The Adventure of the Empty House by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• A Sherlock Holmes short story
• Genre: mystery, crime, detective, British Lit
• Published: 1903
• My edition: The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volume II
• Annotated by: William S. Baring-Gould
• Setting: London, England; 1894

 

When I last read of Sherlock Holmes, he was, well…Dead!

 

In "The Final Problem", Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty engage in mortal, hand-to-hand combat, at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, and both fall to their death.

 

Which accounts for Dr. Watson’s shock at the appearance of Sherlock Holmes in his study some three years later.

I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. When I turned again Sherlock Holmes [in disguise moments before] was standing smiling at me across my study table. I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time in my life.

Classic Holmes’ panache and Watson’s devoted loyalty.

 

The period when all the world believed Sherlock Holmes to be dead, is now known as “The Great Hiatus.” It was genuinely Doyle’s intent to leave Holmes dead and end the series, but the public outcry and rage caused the author to resurrect the great detective in stunning fashion.

 

Which brings my reading journey to “The Adventure of the Empty House”. This story, serves two purposes: to explain how Holmes survived (and what he’s been doing for three years); and solving the case at hand, a seemingly unrelated but baffling murder. It turns out, the murderer is also a former colleague of Professor Moriarty’s who is intent on revenge against Holmes. So, a third purpose: preventing Holmes' murder.

 

There isn’t a lot of sleuthing or deductive logic in this case. It’s really just baiting a trap and a suspenseful stake-out. A very exciting ending just the same. It is an epic moment in the Sherlock Holmes canon, which begins an entire new series of adventures and reunites the beloved duo of Holmes and Watson.

 

I can almost hear the cheers in the streets of England, when the story appeared in The Strand magazine.

 

 

"The Adventure of the Empty House” is part of Return of Sherlock Holmes collection, though I read it from The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: a two-volume collection of all 60 cases (four novels and 56 short stories), which attempts to put all of Holmes’ cases into fictional chronological order. According to this chronology, “The Adventure of the Empty House” is Sherlock Holmes 32nd case.

 

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Scoop (1938) by Evelyn Waugh — novel #257

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh: imagine if Bertie Wooster were a foreign correspondent.

• Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
• Comic novel, British lit
• Published: 1938
• My edition: Little, Brown and Company (eBook)
• Setting: England and Fictional African country of Ishmaelia, Pre-WWII
• Also by this author (that I’ve read): Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust, The Loved One

 

War is imminent in far off Ishmaelia and Lord Copper, owner of The Daily Beast newspaper, needs a top-notch journalist to cover the “promising little war". Meanwhile, John Courteney Boot a modestly successful writer is between novels and desires just such an assignment. Perfect! He applies to his close friend, Mrs. Algernon Stitch, socialite and wife of the defense minister, to leverage her considerable influence to get him the job. Julia Stitch happily obliges, drops his name to Lord Copper who instructs his foreign editor, Mr. Salter, to send Boot to Ishmaelia. Salter is not in the habit of questioning his impetuous and tyrannical boss. His responses generally take the form of: “Definitely Lord Copper”, when he agrees; or “Up to a point”, when he disagrees. Salter acquiesces to Lord Copper’s choice, up to a point, and Boot is practically on his way. Perfect! That is, until his name is passed down the bureaucratic ladder, John Boot’s name is confused with William Boot a staff writer already in the employ of The Daily Beast. William Boot’s only assignment is writer of “Lush Places” a rather pedestrian column regarding flora and fauna of England. It is now, a perfect setting for Waugh’s classic satire of the over-zealous pursuit of sensational journalism.

 

It's a wonderful farce; such as this description of Ishmaelia:

Various courageous Europeans in the seventies of the last century came to Ishmaelia, or near it, furnished with suitable equipment of cuckoo clocks, phonographs, opera hats, draft-treaties and flags of the nations which they had been obliged to leave. They came as missionaries, ambassadors, tradesmen, prospectors, natural scientists. None returned. They were eaten, every one of them; …

And much more along those lines. William Boot is eminently unqualified for the assignment…and yet…somehow.

 

Waugh is certainly a versatile writer. The first I read by Waugh, Brideshead Revisited is poignant and beautiful. The next, A Handful of Dust, is captivating and depressing and both are decidedly serious. And then I happened upon the overtly ridiculous The Loved One. And now Scoop. The puns start immediately, but it is still a bit slow until Boot is underway and in Ishmaelia. It’s a lot of fun, but also rather esoteric. I’ve never been involved in journalism, so it didn't completely resonate. I suspect those who have been associated with the profession will find this as brilliant satire. I understand Waugh served as a foreign correspondent covering a minor war, and I imagine it must have been great fun for him to write this. I understand many of the characters are mapped to, or composites of real persons from Waugh’s experience.

 

I'm certainly glad that nearly 100 years later, we've risen above sensationalism in news media. Overall, a fun read. I give it…

 

3 1/2 stars

 

 

What is your experience with Waugh? I think I prefer his serious novel, but a comic romp is a fun diversion now and then. What about you? 

