I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere: Jessica Levine

Dear Mr. Gatiss

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"attracted admirers who occasionally hung about" [BERY] </h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYy1P1D71AllAB6WEkdzRgCg6t6eLoIYsKoKLYHggsnhlAQIsIkmFB-K7NRjip15tboWIvgRPItvMPog9SYDUUZ_JgSlWN5uxardEEfDbGmawQOjmlpAqeRuQZv7keYfHCGQzJ0zx_cNF_/s1600/Sherlock+-+Series+4+chess.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYy1P1D71AllAB6WEkdzRgCg6t6eLoIYsKoKLYHggsnhlAQIsIkmFB-K7NRjip15tboWIvgRPItvMPog9SYDUUZ_JgSlWN5uxardEEfDbGmawQOjmlpAqeRuQZv7keYfHCGQzJ0zx_cNF_/s640/Sherlock+-+Series+4+chess.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
[Editor's Note: this is the 12th is a <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/search/label/Series%204#.WIHVH_krLb0" target="_blank">series of reviews</a> of Series 4 of Sherlock. Minor spoilers ahead.] 
 
In <a href="http://www.dailystar.co.uk/showbiz-tv/hot-tv/578507/Sherlock-BBC-complicated-Benedict-Cumberbactch-show-creator-Mark-Gatiss" target="_blank">a recent interview</a>, Mark Gatiss — co-creator of and actor in BBC One's Sherlock — took a dig worthy Mycroft Holmes (well, his version of Mycroft Holmes, at least) at the show's critics: 
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"People ask if it's good to challenge the audience. Of course it f***ing is...Go and read a children's book with hard pages if you don't want to be challenged. We’re making the show we want to make. We don't make it a certain way because fans are pressuring us."</blockquote>
I hear it being said with a sneer. I hope it's out of context. 
 
I know better. 
 
And for that reason, I have a letter for Mark Gatiss. 
 
 
Dear Mr. Gatiss, 
 
I admire your work. 
 
Many of us here do. 
 
All of us, anyway, have decisively made room for Sherlock Holmes and his adventures in our brain attics. So the implication <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/search/label/Series%204#.WH90mhsrJPY" target="_blank">our near-universal condemnation of Series 4</a> is somehow due to a lack of understanding and appreciation for "challenging" art is, at the very least, tedious. 
 
You know there would be no Sherlock without its fans. You know there'd be no Sherlock without Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And you know there'd be no Sherlock without ACD's formula: 
<ol>
<li>The tangle of impossible evidence.</li>
<li>The untangling.</li>
<li>The reveal.</li>
</ol>
 
The wonderful, sure arc you just derided. We bump along with Watson and Lestrade down the track — through the tunnel, 'round the bend, past the pirates — and we like it that way. We hang our deerstalker on the logic and sense of it all and the assurance that the cleverest of us will solve the mystery. 
 
Series 4 unfortunately did away with the gamut. 
 
Episode 1 served to write Mary out. 
 
Episode 2 felt a bit more familiar. (The delicious baddie. The bugged cane.) 
 
But Episode 3 completely got away from you. How did the chick from The Ring escape Alcatraz to pose as a flirt on a bus then as a tranquilizer-wielding shrink? Right right right. She's an evil genius I suppose I'm incapable of fathoming. Why the drone? How did John end up shackled in a well? And Redbeard was a kid? C'mon. Enough. 
 
If you and Mr. Moffat do write a fifth series, consider us for a Christmas treat: consider we deal with enough challenges outside the fandom that when we tune into you, <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/sherlocks-huge-ratings-confirm-its-status-as-one-of-uks-mostloved-shows-ahead-of-finale-a3440896.html" target="_blank">as we have in huge numbers</a>, we are the case in the chair. Craving reason in the unreasonable and, for me, cheekbones I could cut myself on. 
 
Looking forward, 
 
Jessica Levine 
 
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Dear Mr. Gatiss

"attracted admirers who occasionally hung about" [BERY] [ Editor's Note: this is the 12th is a series of reviews of Se...

