The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes (1993) - Plot & Excerpts
In 2010, we had to read for classes one of the Sherlock Holmes' books. My teacher gave us three options. Those options were The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Study in Scarlet and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. We had to vote for the one we considered the most interesting, and the winner was THotB. Since then, I made the promise to read the entire canon... but I did it with one purpose: To get to TMoSH. Do you know why? Because in this one Holmes was supposed to die, and also because Moriarty appears.Okay, now off to review each story.Silver Blaze:Plot: A great horse (Silver Blaze) has just disappeared and he had a race the next day, so they need him because the bets are made and people might get angry if they don't get to see the famous horse running.Thoughts: This one is not outstanding, but it was interesting to see how Holmes deduced who did the villainy. It's not a complex one, but it's not predictable, so I really enjoyed it.The Yellow Face:Plot: Mr. Munro is married and has a happy life until one day he sees a yellow face inside a cottage where his wife was found once. He's jealous and consults Holmes to see what he can get from his story.Thoughts: This one has a touching moment in the end, which I rather liked. Oh, and Holmes is not perfect, ladies and gentlemen. He sometimes has his deductions wrong.The Stockbroker's Clerk:Plot: A man is offered a job, but he's suspicious as to the employer's motives. Holmes and Watson hurry to see what's behind all that.Thoughts: Ah, there's always a fool. Someone is deceived, but Holmes managed to discover who the responsible for the tricks is before it was too late. A good story, in general.The “Gloria Scott”: Plot: This is Holmes' first case, dated back to his university days. The story revolves around a ship named “Gloria Scott.”Thoughts: Holmes first case! I really liked this story. Watson always wants to know things about his friend's past, and here's where he got his fill. Sherlock was a misanthrope back in his university days. Ah, Holmes, some people never change...The Musgrave Ritual:Plot: This was a clever one. It rounds about a family ritual and the disappearance of two people.Thoughts: As I said, this was clever and really intriguing. Holmes' way of solving the riddle (for it is indeed a riddle) is not the usual one, so I ended up enjoying it immensely.The Reigate Puzzle: Plot: Holmes is sick, and he decides to give himself (or rather Watson pushed him) a vacation. In there, Holmes finds that there are also people who need him, so he decides to quit his vacation and solve a case for them, which is about a murder. The victim had a mysterious torn piece of paper in his hand, and it appear that this paper was very valuable.Thoughts: This one was very intriguing and thrilling. It had an intense action scene that I enjoyed deeply. There was indeed a puzzle. If you can, try to solve it before Holmes reveals the answer.The Crooked Man:Plot: A man is dead and his wife is suspected. Holmes calls Watson (Did you hear that, people? Holmes calls Watson.) to ask him his opinion about the case and to see how everything ends.Thoughts: Damn Holmes and his ability to make complicated things simple. Why did he call Watson? Not because he needed his help, but merely to have someone to show his brilliance. But the story was interesting, and we have some more of Holmes ever-growing arrogance.The Resident Patient:Plot: Blessington hires Dr. Trelawney as his doctor and everything is well until one day something happens to Blessington and Trelawney's new patients seem rather odd, so he gets suspicious and asks Holmes for advice.Thoughts: With each story in this collection, they grew better and better. This one was really interesting and it kept me glued to the book throughout the course of it. The answer to the problem was just as intriguing as the problem itself.The Greek Interpreter:Plot: A greek interpreter, Melas, is hired to a job. In his workplace, some weird things happen and Melas feels there's something wrong.Thoughts: In this story, Mycroft Holmes is introduced to Watson's astonishment. See, Watson? Sherlock Holmes has a brother. Mycroft was quite an interesting character. He's just as intelligent as Holmes is, the difference being that Mycroft is kind of lazy and prefers to stay either at home or at his club. This one was a wicked and interesting story.The Naval Treaty:Plot: An important document, a naval treaty, has just been stolen from Percy Phelps' office. There are many suspects and they all could have a motive for doing the deed.Thoughts: This is the kind of story that I tend to enjoy the most. The mystery was present during the entire narration, and it always has you thinking as to who might have stolen the document. Holmes, now please take my application as your assistant. I'm serious.The Final Problem:Plot: Holmes