Five favorite Holmes canon stories, pt 1: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

[marycrawford]

Last week janeturenne posted a wonderfully evocative overview of her personal top 10 favorite and top 10 least favorite canon Sherlock Holmes stories -- part 1, part 2.

She reminds me how much I love seeing people talk about their beloved fandoms in detail, and I've been immersed in the Holmes stories, Granada TV series, and BBC audioplays for years but I haven't actually posted about them much myself. So here's a start! *g*

I'm going to take janeturenne's approach but simplify it a bit, so that I manage to actually post these instead of just think about it: I've picked out five of my favorite Holmes short stories and their adaptations, and will post about each of them in turn over the next few days. Story links go to the University of Adelaide Library, which has all the Holmes stories as well as many other Arthur Conan Doyle works available.

My first favorite is The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
I love the atmosphere of this story; it manages not to feel twee and/or maudlin, despite the Christmas theme and setting, just very warm and comforting, and the way the tension slowly ramps up from a quiet morning where Watson visits Holmes "with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season" and they have a little game of deductions about a mislaid old hat and a goose, to the discovery that there is a spectacular crime attached to the lost items, to tracking down the criminal and then letting him go again is wonderful.

I also like that Holmes is so disappointed in the criminal: "What a shrimp it is, to be sure!” That line just kills me. I think Holmes appreciated the bizarre touch of hiding a jewel in the crop of a goose, and was hoping for a worthier opponent.

The Granada TV version with Jeremy Brett and David Burke is just lovely, full of delicious domestic touches. Since Watson never marries or moves out of 221B in the Granada version, the slashiness just goes on for miles; Watson isn't coming to visit, he's coming home from Christmas shopping.

I adore Holmes waking up and diving into the sitting room for cigarettes, still in his nightshirt, without even being aware he has a visitor; Watson coming in cheerfully with an armful of Christmas presents and cards; Holmes grumpy and irritated with all the jollity around him, but cheering up no end when Watson sits down close by and allows him to lounge on the sofa and pontificate about tallow stains, ribbed silk and cubic capacity. (...don't look at me like that. Listen to the way Jeremy Brett pronounces "ribbed silk", watch the accompanying languid gestures and see where your mind goes.)

I also love that Holmes's monologue about the Blue Carbuncle from the story is split up in the Granada version, so that Watson gets all the more upbeat and poetic lines ("Just see how it glints and sparkles!") and Holmes gets to cast gloom ("There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallized charcoal."), which I think is a wonderful and appropriate way of dealing with the text.

The BBC radio version of BLUE, dramatised by Bert Coules and starring Clive Merrison and Michael Williams, is also a treasure. I could go on about the BBC radio plays forever; they are beautifully made, incredibly well written and acted, faithful and yet daringly fannish in the way the text is interpreted, a work of art and love.

In this version of BLUE, Watson visits Holmes and gives him not just the compliments of the season, but an actual Christmas present -- we never do find out what it is, which I find tantalizing -- to which Holmes reacts with bemusement and uncertainty, as if such a thing has never happened to him before: "...My dear fellow."

There is a lovely, somewhat melancholy undercurrent of Watson being torn between his duties at home and Holmes's subtly evident loneliness; Holmes offers up his deduction game about the hat as a way to entice Watson to stay an hour or so longer, and at the end of the episode this theme returns in a way that just slays me, so that I will try to describe it in full:

The crime is solved, the falsely accused set free, and Holmes and Watson stand on the street outside the police station, talking over the end of the case. It is cold, and very late; occasionally there is the sound of a carriage passing by.

Finally Watson says "Well -- I must be getting home. It's certainly been a Christmas eve to remember."

He wishes Holmes goodnight. Holmes says "Watson -- wait..." in an unsettled tone of voice. (I seriously cannot do justice to the voice acting here.)

There is a pause.

"...Holmes?" says Watson, equally uncertain, worried even. No response from Holmes.

A clock strikes, and Watson almost babbles, "Good lord! I had no idea it was so late. Early."

Holmes says only "Watson," again, low and pleading, willing Watson to understand him.

Watson does; he quickly jumps in with "Holmes, this is damnably rude of me, but I know you dine very late as a rule --"

Holmes pretends he has no idea where this is going, possibly because he can't bear to be proven wrong, and his raillery sounds forced and falsely cheerful. "Absolutely true, Doctor. Are you about to tell me that I'm -- ruining my digestion?"

"Actually, I was wondering if Mrs Hudson might stretch to providing for two."

"...for two?"

"Oh, Mary would have gone to bed hours ago," Watson replies. "The whole household. I realize it's a dreadful imposition --"

"I believe I can tolerate it," says Holmes, in his customary sardonic drawl.

"Thank you, Holmes!" Watson carols cheerfully, maintaining the fiction that he's doing Holmes a tremendous disservice by coming to 221B to dine with him on Christmas eve, and thereby saving Holmes' pride in a way that I find incredibly touching; but in the end, Holmes is too generous to allow him to do so, and says "Thank you, my friend," in that same low, deeply felt tone as before.

Then the episode wraps up with Holmes' last line, where the language is military but the tone is jubilant: "Come along then, Doctor -- faces to the North, and quick march!"

Siiiiiiiigh. I can't tell you how often I replayed that scene on my tape recorder; I think my tape must be worn pretty thin.

Please do comment and tell me what your Holmesian favorites are, or how you feel about this particular story and its radio/TV versions!

Comments

[muccamukk]

Those radio plays may be my favourite thing in the world ever. I don't have them on tape. But I try to listen every time BBC7 reruns them.

"The Devil's Foot," "The Retired Colourman," "The Lion's Main," "The Empty House," "The Silver Blaze" and that one are favourites.

[marycrawford]

Hooray, another fan of the radio plays! And you know, now I need to re-listen to The Retired Colourman, because I nodded and smiled at the other titles, which are some of my faves too, but I don't remember much about that one -- oh good grief, yes I do, that's where Holmes leaves, isn't it. You are a braver woman than I! It is of course excellent, but I find it so heartwrenchingly painful.

("The Lion's Mane" on the other hand, oh my sainted aunt, it is like an explosion of fannish joy listening to that one. I couldn't believe my ears the first time I heard it. Bert Coules, how are you so awesome!)