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by Jessica Levine

The Art of the (Sherlockian) Murder

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"It is murder, Watson -- refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder" [HOUN]</h4>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMTMc9z31dkeXEmj7jjv-fR9Fd70zICbZsdfPhswln3Q3UCkbTGgl74-oz8ltnOLcdgIQft2PNMTJYRAuDztYNmKKnTGfE3ydT4OXhDjj-IjPgJNyRWAL3-ErzYGx-K59ViCyItVQ7LWIi/s1600/Wanted.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMTMc9z31dkeXEmj7jjv-fR9Fd70zICbZsdfPhswln3Q3UCkbTGgl74-oz8ltnOLcdgIQft2PNMTJYRAuDztYNmKKnTGfE3ydT4OXhDjj-IjPgJNyRWAL3-ErzYGx-K59ViCyItVQ7LWIi/s1600/Wanted.jpg" width="640" /></a> 
 
Murder, like a forbidden back-alley bar, is a preoccupation. But it's a curiosity we can forgive. Because outside of the gory, sordid details, the promise of <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2014/06/basil-rathbone-reluctant-sherlock-holmes.html" target="_blank">a hero</a> -- a doctor, a soldier, a detective -- makes the whole unseemly business somehow more understandable. In her recent book <a href="http://amzn.to/1xrssMy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Art of the English Murder</a>, <a href="http://www.lucyworsley.com/" target="_blank">Dr. Lucy Worsley</a> explains the by-night fascination with unhinged minds and forensics in the context of some of Britain's most famous crimes, criminals, and fictional characters. 
 
Including our namesake. The Sherlockian story begins in Victorian Wiltshire: 
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1860. Road Hill House, a Georgian estate belonging to Samuel Kent and his second wife, Mary. Nighttime. As the Kents sleep on, their three-year-old son Saville disappears from his cot. His body is found early the next morning, crammed down the backyard privy. Nearly beheaded.</blockquote>
 
This case played out with morbid fascination even in London newspapers. Among Scotland Yard’s best, Detective Inspector Jack Whicher was tasked not only to unravel little Saville's tragic demise but to deal with the many write-in deductions of England's new class of armchair sleuths: A mixed class of clerks, shopkeepers, and accountants with <a href="http://www.victorianperiodicals.com/Contents/Overview.asp" target="_blank">increased access to and interest in</a> shocking news from the too-tidy countryside. 
 
"Despite its lack of artistic merit," writes Worsley, "the literature of murder tells us not what people thought they ought to read. It tells us what they really read." 
 
Such a notion of quiet hypocrisy directly compels the popular image of Victorian domestic life -- of sexual, violent desires stifled by corsets and crinolines. Indeed, many supposed from the well-publicized testimonies that Mr. Kent had been having an adulterous relationship with one of his housemaids. 
 
More bewitching still was the newly discovered science of forensics. Over the course of the 19th century, Worsley explains, professional detectives and their amateur (ahem - unofficial consulting) counterparts were interpreting medical evidence collected at crime scenes and from the dubiously maimed bodies themselves. Whicher concentrated the early part of his investigation, for instance, on a bloodstained nightgown that had been lodged in the chimney. 
 
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0w531tlM3RcbAA65ECGvRvJyAh5dGl6S0wvANRp4Fn0vOQ5aCp-YKvAN7wTxNJBqpN2AMXH8h_F6ueADkom75Lm_rcLfxRxZxgkQh0aBt4NePr5U3G4ZN884qBwfonZWy-Zo244024GE/s1600/Morgue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0w531tlM3RcbAA65ECGvRvJyAh5dGl6S0wvANRp4Fn0vOQ5aCp-YKvAN7wTxNJBqpN2AMXH8h_F6ueADkom75Lm_rcLfxRxZxgkQh0aBt4NePr5U3G4ZN884qBwfonZWy-Zo244024GE/s1600/Morgue.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Victorian-era morgue. Doctors examined cadavers with their bare hands.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Such a discovery was scandalous. Exciting. What <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation_novel" target="_blank">sensationalist</a> author Wilkie Collins later described as symptomatic of a sort of sickness: 
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Do you feel an uncomfortable heat at the pit of your stomach? And a nasty thumping at the top of your head? I call it the 'detective fever.'</blockquote>
 
