On "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

lo-fi & lovely

On "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" [COPP] from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

::: PUBLICATION HISTORY :::

The Strand Magazine (UK) June 1892

The Strand (US) July 1892

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Coll.) October 1892

::: NOTES & GRADING :::

"'One child--one dear little romper just six years old. Oh, if you could see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! Smack! smack! smack! Three gone before you could wink!' He leaned back in his chair and laughed his eyes into his head again." - Jephro Rucastle, as to his little monster of a progeny, to Violet Hunter, a potential governess in his employ.

"He is small for his age, with a head which is quite disproportionately large. ... Giving pain to any creature weaker than himself seems to be his one idea of amusement, and he shows quite remarkable talent in planning the capture of mice, little birds, and insects." Relates Miss Hunter to Holmes and one wonders if the child has a bit of gothic monster in him quite as close to literally as what could be taken.

Alas, we are left with not much more than that regarding the little romper but it's enough to creep a person out. Especially a Victorian Era person. Cue the vapors, bring in the fainting couch, and what-have-you. Eerie, nonetheless and in so, quite in keeping with the Rucastle abode. Particularly its off-limits section which reads as a dank prison block so oddly removed from the rest of the cheerfully masqueraded house. But really, isn't the sunny-side somehow even more frightful? Also, don't go outside or you'll get eaten for sure.

Here again, Doyle plays at wages and the evils he seems to find inherent in them. 120pounds a year to be exact. A princessly sum. With Holmes' approval, backing, and odd affections, Miss Hunter is off against everyone's better judgment to that Rucastle residence. You can tell Holmes reads the entire situation as grave. Why? Because, "Holmes shook his head gravely," and "But Holmes shook his head gravely." We get it, grave. Plus, she has to cut her 'artistic' hair and wear a certain dress, and maybe Mrs. Rucastle is simply mad, is the best-case scenario.

Or just dreadfully endlessly and emptily sad. With a sadder more mangled future to boot. On the way to that end, we are privy to a mystery that plays with another ACD trope, inheritances, pensions, and the like. I sincerely don't wish to spoil this 1892 bit of short fiction which I hope you've already read. Regardless, with no long-term employment possibilities beyond stated tidy sum to simply hopefully convincingly wave off an interloper--Miss Hunter becomes unnecessary--which is most likely a ::: very ::: bad thing to become within these unsettling confines.

The drawer full of hair sent lasting shivers up me timbers. Seriously. Unsettling.

::: THEME WITHIN A THEME :::

(pipe-smoking)

" ... taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs, and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious, rather than a meditative mood." Here, Watson narrates Holmes' smoking mores.

Here's the thing. The pipes seem reversed. Cherry-wood pipes tend to offer a cool, sweet smoking experience (meditative). Whereas clay smokes hot and dry (disputatious). The other pipe at home in Holmes' canonical pipe rack was a briar--which does smoke even cooler than the typical cherry-wood--so he didn't grab his calmest here. All told, however, I trust in ACD's tobacco IQ, as he has more than proved himself in that realm of expertise. Particularly in alignment with mood.

Elsewhere in the canon, we have seen an anxiously pacing Holmes with a cigarette. Elsewhere still, cigars are offered in social situations to guests who are often of the official police persuasion. Finally and coming back to them--pipes as tools of contemplation, famously in problems of threes. Perhaps this is why I'm also so ready to engage in the picking of nits here. I expect more. I'm not mad, I'm disappointed? This cherry-wood bit seems simply out-of-step. Again, Holmes grabbing for an incinerator-like hot burning clay seems so much more apt for pairing with verbal pugilism.

What I'm left with finally is the further realization that Holmes just likes to be an ass on occasion. I believe for more reason than just feces and facial gestures, however. This practice often is at the cost of Watson and the getting of the good doctor's goat. So Holmes here is calm in his excitement and also exercising his skills. "answering, as was his wont, my thoughts rather than my words," notes Watson mid tiff. Leaving Watson to simply narrate this noted pattern to the best of his abilities. It's a lot like those kitchen knife sheaths that sharpen the blade inside them, at rest in a silverware drawer.

Now why Watson would continually include in said narrations Holmes' harsh critiquing of his writing, is an item best left for another time. I'll allow him a final word here: "'It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter," I remarked, with some coldness, for I was repelled by the egotism which I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my friend's singular character." SLAM!

:::

Back to COPP. In terms of its cast of characters, this is one of ACD's finest collections of delightable oddities. The conversing and connectivity between them all is marvelous. Starting right off with a famed bit of Holmes in "To the man who loves art for its own sake," remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of The Daily Telegraph, "it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived."

Something about that triggered in my mind remembrances of Mickey Spillane's “Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar.”

I adore how Rucastle "laughed his eyes into his head." I wondered at how this immediate Holmes attachment to Hunter was formed in the great detective's mind. Loved the dynamic duo's aforementioned jousting. Strangely enough, and above all else, the silent suffering and intense loyalty of Mrs. Rucastle hit me heaviest, lingered longest, with never much needing said. It's all really just wonderfully dense and deep and subtle. All that and the setting blends-bleeds into the character list... a hallmark of Doyle's when he's got the hot hand.

And really the problem is quite small--as it should be. This isn't about the problem because how could it be when it isn't about the solution? It's about the capturing of the truly grotesque. The plot even is secondary although strong. It acts as a sturdy stage on which the players play. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. We get "I have my revolver" level action culminating in "I blew its brains out"--of a(nother) monster in the more familiar Dolyeian half-starved dog form. The unspoken dynamics and/or side-adventure of Toller and Alice could be a story all its own, or this one fully-so from a different perspective. Filled to the brim, this.

A story that reads like how a clay pipe smokes.

CHARACTERS: 2/2
SETTING: 2/2
PLOT: 1.5/2
PROBLEM: 1/2
SOLUTION: .5/2

FINAL GRADE: 7/10

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 as well as Wikisource, where you can listen to it read, as well.

Also, please bear in mind that this post is part of a series in which I'm working through every case in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. For other entries in this series, use the Search Kaplowitz Media. function to the right of your screen and plug in either particular adventures contained within that collection, or The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to view them in their entirety.

::: very :::