Sunday, December 25, 2011

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Detective short stories
Published: 1892

Recommendation: A classic collection of detective stories, entertaining and well worth reading.
Rating: 8.5/10

Summary: A collection of 12 stories dealing with various cases of Sherlock Holmes, narrated by Dr. Watson.

Reactions: No, I did not go to see the latest Sherlock Holmes movie in the theaters. I was somewhat annoyed by the first movie, where Sherlock Holmes just runs around and punches people. Instead I decided to pick up this collection of short stories and re-read them since it has been a long time since I have read them.

Each story in the collection is narrated from the first person view of Dr. Watson who assists Holmes in his cases. Mostly he seems to tag along, exclaim in amazement at deductions, and congratulate his friend on the amazing deductive abilities. Still, the cases themselves are quite entertaining to follow and I would always try to predict the outcome before the story would tell itself. Sometimes I succeeded, and sometimes not, but either way I had an entertaining time reading this classic.

In complement to the reading, I also started watching the BBC series Sherlock, which is a modern day interpretation of the story and one I found rather better than the movies. Hence my holidays have been shrouded in enjoyment of mystery. I would definitely recommend this collection and the show to anyone who has only seen Sherlock Holmes through the lens of the recent movies.

2 comments:

  1. I saw the first film and didn't care for it all. It kinda put me off from reading any of the stories. I remember that the week after I saw the film one of the stories was dissected in my writers group. It was an odd moment. I think I'd enjoy them if I could find the strength to block out the film catastrophe.

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  2. You just need to decide that the movie is about a completely different person who just happened to be the namesake of Arthur's Connan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Then pick up the books and never think about the Hollywood guy again. I am thinking of reading some of the Sherlock Holmes novels this year.

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