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newmoonstarOkay, so I cheated on Valley of Fear.
I read the first half with Holmes and Watson, but I skipped over the second part with the Scowerers because I couldn't take being bored to death. It's not really cheating, though, is it? I'm sure it can't add anything to the story. I mean, I slogged through the giant flashback in A Study in Scarlet, but it was just hugely boring and honestly didn't add much to the impact of the story. They could have explained it in one paragraph instead of 25 pages, and saved me a lot of boredom. And the flashback in Valley of Fear is twice as long! 25 pages is endurable, but 50 is just ridiculous. So I refuse to feel guilty for not reading it. I read Sherlock Holmes purely for the fun of it, and I'm not compelled to read it just because Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to do his little rough-and-tumble fakey Western stories and stuck them in the middle of Holmes stories because he knew they'd never see the light of day on their own.
All that being said, I'm sure the guilt will catch up with me and I'll actually go and read it someday.
But in the mean time I'm having a lovely time un-guiltily skipping ahead to His Last Bow. I just read The Devil's Foot last night and it was amazing!
I've also started watching Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes since my local PBS station is re-running them. I missed them the first time they were on, but I was always curious about them. I saw the first one last Sunday and it was SO good. I can't wait for the rest of them. There's only four though, I'm dismayed to learn. I think it could have made a pretty good series, even if it does take a lot of elements from Sherlock Holmes itself. I think there's enough interesting stuff there for it to stand on it's own as a fun Victorian murder mystery series.
(Yes, only I automatically equate 'fun' with 'murder mysteries'.)
I read the first half with Holmes and Watson, but I skipped over the second part with the Scowerers because I couldn't take being bored to death. It's not really cheating, though, is it? I'm sure it can't add anything to the story. I mean, I slogged through the giant flashback in A Study in Scarlet, but it was just hugely boring and honestly didn't add much to the impact of the story. They could have explained it in one paragraph instead of 25 pages, and saved me a lot of boredom. And the flashback in Valley of Fear is twice as long! 25 pages is endurable, but 50 is just ridiculous. So I refuse to feel guilty for not reading it. I read Sherlock Holmes purely for the fun of it, and I'm not compelled to read it just because Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to do his little rough-and-tumble fakey Western stories and stuck them in the middle of Holmes stories because he knew they'd never see the light of day on their own.
All that being said, I'm sure the guilt will catch up with me and I'll actually go and read it someday.
But in the mean time I'm having a lovely time un-guiltily skipping ahead to His Last Bow. I just read The Devil's Foot last night and it was amazing!
I've also started watching Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes since my local PBS station is re-running them. I missed them the first time they were on, but I was always curious about them. I saw the first one last Sunday and it was SO good. I can't wait for the rest of them. There's only four though, I'm dismayed to learn. I think it could have made a pretty good series, even if it does take a lot of elements from Sherlock Holmes itself. I think there's enough interesting stuff there for it to stand on it's own as a fun Victorian murder mystery series.
(Yes, only I automatically equate 'fun' with 'murder mysteries'.)
no subject
Date: 2005-02-15 11:54 pm (UTC)