August Book Club - Discussion post

[writerlibrarian]

This is the discussion post for August.

We had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series as a theme.

What did you read?

Sign of the Four? or some of the short stories?

Go and discuss.

Bonus link:

Trailer for Sherlock Holmes new movie to be release in December.

I call it Steampuck Holmes.

Official trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQbmFAE5WI

Comments

[cesy]

I didn't actually manage to read any of them, as I totally forgot about this. I'll try and do better next month.

[rodo]

Since I never read a Holmes story before, I started with A Study In Scarlet. I'm not quite sure what to think of it, though. I kind of liked the start, but I thought the mystery in the first part was a bit too mysterious to keep me interested, while the second part was too wildly different from the first.

I did like Holmes and Watson as characters, though. Could anybody tell me if the other stories are better?

[baggyeyes]

The movie looks good - but that is not Sherlock Holmes. I think Ritchie disregarded the source material. I'll still see it - Robert Downey Jr ftw!

[mackiedockie]

There are some classicly "Holmesian" stories that might be good for you to sample--A Scandal in Bohemia and the Hound of the Baskervilles are core tales (whether or not one is a fan of Irene Adler.) A Study in Scarlet has some big narrative jumps, what with the peculiar flashback to a historically suspect version of the Mountain Meadows massacre. Doyle took a lot of liberties with his facts in building his motive. Come to think of it, a few of the stories stretch the truth a wee bit *g*.

[ladychapel]

I started Valley of Fear but didn't finish it. I left it by mistake at my parents' house and haven't had a chance to get it back yet.

From what I read of it, I liked it, and I'm not even a huge Sherlock fan. Moriarty's huge crime network figured prominently in it and I got as far as a murder that took place on a country estate that was somehow connected to the network but didn't get a chance to read any further.