Armed with a Stradivarius, a laboratory of gruesome poisons and chemicals, a magnifying glass, and a riding crop, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's indomitable Sherlock Holmes nourished the fever pitch. He pursued criminals over pages that read to this day like <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2011/05/great-teacher-cree_30.html" target="_blank">Dr. Joseph Bell's</a> autopsy reports. He applied reason to <a href="http://www.universityherald.com/articles/10694/20140731/nasa-unveils-rover-that-will-explore-mars-in-2020-is-its-name-an-ode-to-sir-arthur-conan-doyle.htm" target="_blank">the unknowable</a>. To the equally terrifying and titillating. 
 
And there is comfort in that. When <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/10/18/jack_the_rippers_long_shadow_from_sherlock_holmes_to_jekyll_hyde/" target="_blank">monstrous murderers prowl the night</a>, when the world seems to have completely lost its way, we take refuge in the constants -- damning facts and a damn good story. No one does it, the <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2852/2852-h/2852-h.htm" target="_blank">dogged</a> hunt for exact knowledge, better than our Holmes. 
 
Worsley cites <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Detective_Fiction" target="_blank">Golden Age</a> author Dorothy L. Sayers for conclusive perspective. 
 
"Death," she says, "seems to provide the minds of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of innocent amusement than any other subject." 
 
Click to read more about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Kent" target="_blank">the murder at Road Hill House</a>.  
 Image credit: Wikipedia  
 
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The Art of the (Sherlockian) Murder

"It is murder, Watson -- refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder" [HOUN] Murder, like a forbidden back-alley bar, is a pr...

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by Jessica Levine

From Gillette to Brett IV - End Titles

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLG5-D12I5_M_0Q7aoMyE3_lIEgEDAZ_MS9pXSQxPOgopChKDjdc-edzKE_1SUYWEswzkUlvHYGOW1mt_RW76pJEJ2I6eN_DSclyosLVCkMRyoQCwBBoYOeDJIQ8GIoZ7IOcJTJgS1R5Mn/s1600/Rathbone+Adventures+end+titles.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The final installment of our Gillette to Brett summaries, which have gone on longer than the event itself" border="0" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLG5-D12I5_M_0Q7aoMyE3_lIEgEDAZ_MS9pXSQxPOgopChKDjdc-edzKE_1SUYWEswzkUlvHYGOW1mt_RW76pJEJ2I6eN_DSclyosLVCkMRyoQCwBBoYOeDJIQ8GIoZ7IOcJTJgS1R5Mn/s1600/Rathbone+Adventures+end+titles.PNG" title="Rathbone Adventures end titles" width="640" /></a></div>
 
The sixth and final in our <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/search/label/%23G2B4#.VByKKZSwIcA" target="_blank">series of recaps</a> of #G2B4 
 
Sherlock Holmes belongs to the world. Despite <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140916/10522528536/conan-doyle-estate-asks-supreme-court-to-put-sherlock-holmes-back-under-copyright.shtml" target="_blank">renewed efforts</a> by his estate, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal detective has inspired confidence and playful brilliance in fans as far reaching as <a href="http://www.sherlockholmessociety.in/" target="_blank">India</a> - and Bloomington, Indiana. One week ago, publisher Wessex Press kicked off its <a href="http://wessexpress.com/html/g2b4main.html" target="_blank">From Gillette to Brett IV: Basil, Benedict, and Beyond</a> conference at Indiana University. 
 
The organizers <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.729258210500479.1073741833.487420994684203&type=1" target="_blank">called it</a> an "epic success." And as good Sherlockians, we have the evidence to prove it. 
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If you're interested, you might also take a look at <a href="http://bakerstreetbabes.com/tag/from-gillette-to-brett/" target="_blank">The Baker Street Babes' summaries</a> as well. They were there and represented! 
 
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