I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

Down the Rabbit Hole with Holmes and Watson – Three Reviews

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"towards the Triple Alliance" [NAVA] </h4>
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Sherlock Holmes is such an iconic character in literature
that he has been both idolized and satirized in pastiches for over a
century. After author and screenwriter
Nicholas Meyer paired Holmes with Sigmund Freud in 1975 in <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven-Per-Cent_Solution" target="_blank">The Seven Percent Solution</a>, </i>Holmes and Watson have been in
adventures with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Madam Curie, Count Dracula, and
countless other characters, historical and fictional. To paraphrase Holmes, as unlikely as some
pairings may be, some are more unlikely still. One combination that seems to be a challenge for pastiche writers has
been Sherlock Holmes and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll" target="_blank">Lewis Carroll</a> (or his Wonderland creation, Alice).<o:p></o:p></div>
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"a glimpse of one or two murders" [ILLU]</h3>
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In the 1995 anthology <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Orbit-Mike-Resnick/dp/0886776368" target="_blank">SherlockHolmes in Orbit</a>,</i> editors Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg included two short
stories in which Holmes found himself in Carrollian territory. But as far as I can tell, it wasn’t until
1998 that the first novel appeared - <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Alice-Wonderland-Murders/dp/0953765938" target="_blank">SherlockHolmes and the Alice in Wonderland Murders</a></i> by Barry Day.
Day authored four other Holmes pastiches, and he has written and produced plays
and musical revues showcasing the work of Noël Coward, the Lunts, Oscar Wilde,
and others. Of the three books reviewed
here, for me his was the most satisfying story, though not without some ‘trifling’
flaws.  <o:p></o:p></div>
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In October of 1898 Holmes and Watson are pitted against
American yellow press publisher, John Moxton – and Holmes soon deduces that
Moxton is the adopted identity of James Moriarty, who, like Holmes, did <i>not</i> perish at the Reichenbach Falls. He has undergone surgery and weight gain to
hide his true identity as he manipulates the press and seeks power as well as
revenge upon Holmes. The connection with
Carroll comes with public figures who are humiliated and then murdered, with
each incident having a parallel in <i>Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland.</i> Moxton
taunts Holmes with references to <i>AAIW</i>
and even invites Holmes and Watson to a Wonderland-themed Halloween costume party
(with Watson as the Red King and even Lestrade appearing as the Walrus).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The story moves at a good pace, and Day captures Watson’s
voice fairly well. For me, however,
Holmes’ calling Watson “old fellow” throughout the book was irritating. Doyle used that phrase exactly five times in
the Canon, and in each instance, he was not addressing Watson but was describing
a ‘fellow’ who was ‘old.’ Holmes used
the phrase ‘dear fellow’ or ‘my dear fellow’ and in not all of those instances
was he necessarily referring to Watson. A major anachronism was the single unnecessary use of ‘sonar’ in the
second chapter as Moxton hoaxed the public with the apparent appearance of
‘Nessie’ in Loch Ness.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Impressive, however, was Day’s prediction of the current state of news reporting and how a demagogue can utilize the press.   <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Moxton’s theory of the nature of truth
is becoming all too credible. You read
about a thing – therefore it is. <o:p></o:p></div>
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. . .<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You mean that the perception is as
good as truth?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Better, Watson, better. Particularly if people are given the
perception they would like to see.  No,
I’m afraid that in the future people like our friend – with the aid of
sufficient funds and the available technology – will be able to provide the
so-called ‘people’ with a version of the world they would prefer to live
in. And if the uncomfortable truth
should occasionally leak through, well . . . twenty-four hours and another
headline will conveniently cover it up again.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps in
the late 90’s Day had in mind Rupert Murdoch, but nonetheless he seems
remarkably prescient given the proliferation of fake headlines and bogus news
stories in the past year or two.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All in all,
it was a decent 180-page read, though it did not feature Holmes interacting with
Carroll who would have been 22 years his senior; presumably a meeting
could have occurred in the 1880’s with Carroll consulting Holmes. Day’s book is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Alice-Wonderland-Murders/dp/0953765938" target="_blank">available at Amazon</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p>
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<o:p>"under some absurd illusion" [SECO]</o:p></h3>
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Also
available at Amazon is Ron Brackin’s 2013 <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Adventure-Deadly-Illusion/dp/0989746321" target="_blank">SherlockHolmes: The Adventure of the Deadly Illusion</a></i>.  Brackin was an investigative journalist who