is hunting down his great arch-enemy, professor Moriarty. Moriarty is a genius and plus, he has malice, so that obviously makes him a dangerous man and Holmes is determined to bring him to an end.Thoughts: The best story in this collection. Sure, why not? Seeing Holmes trying to defeat an enemy that has his same abilities was great. The ending was sad because Watson was all broken because of Holmes' “death.”Poor him....The Sherlock Holmes' canon is one of my favorite series of all time. I read the nine books in a row without getting bored, so that should tell you something. I continue to love Sherlock and all his treats. I love his arrogance, his misanthropy, his coldness, his intelligence... everything. They make him a really interesting character, and we know he's the master of deduction.I admit that even when my favorite collection of short stories is The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (my review), this one was also really good. And as I said, it's one of my favorite books of all time.When I graduate as a chemist, I'm gonna be like him, and my name is gonna be Vanessa the kick-ass, mad, gorgeous and sherlockian chemist.Just kidding. That sounds immature and stupid as hell, but I still wanna be like him.He looks so badass in there.Anyway, what are you waiting for if you haven't read this? GO READ IT NOW!!! What else can you possibly want from a book? There's mystery, there are murders, there's a sociopath with his assistant... The perfect formula for a book.
Another series of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes as reported by his faithful biographer Dr. Watson and it becomes clearer than ever that the real draw of these stories is the fascinating character of Holmes himself. The mysteries are secondary to the enjoyment, though many of them do prove to have distinct elements of interest (otherwise why would the great detective have bothered himself about them?), but it really is in observing the fascinating character of Holmes himself that the reader is immersed in them. Indeed, this collection provides a rare treat for the reader in that we learn more about the detective and his early life and connections than has previously been the case. Thus it was that some of the most interesting stories here, for me at least, were those that hearkened back to Holmes’ youth and showed us the man he was and in which we can see the seeds of the man he would come to be.The first of these in this book is “The Adventure of the Gloria Scott” – The primary interest in this tale comes from the glimpse it gives us to Holmes’ first ‘case’ (though the following tale, “The Musgrave Ritual” is really better classified as his first actual case, since the Gloria Scott comes across more as an intriguing mystery to which Holmes is largely a spectator) and the impetus for his decision to become a detective. We also get a glimpse at Holmes’ college days and of the only friend he made there (and thus far in the stories the only friend at all that he seems to have ever had aside from Watson). Finally this tale gives us a glimpse of a young Holmes still capable of emotion and surprise to the point that he cries out in horror at certain circumstances that, in later tales, would have left little other than a wry smile and remark of interest on his lips.As noted above “The Musgrave Ritual” provides us with a look at what could probably be considered Holmes’ first real case in which another University acquaintance of Holmes’ comes to him, based on his youthful reputation, with an apparently insoluble puzzle that revolves around the man’s lothario butler and a bizarre family tradition. Holmes of course breaks the case and takes no small relish in recounting the strange tale of an event “done prematurely before my biographer had come to glorify me” to his friend Watson.“The Greek Interpreter” continues in our discovery of the details of the mysterious past of Sherlock Holmes as we discover he actually does have a family and did not, as might seem more likely, spring from the brow of Zeus full grown. We in fact meet his older brother Mycroft, a man even more withdrawn from normal human society than his brother, but who also seems to possess even greater observational powers (a fact that leaves both Watson and the reader shocked to say the least). It was indeed quite amusing to see the two siblings spar with each other, each vying to outdo the other’s seemingly gnomic observations upon two strangers viewed from a window, and each gently chiding and correcting the other. This scene, nothing more a game of one-upmanship between brothers, does an excellent job at both making Sherlock seem more human at the same time that it exemplifies the peculiarity of his abilities and his subsequent estrangement from other ‘normal’ people. I also wondered in passing whether the germ for Nero Wolfe was planted in the mind of Rex Stout upon reading Sherlock’s comment about his brother: “If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived.” All that is needed is Archie Goodwin to do the foot work, a brownstone in New York and we’re off to the races.The Memoirs even show a bizarrely puckish aspect to Holmes’ personality when, in the second to last tale “The Naval Treaty”, Holmes plays a practical joke for his own amusement at the expense of the nerves of his already rattled client…something strange indeed (though perhaps not altogether out of character given Holmes’ obvious desire to showboat and his distinct streak of misanthropy).Other tales in the volume that were of interest: “The Crooked Man” which I found to be a rather affecting tale of retribution in the face of personal tragedy and “The Yellow Face” which, at the same time that it displayed some squicky elements of racism and abandonment, still managed to rise above them and display a story of ultimate familial devotion and personal love.Of course one can’t leave off discussion of this volume without making mention of “The Final Problem” the story in which Holmes’ greatest adversary Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime, is born. Doyle had grown weary of the public clamour for more tales of his peerless sleuth and decided it was time to end it so that he could concentrate on other characters and stories. Well, as it turns out this was not to be, but what resulted was an exciting tale in which Holmes finds himself pitted against the greatest adversary of his voluminous career. After months of playing cat-and-mouse with Moriarty and his insidious league of crime Holmes finally has gathered the pieces he needs to crush the vast criminal organization and its most dangerous leader. Moriarty, of course, is not likely to take such a possibility lying down and thus we have a final chase across London and Switzerland that ends in (view spoiler)[an off-screen (and thus retcon-able) death for both Holmes and his adversary. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes (1993)?
Once again, ohmahgerd, I was straight-up-literally a different person when I started this book like 18 months ago. I carried it around for sooo LONG in the front pocket of my backpack, thinking it would be one of those books I could pull out and read one-mystery-at-a-time whenever I had downtime. But srsly kids? Downtime is for reading X-Men comics. A man's gotta commit to Sherlock Holmes.So although I don't remember the first half of this book at all anymore, I'll say that I quite enjoyed the second half. T'weren't no mysteries all that mysterious this time around -- either I've read so much of these that I'm a genius and was able to figure them all out before Holmes for my geniusness, or ACD just didn't give a fudge anymore about coming up with brain-busters, but these stories seemed more focused on cleverness and mood than actually giving the reader anything to mull over. At this point Holmes & Watson are more self-referential and cute than anything, freakin' name-dropping all their prior cases like a couple straight pimps. We meet Mycroft here for the first time, and of course Moriarty closes the collection in a few scenes that are actually kinda genuinely creepy, with some positively Voldemortian descriptions of the arch-nemesis' physical presence. It could be easily argued that these stories are pretty lazy, for mysteries -- but they're atmospheric romps with some zip to them, heavy on the flavor that oozes all over the various filmic adaptations that many of us are probably more familiar with. If Holmes began his career as a cardboard cut-out to hang a plot on, it's here that the character really becomes the playful aspberger's-y scamp we all love. I continue to be happy I'm finally bringing this series of classics into my life, and that's one to grow on.
—Keith
"As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts -- forgery cases, robberies, murders -- I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavoured to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity.He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows very well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans."
—Edward
Mấy truyện trong đây cái nào cũng dễ thương hết vậy ;__; Kiểu như Watson hay nhây nhây đòi đẩy Holmes ra ngoài hóng gió lại cứ bị ổng rầy cho, đến phiên Holmes xuất hiện trước cửa nhà Watson giữa đêm hôm khuya khoắt kể chuyện vụ án cho Watson nghe; rồi lúc Watson biết Holmes có người anh trai tên Mycroft liền được Holmes dẫn đến Hội Diogenes, mặc dầu chỗ này người ta rất nghiêm ngặt chuyện khách khứa, gần như là hội kín luôn rồi nữa chứ. Mà đỉnh điểm phải là The Final Problem rõ ràng Holmes kéo Watson đi lòng vòng châu Âu với mình chỉ vì muốn dành mấy ngày cuối đời ở bên Watson, cưng thế ;___;Mấy vụ án cũng hay hơn so với hồi The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes nữa, phức tạp hơn, mà cũng cảm động hơn, nhất là vụ The Yellow Face ấy. Sao hồi xưa mình đọc bản dịch lại thấy nó dở tệ ta...?
—Hoàng Nguyễn
