The Aviary

Along with Raffles, I have been trying out the Arsène Lupin stories. I read the first collection of short stories, which was fun if not entirely satisfying. I enjoy Lupin as a character, but he's a cartoon rather than a person - the first book is a bit like "What if Bugs Bunny was a jewel thief?" in that Lupin does impossible things just because he wants to with very little realistic explanation of how they're done, and no consequences have the slightest chance of sticking to him. But I decided to try the second book in the series since it wasn't short stories, to see if Lupin works better in long form for me.

The second book presents a new and different problem. Going into reading the Lupin stories, I knew about the author's conflict with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For those who may not have previous encountered this story: Maurice Leblanc, who writes the Lupin stories, wrote a crossover where Lupin meets and outwits Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle wasn't happy about this to the point of getting lawyers involved, so Leblanc wasn't allowed to use Holmes as a character anymore. Whereupon, in an honestly very Lupin-like move, Leblanc shrugged and continued writing crossovers but changed the character's name to "Herlock Sholmes".

This is a delightful and hilarious piece of audacity and I love everything about it. However. I did not anticipate how ridiculous it was going to be every time a character in the book uses the name "Herlock Sholmes". I am incapable of taking the character seriously, even though the book clearly wants me to treat the character as, y'know, a serious and credible threat to Lupin. I keep picturing him as Holmes in Groucho Marx glasses and big fake mustache.

This is not helping at all with my "Arsène Lupin is a cartoon fox in a top hat" problem.




ETA - On the plus side, at least the "everyone is an absurd cartoon" problem is staving off some of my rage about the portrayal of the not!Watson character. Watson deserves better, Maurice Leblanc!

Today, I am spinning while listening to an audiobook of The Hound of the Baskervilles and I have two thoughts:

1) Can we count HOUN as an early work of folk horror? For me, the extremely vague definition of what makes a work folk horror* is that it is rooted in a specific place (usually but not always a rural place) and that said place is haunted by time and history. I think HOUN does that.

2) I had forgotten until it was too late that Sir Henry has spent most of his life in the States and Canada. Having to listen to a British audiobook reader voicing an American character saying the words "au revoir" is perhaps the worst thing I've ever heard.




*This is an idiosyncratic definition. If your definition of folk horror is different, that's fine. It's an extremely nebulous genre.

Today, I finished reading Sherlock Holmes and the Instrument of Death, the Holmes vs Caligari crossover novel. Which was sadly not great - too many chapters of Dr Caligari committing random motiveless crimes, not enough Holmes&Watson - though entertaining enough (or possibly I am bored enough) that I finished it.

The ending did make me think about the difference between semi-official published fanfic and what I think of as "proper" fanfic. Because a proper fanfic writer would have dealt so much more satisfyingly with the situation presented at the climax.

( Spoilers, in case anyone else is interested in this very silly book. )

Things I just this minute learned: there is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel that is a crossover with The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.



a) WHAT

b) I checked it out from the library immediately, of course, what do you think I am? Thank god for library ebooks and having cards at four different libraries, that's all I can say.

c) There was a brief moment where I was reading the blurb and got Dr Caligari and Dr Mabuse mixed up in my mind (German, silent films, hypnotists), and now I do very much want a Holmes vs Dr Mabuse novel

c.1) (I mean, I guess that does exist sort of, except it's The Hound of the D'Urbervilles and is Moriarty vs Dr Mabuse and also that book is pretty great and I should maybe reread it)

d) Actually, no, what I really really want is Sherlock Holmes vs Fantomas. Is that a thing? Someone would have told me if that was a thing, right? Can I pay someone to make that a thing?

e) I should probably read more Fantomas

Recently, my brain has decided that it's tired of listening to my Discworld audiobooks and has rebelled by refusing to go to sleep to them. (It does this every year or so.) Thus I have been forced to find different bedtime listening material and have started revisiting Sherlock Holmes.* I have started with Valley of Fear.

You guys, I think that has become my favorite Holmes novel. How did this happen? Why did this happen? I even really like the extended American flashback, it's ridiculous.

The codebreaking sequence at the beginning is pretty great, though.






*It was either that or Nero Wolfe - those are my general non-Discworld fallbacks. I've tried other things - Lord Peter mysteries, the Harry Potter books - but those three are the most reliable for me.

And, back to work.


Patron: Can you put a Sherlock Holmes dvd on hold for me?

Me: Sure. Which Sherlock Holmes are you looking for?

Patron: You know, just the regular Sherlock Holmes.

Me: ...I'm going to need you to be a little more specific.


Eventually turned out that he wanted Game of Shadows. But, just, "regular Sherlock Holmes"? I was unaware that there was a standard.

In which I love the internet:

So, I am watching a Russian Sherlock Holmes movie. Which I would not know about if not for the internet and which I would have no access to if not for the internet.

Russian Holmes and Watson are adorable and the internet is totally awesome.

Also, accessing the internet via my laptop means I can have it on my lap and thus close enough to both read subtitles and knit at the same time.

(...I should go back to trying to learn Russian. I can at least still sound out the Cyrillic, if given enough time.)

Friends, I have credits to spend on paperbackswap and I am in a Mood. Talk to me about Holmes pastiches.

I read a lot of Holmes pastiches in middle and high school. Some of them were awful, some of them were awesome, many of them were cracked-out crossovers* - I do not remember most of their titles. What are your favorites?