covered the Middle East extensively and is author of <i>Son of Hamas</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In "The Adventure of the<i> Gloria Scott</i>," we
explicitly learned that Holmes did attend university.  Sherlockian scholars have long debated just
where Holmes spent his university years. We know that Holmes is brilliant, and therefore we deduce that he
attended at least one of the two best universities in the UK, Oxford or
Cambridge. A hotly contested issue, it
is the reason why at Sherlockian conferences you will sometimes see for
purchase tee-shirts or sweatshirts proclaiming ‘Camford University’ or
‘Oxbridge University.’ Brackin obviously
comes down on the side of Oxford because <i>The
Deadly Illusion</i> begins in September of 1872 with 18 year-old Sherlock using
his observational skills and deductive reasoning to explain a magician’s stage
illusion to the 40 year-old Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, then a don of Christ
Church college.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Brackin
blends fact with fiction throughout the book, sometimes insensibly twisting facts
to suit, if not theory, then at least to suit his story line. I may be a neophyte Carrollian, but I could
not find a reference to Dodgson being a devotee of illusions and magic, though
he did love the stage in general. But if
liberty is to be taken in furtherance of the story by having Dodgson enamored
of stage magic, then so be it. It allows Holmes to display his powers of observation and logical reasoning.<br />
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A supporting
character, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nevil_Maskelyne" target="_blank">John Nevil Maskelyne</a>, a real magician in the 1800’s (and inventor of
the pay toilet – I kid you not!) plays an important role in crafting a
duplicate of a burglar’s tool which helps Holmes infiltrate a den of thieves
and roughnecks. Confusing, however, was
the reference to ‘The Magnificent Jasper’ performing at the Egyptian Hall in
Piccadilly in the first chapter – Jasper Maskelyne was indeed a magician as
well, but was born in 1902, the grandson
of John Nevil Maskelyne. Also annoying
was Holmes’ occasional calling of Dodgson “old fellow” or “old man.”  Aside from my personal annoyance as expressed
previously, I have my doubts that an 18 year old student, even Holmes, would
address a don of Oxford as “old man,” especially considering its colloquial
British slang meaning.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Brackin
continues to intermingle fact and fiction when a butler is murdered during the
commission of a burglary - jewels are stolen from the home of (fictional) Sir
Arthur Bellingham who is noted as a member of the (real) <a href="http://www.reformclub.com/" target="_blank">Reform Club</a>. A Scotland Yard inspector draws the wrong
conclusions from the evidence at the scene but Holmes sees and observes what actually occurred. The (real) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne" target="_blank">Jules Verne</a> makes a cameo
appearance along with (fictional) Phineas Fogg. Verne’s (fictional) bank
robber James Strand (from <i>Around the World
in 80 Days</i>) becomes a central figure, and he happens to have been a partner in
crime with Michael Moriarty, the father of three brothers, all named James, one
of whom wrote a celebrated monograph on “The Dynamics of an Asteroid” familiar
to mathematician Dodgson. A brief mention is made of Dodgson’s real passion for photography (though a
typographical error turned ‘pyrogallic acid’ to ‘hyrogallic’) with a
photographic session with (real) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kitchin" target="_blank">Alexandra ‘Xie’ Kitchin</a>. Holmes’ skill at ‘baritsu’ helped him capture
a criminal despite the fact that ‘bartitsu’ was not developed by Edward William
Barton-Wright until 1898.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The
narrative does not flow as smoothly in <i>Deadly
Illusion</i> as it did in the <i>Alice in
Wonderland Murders</i> due to the author’s sometimes forced insertion of
factual material in an ambitious effort to bolster the Victorian
atmosphere. However, to his credit,
Brackin does manage to introduce Holmes to Dodgson in a timeline which <i>could</i> have happened (in the loosest
meaning of the word ‘could’) and the plot line, while not worthy of Arthur
Conan Doyle, does make sense. Holmes solves his second case showing his
deductive skills before moving to lodgings in Montague Street and eventually
Baker Street.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="text-align: center;">"I could have laughed when I realized it was the cat" [CHAS]</span></o:p></h3>
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A blended reality is left behind as we venture into<i>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Adventure-Grinning-Cat/dp/1780928858" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Grinning Cat</a></i> by Joseph Svec. We find Sherlock Holmes at the height of his
career in February 1898, searching for Lewis Carroll and Alice—both of whom
have mysteriously disappeared! The first
clue might be that date—nearly one month after the death of Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson.  Holmes is asked to
investigate the disappearances by none other than the Cheshire Cat, the White
Rabbit, and the Hatter.  The game is
certainly afoot - a
rabbit’s foot!<o:p></o:p></div>
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The story is
set initially in the Victorian world of Holmes and his chronicler, John H.
