Letters from Watson

[osprey_archer]

After my joyous experiences with Dracula Daily and Dickens Daily (an Advent-calendar style read-through of A Christmas Carol, in 2023 I signed up for a smorgasbord of email reading adventures: Whale Weekly (Moby-Dick), Divine Comedy Weekly, and Letters from Watson (the Sherlock Holmes short stories).

Whale Weekly and Divine Comedy Weekly both quickly fell by the wayside. As it turns out, I still dislike Moby-Dick just as much as I did in high school, and although I do still hope to read Dante’s Inferno someday, Longfellow’s translation is not the one I would pick. (The substack editor had to choose one in the public domain, of course, but on my own I would not be hampered by this restriction.)

But I did keep on trucking with Letters from Watson! Indeed, I even supplemented the short stories by reading the novels, as well. And although the project didn’t convert me to a fully-blown Sherlock Holmes fan, as I rather hoped it might, I did enjoy the stories, and also enjoyed experiencing them serially, just as the original audience would have experienced them as they came out in magazines. (I don’t think the emails followed the exact same divisions as the original serialization, but nonetheless the spirit of serialization was there.)

It was also interesting, on a sort of meta level, to realize that all the famous Sherlock Holmes stories are early stories, both in terms of internal chronology and publication date. Maybe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a point when he killed Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls!

(Exeunt, pursued by enraged Sherlock Holmes fans bearing pitchforks.)

But no. Killing Sherlock Holmes in the 1890s would have done us out of the final bit of Sherlockiana with which Letters from Watson rounded out the year. Sherlock Holmes goes undercover (!) for two years (!!!) posing as an Irish-American spy, passing British secrets to a German spymaster (!!!!!!) only to blow the German’s entire spy operation on the eve of the Great War (!!!!!!!!! a thousand exclamation points!!!!!!). It’s just so… I don’t even know the word that I want… It’s like Jack Kirby inventing Captain America so that he can go punch Hitler in the face. Everything has gone terrible wrong, and isn’t it nice to pretend for a bit that Sherlock Holmes is on the case, and will help us sort everything out?

***

Even though the project didn’t convert me to a Holmes fan, I enjoyed reading the experience so much that I’ve signed up for two more such projects this year. Letters Regarding Jeeves includes the public domain Jeeves and Wooster stories, which shockingly I’ve never read! It starts officially on Valentine’s Day, although on New Year’s Day it sent out an early Reggie Pepper story, a forerunner of Bertie Wooster, so if you sign up do make sure to check that out.

The other is Letters from Bunny, a readalong of the Raffles short stories. I’ve read these, but years ago, so it’s a good time for a reread. This one starts on the Ides of March (“The Ides of March” being the title of the first Raffles story).

I am a little concerned that I may have bitten off more than I can chew in signing up for two of these, in the same year that I start a new job… but after all each email is quite short, and if one of them ends up falling by the wayside, what of it? I’ll keep going as long as it’s fun.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

Oooh. I've never read the Raffles stories, so I might sign up for that one too!

[osprey_archer]

Oh, do it do it! Raffles is a lot of fun.

[ethelmay]

I guess Sayers isn't out of copyright in the US yet (not until 2027 on the life-plus-70 rule). Canada is life-plus-50, but Faded Page doesn't yet have Hell. (They do have The Song of Roland, but I never got anywhere with that.)

[osprey_archer]

Yes, the Sayers translation wasn't available (and IIRC the organizer originally wanted to use one even more recent before realizing the copyright problem). In any case, since I've just started a new job, I doubt I'll have energy to tackle the Inferno for quite some time! Maybe next year.

[ethelmay]

I have read the Sayers translation for fun (and it was fun), but not recently. IIRC Lewis said something to the effect that she got one side of Dante very well indeed. Wait, found it: https://www.eighthdayinstitute.org/a-panegyric-for-dorothy-sayers "She had been startled and delighted by something in Dante for which no critic, and no earlier translator, had prepared her: his sheer narrative impetus, his frequent homeliness, his high comedy, his grotesque buffoonery. These qualities she was determined to preserve at all costs. If, in order to do so, she had to sacrifice sweetness or sublimity, then sacrificed they should be. Hence her audacities in both language and rhythm."

He goes on to talk about her Purgatorio being "richer, more liquid, more elevated," but I have always found both the Purgatorio and the Paradiso vastly less interesting, so I am unable to confirm his judgment.

[kore]

Aww, but then we wouldn't have Hound of the Baskervilles! Which is my favourite Holmes story ever, I think. And I love The Lion's Mane, the one? story from Sherlock's POV, but nobody likes it but me.

[osprey_archer]

It's true, I would be hard-pressed to deprive the world of Hound of the Baskervilles. And I did like The Lion's Mane! There's just something about death by jellyfish...

There are TWO stories in Sherlock POV, and also a couple that are just in third person (including the WWI spy story I mention above). I thought the Holmes POV was really too similar to Watson POV, but it was an interesting experiment, anyway. Sherlock Holmes in third person is just odd, though!

[kore]

I love the bit where he goes "Ah! had he but been with me, how much he might have made of so wonderful a happening and of my eventual triumph against every difficulty! As it is, however, I must needs tell my tale in my own plain way." It gives you such a neat little insight into him.

[phantomtomato]

I love the idea of reading things closer to their original serialization! I’m doing the same with a reading group locally for Middlemarch this spring and looking forward to it—such a great way of breaking down a large, intimidating canon into something much more approachable.

Good luck with Raffles and Wooster! The first-person narration format makes the email newsletter conceit even more fun, I think.

[osprey_archer]

Oh that sounds like the perfect way to read Middlemarch! It's such a huge book that it must really benefit from being broken up like that. And it would be a perfect book to discuss with a group, too.

And yes, the first person format does make it feel just a bit like receiving letters from a friend.

[regshoe]

Oh, a Raffles read-along starting with the Ides of March sounds great—I hope you enjoy it! :D

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I really had to do it when I saw that it started on the Ides of March. Simply too perfect to pass up!

[galadhir]

I managed to miss the Dracula Daily phenomenon and rather regretted it, so I've signed up for Letters Regarding Jeeves from the link, thank you!

[osprey_archer]

Oh, hooray! I hope you enjoy it!

[silverusagi]

I was really into Dracula Daily until the 50 page October entry killed me dead and I never caught up. I even thought I'd catch up by the next year it ran, but nope, I did not. Something about bite sized chunks was appealing, but when it became more than that, it became A Thing I Had To Do.

It's on my Audible list now. I'll just have to listen to it.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I've definitely done better with the ones where you get a smaller set amount at intervals, rather than the occasional fifty page monstrosity. I finished Dracula Daily! But there were definitely times when I got way behind.