019): There are now at least two genderbent Sherlock Holmes pastiches available, Sherry Thomas's Lady Sherlock series and Claire O'Dell's Janet Watson Chronicles. Both are worth reading.
Review originally published on 4/15/2010 at The Bookwyrm's Hoard.
foxwrapped's review
3.0
So obviously I read this for any bits I could tease out that had anything to do with Holmes and Watson being like, totally in love with each other, like fer serious. And... that is basically the entire book. Well, not counting the parts about Holmes's periods, pregnancies and menopause (which read like the authors had no idea what they were talking about btw). Just the same, this could be the beginnings of a really, really awesome Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Actually, with an idea as intriguing as this, it should be a pastiche. I want the adventures of Ms. Sherlock Holmes!
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