Watson. It begins, as do many Holmesian
pastiches, with a note to the reader followed by a “recently rediscovered” explanatory
note from Dr. Watson which informs the reader that publication must not take
place for at least twenty-five years in order to protect his and Holmes’s
reputations, due to the “fantastical,” “amazing,” and “utterly different”
nature of the story.<br />
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We know by the
second page of Chapter One that we have left the well-known, if imaginary,
sitting room of 221B Baker Street when the unexpected Cheshire Cat speaks to
Holmes and Watson, and Holmes soon realizes that Watson is not using
ventriloquism to fool him. After several
hours of silent deliberation, Holmes concludes that a talking / dematerializing
cat is, after all, not impossible, just highly improbable, and he is ready to be
of service.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The author
pays homage to both Holmes and Carroll, dropping phrases and paraphrases that
knowledgeable Sherlockians and Carrollians will recognize. It is a fantastic journey from Baker Street
to the home of the recently deceased Dodgson in Guildford, to a visit with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells" target="_blank">H.G. Wells</a>, and a trip to Mars using his Time Machine. Then it’s back to London, followed by
Wonderland, back to Baker Street, and even to an ethereal and unearthly 'river
of time.' The author has much fun with
wordplay and puns when the group is in Wonderland. We meet the Bandersnatch, the Unicorn, the Red
Queen, and other Wonderland characters throughout the adventure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the
Acknowledgments, the author states that he is a newcomer to the Holmes stories,
only recently having been introduced to them. Perhaps he can be forgiven for not paying more attention to the
Holmes–Watson relationship and for focusing only on Holmes as a logician. He calls Carroll (who was also a logician) a
“logistician,” a term primarily meaning someone knowledgeable in
logistics—though it is also a synonym for “logician.” Unfortunately Carroll seems disrespected, as
his name is misspelled twice in the same chapter, the
Gryphon is referred to as “Griffon” (technically correct but not the preferred
or Carroll’s spelling; a griffon is actually an Old World vulture, not to be
confused with “griffin,” a wire-haired pointing dog from Belgium), and the
Jabberwock (a major player in the story) is mis-named “Jabberwocky.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I may be
overly critical, but the book has numerous spelling, typographical, and
typesetting errors; idiosyncratic and inconsistent capitalizations and
bold-faced words, and not-quite-right references.  Much of the blame for these may rest with the
<a href="http://mxpublishing.com/" target="_blank">publisher’s</a> proofreader. As Watson
narrates, we get some sense of his
thoughts, and this fleshes him out as a character. But Holmes functions only as the perfect
logician throughout: to call his
portrayal one-dimensional is to imply more depth than is evident. As a Carrollian and Sherlockian I wanted to love this book, but I came away disappointed.  As they say, “your mileage will vary,” and a
hardcore Carrollian may gain much enjoyment reading about the playful
interactions of the Wonderland characters in Watson’s narration.</div>
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Nicholas
Meyer set a high bar when he introduced Holmes to Freud. To be truly successful, a pastiche author must capture
Watson’s voice and style, must respect the relationship between Holmes and
Watson, and of course must show Holmes’ deductive abilities in unraveling a
puzzling mystery. In the past few years, several authors (my favorites - David Stuart Davies, Lyndsay Faye and Bonnie MacBird) have shown their writing skills to meet this standard, and their detailed knowledge of Holmes and Victorian England
help re-create a world “where it is always 1895.” Add Lewis Carroll or more fantastically,
Alice in Wonderland, to the narrative and the task more than doubles in difficulty. I look forward to another attempt.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Down the Rabbit Hole with Holmes and Watson – Three Reviews

"towards the Triple Alliance" [NAVA] Sherlock Holmes is such an iconic character in literature that he has been both idoli...