A Study In Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
I saw this book and knew it had to be mine. I love Sherlock Holmes in all of his incarnations, and I love queer literary theory, so this seemed like a perfect book for me: Sherlock-verse. Queered. Awesome. And I read it.And it was.... Very nice. No, it was fine. It was okay. But it was just a little, forgive the adjective, flaccid. The cases were good-- engaging little stories, and the characterization was generally on and enjoyable. But the queerness was, I'm sorry to say, handled problematically. Hints and suggestions do not a queer retelling make. For a book that boasts the word "queering" in the title, there was very little actual gayness on screen, so to speak. The stories were positively rated G-- I am reminded of the way that same-sex kisses happen off stage, or remain absolutely chaste-- in mainstream tv shows. I didn't go into this collection looking for pornography by any stretch of the imagination, but the chasteness was almost laughable. In one story, Holmes is revealed to have a long-term male partner. Watson realizes this because of a sweet matching look on both of their faces. Two women in love eat pomegranates together. Off screen. From that we are meant to infer...a heart stopping love affair? Why the squeamishness about physicality? It seemed strangely self-censored. Also, the stories gave in to the destructive gay story trope of the Suffering Gay Couple, where like a redshirt in a Star Trek movie, if a story includes an openly gay couple, one of them is toast. "My gay lover was murdered but Sherlock Holmes solved the crime and I got the inheritance!" While, yes, that does technically include gayness, it's kind of crappy. It's like the woman in the refrigerator trope: her femaleness accentuates our pity for her gruesome murder. But she still ends up brutally murdered. Some of these stories unintentionally reinforce the homophobic idea that the only good gay character is a dead or a suffering gay character. No thanks. That's crappy. As readers we are attuned to misogyny when a story includes only hurt or dead women, but we haven't yet become as sensitized to the homophobia inherent in narratives that lack anything but murdered LGBTQIA characters.And another thing! One of the stories features, I kid you not, an insane vengeful genderqueer serial killer. Do I... Need to explain why this is problematic? Okay, I get that we are reading mystery stories with an element of horror. And when you are writing murderers, you can write them however you like. But using this character's gender identity as THE THING THAT IS CREEPY ABOUT THEM? In a collection of stories that is trying to explore queerness in the Sherlock Holmes universe, to include and reinforce such a toxic trope, it's just really disappointing.So, in conclusion. In spite of the problems that stuck in my craw, I'm glad this book exists. I want more books like this to exist, to generate income for authors who are writing stories that expand the world of interesting, three dimensional characters from across the intersecting lines of sexual and gender identities. But to find literarily satisfying stories with all kinds of queer characters-- complex people with layers of motivation and multiple identities with complicated relationships? I'll stick to reading fan fiction.
I found this to be a hugely mixed bag.About half the stories in this collection are basically serviceable; a lot of them sort of end up running into each other, riffing on similar themes over and over, often adhering to a specific set of tropes. A couple of them are then very good, with more interesting set ups and good prose. I got this book cheaply, and consider it to have been worth the cost for those stories I enjoyed.There are also a couple that I found distinctly uncomfortable and to play into some really harmful ideas of what queering the text has to entail; ones that play into long-outdated stereotypes of queer sexuality, and what stories about queer sexuality must include, without a hint of self-awareness or subversion. It's not that I think stories about queer/etc. people 'can't' include certain things, but the framing of those things is important when it comes along with long histories of baggage.Another thing that frustrated me is that for an anthology that attempts to be subversive in some way, the range of 'queerness' on offer is predictably limited. It's largely, as ever, cis gay men. True, one might argue that the Holmes framework doesn't allow for much else, but to be honest I think that's setting the bar low. Some imagination and a willingness to walk further outside the limitations of the canon would have been more interesting and varied, in my opinion.Finally, a lot of these stories don't do much with the fact that they're set in the Holmes canon, to be frank. They're just set in it because they are. Very few of the stories here had to be told via Holmes, and I think, again, that's a lack of vision and a wasted opportunity.It really just didn't grab me as a collection, in the end.
What do You think about A Study In Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes (2011)?
Whilst the short stories in this Sherlock Holmes were interesting and also written in the style of Conan Doyle, for me there seemed to be something missing in most. Perhaps it is in the nature of short stories to have everything over and done with before they are started but I personally believe after reading this collection that this form is not really valid for a Holmes story.This is not a "bad" book and I can see that it would appeal to people on the move where they could read a complete story on the train/bus/underground while travelling from A to B. With apologies to the writers but this was not my cup of tea.Three stars.
—Terry
It is not my practice to review Sherlockian fiction of such a specialized nature, however, I purchased this book because I collect Sherlockian pastiches and felt I needed to add the stories to my database. I made the mistake of reading the first and was caught in a carefully devised trap. The editor must have given very careful directions to the contributors, for I found very little here of a sexual nature. Instead, I found earnest and thoughtful fiction that concentrated on the problems caused by the very harsh laws in Victorian Britain that restricted those whom we would now characterize as “following alternative lifestyles.” Indeed, the characters in these pages exhibit all sorts of alternative approaches to life.My usual practice in reviewing anthologies is to give brief summaries of the individual tales, along with their titles and the authors’ names. In this case, most of the stories consist of efforts by the characters to hide, discover and/or to fulfill their life conditions, so that approach would reveal too much of the point of the stories. Further, I have copies of many periodicals and anthologies of “gay” materials and I seldom do more than check through the pages to catalogue titles, authors and characters included along with references to events, historical characters and Canonical, Apocryphal or Untold tales. All ten of these stories demanded attention and compelled sympathy or, at least, concern for the characters. The writing was of very high quality, the characters were well-developed and the plots were intricate and realistic.Instead of inane characters indulging in sexual orgies, the reader is presented, mostly, with intelligent people trying to deal with the restrictions placed on their lives by a society that neither cares about nor understands them. These are stories of people who live in a world where they are guilty of heinous crimes simply because of their nature, not because of choices they have made or actions they have taken.The stories are interesting, even disturbing. Many of the characters are not “gay,” nor are they concerned with the societal view of homosexuality. Many are simply caught up in events because someone among their family or friends is accused of or involved in events that are thought to be so. The variety of characters and events is surprising, more varied than expected and very well presented. Only two ‘monsters’ appear and both are truly frightening, especially in that they have learned effectively to hide within society.The editor has put together as fine a collection of “alternative lifestyle” material as I have ever seen. I feel sure that the impetus and the execution needed to create this collection was supplied by him and he is to be congratulated on a fine job of producing a sympathetic and realistic view of the Nineteenth Century as seen from the viewpoint of those with alternative lifestyles.Reviewed by: Philip K. Jones, January 2012Published in “Doctor Watson’s Formulary,” [#21, 09/2012]
—Philip Jones
I find it hard to rate anthologies - in this particular one the stories went mostly between 2/5 and 3/5, but the last one, if only because of the most amazing first kiss ever, had to lift it to four stars. I was legit drawing hearts on the pages of my book journal.Other than the actual anthology, I have to say I really enjoyed the foreword, as well. It mentions Graham Robb's Strangers, which I really do have to finish at some point.
—Noora
