Monday, November 1, 2021

On "A Case of Identity" from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

lo-fi & lovely

On "A Case of Identity" [IDEN] from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

::: PUBLICATION HISTORY :::

Strand Magazine (UK) September 1891
Strand Magazine (US) October 1891
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Coll.) October 1892

::: NOTES :::

The mom was in on it? "We never thought that she would have been so carried away?" Dastardly! Chubby homely Miss Mary Sutherland, she of scant smarts--appeals to Holmes. Not on a personal level, however, but in such a way as her concise communication allows him to flex his upholding of justice. Come to think of it, it seems more often than not it is justice itself that gets piled on, not Holmes himself... this differs from typical mystery fare--take Spillane's pablum, for instance--where woes are heaped on the protagonist himself until all hope seems lost & then... Come to further think, this is where much Sherlockian pastiche fails. 

"I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened with the greatest concentration of attention."

I digress.

And begin anew. A condensed opening conversation:

Holmes: “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
Watson: "And yet I am not convinced of it,”
Holmes: "The husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which, you will allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the average story-teller."

A defeated Watson is offered consolation from the consulting detective's bejeweled & bedazzled "old gold, with a great amethyst in the centre of the lid" snuffbox gifted him by the King of Bohemia. A favorite thing of mine are these Holmesian callbacks to previous adventures the good doctor has narrated (or at times, not*). It's very much 'a page' from comic books of my youth "back in issue #123" world-building footnotes. Except, to be clear, well earlier. There's also a gaudy ring that Holmes is not at liberty to discuss. *I do like pastiche opportunities nigh as much as retro-fitting the presence of Moriarty.

Ever the action freak, Watson apparently just dropped in to ask if there was a game afoot, to which Holmes replies nope. Then right on cue, the vacuous face of Miss Sutherland being led into the Baker Street rooms by the boy in buttons. There is a typical Holmesian deduction flex prior to her entry, during her consultation, and after her departure. Mary made a fine audience, then the magician turns on his sidekick in snarky fashion because no one likes losing a good audience.

REMINDER to please check out both I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, As well as Interesting Though Elementary. Both are fantastically infotaining spots for Sherlockian Scholarship. (As well as used in some of my own research.)

“Quite an interesting study, that maiden,” he observed. “I found her more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is rather a trite one." Watson is bewildered yet, still, and as ever--and Holmes attempts to have him unravel it all himself. Or perhaps he's just fucking with him. "Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled." Oh, it's that second thing I mentioned. Then he goes on to congratulate his assistant on his marvelous grasp of color names. All good-hearted clean fun. It does make one wonder how much money Watson walleted in writing these cases out and selling them, I mean to put up with this sort of thing. Nevertheless...

All the while one gets the feeling that Holmes has it all solved at first blush. Just a couple minor details sans leaving 221b. Then he's throwing Mary's stepdad out the door about as mad as you'll ever see him. “Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my uncle Ned in Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4½ per cent. Two thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the interest.” Our man, Mr. Hosmer Angel, tried keeping Mary's moolah for his own comforts and did-so in a very unseemly way. Even in comparison to wedding a much older woman for money more-so than love. Circle back to the top and read this all again. Or not--it only counts for one pageview either way.

More? The characters seem one-dimensional, the alias is flimsy. But then again, so are the plot, problem, & solution. For a solution can be no grander than the problem. Setting is 1/2-way done. IDEN reads much like a filler episode. Perhaps I'm being a tad hard here. There are those interesting tie-ins as world-builders. There is a growing understanding of the Holmes/Watson dynamic. And there is that 'justice as protagonist' sentiment I yoinked out of my hat one evening whilst smoking an oily dark clay pipe of my own. Finally, and in terms of assembling a set, this is a fine spot for an orchestrated lull. Sandwiched between the boisterously flashy Red-Headed League and Boscombe Valley Mystery, where murder is first handled (in the short story form). 


CHARACTERS: 1/2
SETTING: 1/2
PLOT: .5/2
PROBLEM: .5/2
SOLUTION: .5/2

FINAL GRADE: 3.5/10

I'd like to take a moment to remind you kind Gentlepersons that I write these thoughts under the assumption of you having read these adventures. They are readily available everywhere, including for free at Project Gutenberg.

::: COMPANION READING :::




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