Q2: Blog Entry #2

The first adventure in "The Adventure(s) of Sherlock Holmes" is titled, 'A Scandal in Bohemia." The chapter was given this title because Bohemia's king traveled to England in order to meet with Sir Sherlock Holmes and ask for his assistance. A woman that the king had flirted with and exchanged suspicious pictures with in his youth, is now threatening to publish the pictures when the king publicly announces his marriage to a different Bohemian woman.

Call me a corrupt person, but thoughts of black mail and shattered relationships that are the foundation for conspiracy, are genuinely interesting. I'm already entranced by Sir Conan Doyle's writing style as well, because his sentences aren't too long, nor too short. Just right.

But it's time to get back to the plot! Sherlock Holmes just so happens to live near Madame Irene Adler, the woman who has these suspicious photos of the Bohemian king. So he disguised himself as a beggar so that he could explore Adler's neighborhood and try to dig up some dirt on the woman. It turns out Adler has a love interest that she is also getting married to, the very day Holmes ventures out to her neighborhood. So why does Adler still insist on blackmailing the Bohemian king? What are her motives? We, the readers, don't know quite yet.

Another funny thing about this novel, is that it is not narrated by Sherlock Holmes even though he is the main character. It isn't written in the third person perspective either; but first person from Watson's perspective.

"He disappeared into his bedroom, and returned in a few minutes in the character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman. His broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and benevolent curiosity, were such as Mr John Hare alone could have equaled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime." (Pg 32.)

From this quote alone, it's easy to understand that Watson highly respects and looks up to Sherlock, even though they have a best-friend type relationship where both people are of equal skill and equal footing. However, Watson is essentially saying with this quote, 'How can you NOT look up to Mr. Holmes?' because his disguises which he uses for his work are so believable. Sherlock puts so much effort into making these disguises his life, like Sir Conan Doyle puts so much effort into trying to make his characters come to life. Already we can tell, the author Mr. Doyle highly respects and values hard work, and Sherlock Holmes might be Doyle's idealistic representation of himself.

Doyle, Sir Aurthur Conan. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1996.