I recall liking Nicholas Meyer's books a good deal - at least The Seven Per-Cent Solution (my copy says "Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud, together again for the first time" on the back, which is charming). I have The West End Horror, so I must have liked it. (Of The Canary Trainer, we do not speak.) I haven't read John Gardner's Moriarty books in years but they have a glossary and are about Moriarty, so they're going to get revisited once I'm done with the Kim Newman book. I have this weird-ass book called Exit Sherlock Holmes that I know I bought in Delaware and has thus moved across the country with me in which I seem to recall Holmes being a time-traveler from the future. Yes. The Last Sherlock Holmes Story was interesting, if depressing. Dust and Shadows was good. House of Silk was okay, if a bit stilted in its prose in places (and all the villains turned weirdly smug and willing to explain after they were caught, which was odd). Had a nice Lestrade, though, and the one scene with Moriarty was lovely.

Speaking of Lestrade, I did rather enjoy M J Trow's first Inspector Lestrade novel and it introduced me to Struwwelpeter, but the rest of the series is quite silly and none of the mysteries actually make any sense. I read the first few Mary Russell novels because deciding that I didn't really care for them.** I tried to read Carol Nelson Douglas' Irene Adler series, but they didn't really work for me.

Do you have any you would particularly recommend? I am open to pretty much anything, up to and including the completely wacked-out.





*As far as I recall: one Jekyll&Hyde (Dr Jekyll and Mr Holmes), two Draculas (The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count, The Holmes-Dracula Files), two Phantom of the Opera (Angel of the Opera, I remember liking, and of The Canary Trainer we do not speak), one Fu Manchu (that I wish to god I remembered the title of, because I vaguely recall it being kinda awesome). There may have been others, but these are the ones that left impressions. Well, there's A Night in the Lonesome October, but that's less of a Holmes pastiche and more of a book that Holmes happens to appear in.

**This is less because of the Mary Sue thing and the extreme age difference between Russell and Holmes and more because Holmes-in-Sussex-without-Watson depresses me immensely.

Things:

- I have finished the latest pair of socks I was working on (these, with a speckly blue and red yarn) and have started a new pair (these). The yarn I'm using is gorgeous, soft and green and subtly variegated and I'm terribly pleased with it. I've discovered that, although cables are gorgeous and I love them when they're finished, I much prefer the actual process of knitting lacy things. I have a collection of cabled patterns on ravelry - I'm going to have to start a similar collection of lacy sock patterns.

- After watching Murder By Decree, I have again gone my normal route of revisiting Sherlock Holmes, which is by way of Jeremy Brett, Clive Merrison, and Katie Forsythe. The audioplays are mostly for the car, but I have been watching The Speckled Band tonight which is, of course, marvelous. (I love Helen Stoner - I think she's awesome.) And now I get to reread Some Further Notes on the Roylott Matter, which I love.

- Tomorrow, I am going to cook all the things! I am definitely making bread and stewed apples, I'm thinking about trying a different jelly candy recipe, and I might just make a pie. Because you have to do something while the bread's rising, right? Anyway, I'm celebrating Lammas tomorrow and Lammas is very much a food-related holiday for me (what with it being a harvest holiday and all). Lammas is for feasting, after all.




ETA - And now I am watching Norwood Builder, because my love for that story is a bit ridiculous. Oh, Lestrade, you adorable smug little rat! You are my favorite.

Have now seen the Sherlock Holmes trailer.

( Are we cutting for casting spoilers? )

Things:

- I am apparently really boring lately. Alas. I keep half-making posts and then deciding I don't want to post them and deleting them. It's irritating.

- But I am not going to be boring this weekend, because I am going to Oregon for a Northwest Heathen Gathering thingie. Which we are apparently calling Jambermoot. This will be my first time interacting with other actual heathens, so I am excited and a bit nervous. Quite a bit, really. Mostly because I realized yesterday that the other traveling-and-doing-things-on-my-own thing that I do is the Lovecraft film festival, which really only requires me to sit in a dark room watching movies and not talk to people. This one will probably require actual conversation. Still! I am determined to have fun and not let my ridiculous shyness get the better of me.

- This trip also requires me to drive to Oregon rather than taking a train, so if I never post again it's because I have gotten horribly lost and possibly eaten by a troll or something.

- On another note and speaking of the Lovecraft film festival - hey, look, Guillermo del Toro might actually be making At the Mountains of Madness! I would say that I am cautiously excited about that but it would be a lie - I'm just excited. Antarctica! Shuggoths! Whee!

- I have been a bit between books of late and recently started trying to reread Valley of Fear because it's one of the few Sherlock Holmes stories that I think I've only read once, that first time somewhere in elementary school when I spent one summer reading the whole Canon. I'm about a chapter in and yeah, I have no recollection of this at all. Maybe there was a Pinkerton in it somewhere? I don't know. Though I'm sure I will find out. However! I found this and had to share it because it's about the funniest Sherlock Holmes cover I've ever seen. I kinda want all of the Sherlock Holmes stories with covers like that, don't you?

- I think that I am done with summer. I want to be able to wear layers and long-sleeved shirts and boots again. I miss my pretty clothes.


And those are my thoughts this morning.

So. I am not with the updating of late. That is because my brain goes, "Well, I could go on the internet and update my lj. Or I could listen to Sherlock Holmes radio plays/watch Doctor who and work on my skirt."

I am kinda in an obsessive crocheting place right now, so the skirt has mostly been winning. And I have listened to a lot of Sherlock Holmes because that is apparently one of my cycling fandoms where I don't think about it for two months and then I obsess for another two* before it dies back again. And yesterday, I watched several episodes of Doctor Who, so that now I have gotten through the first half of the season up through Amy's Choice.

( About which: )



*Which almost always involves reading Norwood Builder several times. Y'know, if you had asked me a year ago what my favorite Sherlock Holmes story was, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have picked that one. But apparently it is.