Because I totally needed a reason to reread all the Holmes stories.In Maps & Legends, Michael Chabon has an essay about Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories (and their universe, and the world of Sherlockians and fanfic and such that they spawned, which is the point of the essay, but not where I'm going here.
One of the things Chabon discusses as he builds to his point is level of Conan Doyle's writing in the stories -- "so much higher than it ever needed to be," he calls it. And it's not just good writing, it's writing that plays with form and narrative and metafiction. (In other words, the way Holmes and Watson know that they're characters within stories that the public is devouring, even as they go about their fictional lives. Let's have this be the last time I get all jargony here.)
So now that I've spent time focusing on Jane Eyre, Anne of Green Gables, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and the men of Madeleine L'Engle, I think the Holmes stories will be my next big project. (And I do mean big. There are 56 of them, plus the novellas. We'll take it in small doses, shall we?)
First up: The Adventure of the Silver Blaze.
(Post pics: a passing resemblance, don't you think?)
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