Entry tags:
New Year's Resolution, cont'd
Books read for March:
-The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
-The Canary Trainer
-Arrow's Flight
-My Dearest Holmes
-The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
Thoughts:
Ironically, the Last Sherlock Holmes Story is the first one I shoved back up on paperback swap the instant I finished reading it. While I am interested in both Sherlock Holmes and Ripperology, and I am somewhat tolerant for the idea of Holmes descending into insanity (such as is done in Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Per-Cent Solution), I am not tolerant of him being so insane that he wouldn't realize he was a serial killer. I think Sherlock Holmes would quite handily see his own handiwork in a case he perpetrated against himself. I'm hoping that Dust and Shadow will be a better take on Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper, but not too fervently.
The Canary Trainer was excellent and I heartily recommend all of Nicholas Meyer's work with Holmes. His reads the most intelligently and loyally of any I've read so far, and he obviously has a love of the subject.
Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series continues to leave me nonplussed. I want to punch the Mary Sue main character in the head, and this novel pretty much just repeated itself over and over for much of the middle part. 'Then it got worse. Then it got worse. Then it got worse. Then it got worse. THEN it got WORSE.'
My Dearest Holmes was a decent read. It felt period, in the views of buggery laws and the handling of societal pressures, though since it was set before the Wilde trial, during Oscar's heyday, I'm not sure if it was a totally accurate reflection of the views. I actually much prefer![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katieforsythe's take on Holmes - which I might assess as too warm and affectionate a personality if I didn't get the vibe that Watson kind of gave him a little bit of a bad rap in the texts, because nobody would live with someone like that without a good reason. The Holmes in MDH is much more frigid and unapproachable. He really is, even in his private life, a total machine.
Lastly, Adrian Conan Doyle's work on with his father's franchise is... dull, and very recipe. ACD's Holmes had more of a spark of life to him that didn't involve repeating the same sort of cliches in every story - literally every work out of the 12 presented makes reference to the same things, such as the 'ear flapped cap', the persian slipper, and Holmes states 'The game is afoot!' so many times I expect his internal record has a back-scratch. They aren't horrible, simply lacking in the original spark.
Resolution Progress:
15/50
I'm about a third of the way there already. Awesome!
-The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
-The Canary Trainer
-Arrow's Flight
-My Dearest Holmes
-The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
Thoughts:
Ironically, the Last Sherlock Holmes Story is the first one I shoved back up on paperback swap the instant I finished reading it. While I am interested in both Sherlock Holmes and Ripperology, and I am somewhat tolerant for the idea of Holmes descending into insanity (such as is done in Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Per-Cent Solution), I am not tolerant of him being so insane that he wouldn't realize he was a serial killer. I think Sherlock Holmes would quite handily see his own handiwork in a case he perpetrated against himself. I'm hoping that Dust and Shadow will be a better take on Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper, but not too fervently.
The Canary Trainer was excellent and I heartily recommend all of Nicholas Meyer's work with Holmes. His reads the most intelligently and loyally of any I've read so far, and he obviously has a love of the subject.
Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series continues to leave me nonplussed. I want to punch the Mary Sue main character in the head, and this novel pretty much just repeated itself over and over for much of the middle part. 'Then it got worse. Then it got worse. Then it got worse. Then it got worse. THEN it got WORSE.'
My Dearest Holmes was a decent read. It felt period, in the views of buggery laws and the handling of societal pressures, though since it was set before the Wilde trial, during Oscar's heyday, I'm not sure if it was a totally accurate reflection of the views. I actually much prefer
katieforsythe's take on Holmes - which I might assess as too warm and affectionate a personality if I didn't get the vibe that Watson kind of gave him a little bit of a bad rap in the texts, because nobody would live with someone like that without a good reason. The Holmes in MDH is much more frigid and unapproachable. He really is, even in his private life, a total machine. Lastly, Adrian Conan Doyle's work on with his father's franchise is... dull, and very recipe. ACD's Holmes had more of a spark of life to him that didn't involve repeating the same sort of cliches in every story - literally every work out of the 12 presented makes reference to the same things, such as the 'ear flapped cap', the persian slipper, and Holmes states 'The game is afoot!' so many times I expect his internal record has a back-scratch. They aren't horrible, simply lacking in the original spark.
Resolution Progress:
15/50
I'm about a third of the way there already. Awesome!