 

This was title #26 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge –Round IV 

 

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Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe — novel #256

An African Tale by an African author!

• by Chinua Achebe
• African literature, Nigerian novel
• Published: 1958
• Awards: Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement to Achebe
• My edition: Penguin Books (eBook)
• Setting: Colonial Nigeria, late 19th century

I’ll let Achebe introduce you to the main character Okonkwo.

Okonkwo was clearly cut out for great things. He was still young but he had won fame as the greatest wrestler in the nine villages. He was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and had just married his third wife. To crown it all he had taken two titles and had shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars. And so although Okonkwo was still young, he was already one of the greatest men of his time. Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders.

He is the exact opposite of his no-account father. Shame for his father is one of Okonkwo’s driving forces. Okonkwo clearly enjoys wealth and status, but he will not be satisfied until he is one of the top men of his clan. He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it.

 

And then a terrible accident, impossible to foresee or prevent, leaves a young clan boy dead and Okonkwo bearing the penalty: seven years banishment. This sentence is imposed with no hostility, just what clan law demanded. This felt like the end of Okonkwo’s aspirations, but to the indomitable Okonkwo it is merely a setback. He and his family leave their village, to live with Okonkwo’s maternal relations, some miles distant.

 

But during his absence, things begin to change, or perhaps—to fall apart. Okonkwo returns intent on reestablishing his standing, but there are new currents driving daily life in his village now: a new religion brought by white men, and new laws brought by colonial powers.

There were many men and women in Umuofia who did not feel as strongly as Okonkwo about the new dispensation. The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion, but he had also built a trading store and for the first time palm-oil and kernel became things of great price, and much money flowed into Umuofia.

Okonkwo did not object to the new ways so much perhaps, as he did to the acquiescence of his clan.

He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women.

But… 

Okonkwo was not a man of thought but of action.

This is a powerful story, told by one who ought to know. Prior to the publication of Things Fall Apart, most African Novels were written by Europeans or non-Africans. It was considered a milestone in that regard. I thought Achebe was conspicuously fair. He did not treat the missionaries as villains, nor the natives as enlightened sages. The colonial governors were treated more critically, but again, not unfairly. Achebe weaves themes of rigidity vs. cultural evolution in a tale replete with colorful folklore, customs and tradition.

 

Things Fall Apart is a little out of my normal comfort zone, which is good reason to read it. Fair warning: This depicts late 19th century Nigeria. Okonkwo and his clan are severely misogynistic. This is neither condemned nor condoned by Achebe, merely presented as historical reality.

 

I considered my own reading of African stories against the assertion that most African novels were written by non-Africans. This sample size is far too small to conclude anything, but the African novels I’ve read are consistent with the assertion. This does not imply they are unworthy works. 

• Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
• The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
• The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
• A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
• The Covenant by James Michener (much later than Things Fall Apart)

 

My rating  3 ½ /5 stars

 

 

Title #25 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge – Round IV

 

Things Fall Apart is part of a trilogy along with: No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God. Have you read the trilogy? Your thoughts? Other works by Achebe?

 

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Lord Jim (1900) by Joseph Conrad — novel #255

He [Jim] was running. Absolutely running, with nowhere to go to. And he was not yet four-and-twenty.

• by Joseph Conrad
• Modernist, Psychological novel, British novel
• Published: 1900
• My edition: Project Gutenberg Free Book (eBook)
• Setting: South Seas, Malay Archipelago, late 19^th century
• Also by this author (that I’ve read): Nostromo, Heart of Darkness

Jim, not yet “Lord Jim,” is a young Englishman, son of a parson, just beginning a promising career at sea. He is quietly confident, capable, and the very image of a man who inspires trust. Then one split-second decision aboard the Patna—a moment of treachery from the sea—shatters everything. That single failure will haunt him for the rest of his life.

 

Jim knows, with perfect and painful clarity, that this one dreadful moment is not the true measure of his soul. Yet he also knows the stigma will deny him any easy chance at redemption.

 

Captain Marlow, at first a detached observer, becomes the novel’s primary narrator and eventually Jim’s friend and advocate. Through Marlow’s layered, reflective storytelling, we follow Jim’s restless search for a place where he can prove his worth.

 

Marlow tries to help Jim escape his past—sometimes in spite of Jim himself. As Marlow reflects: 

…it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.

 

I ached for Jim and found myself cheering Marlow’s efforts at redemption, even as I sometimes feared it might be hopeless, just as Marlow did.

Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person—this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well,—the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.

 

It’s a marvelous yarn—perhaps my favorite by Conrad yet. He writes what I call a thinking man’s adventure: morally complex, with themes of honor, redemption, self-identity, loyalty, and the painful denial (or possibility) of second chances. There are pirates, tempestuous seas, remote islands, and a beautiful girl, but the real drama is internal.

 

Conrad’s prose is beautiful and evocative, especially considering English was his third language, as the following passage, even without context (something to do with the girl) will show: 

The starlight was good enough for that story, a light so faint and remote that it cannot resolve shadows into shapes, and show the other shore of a stream.

 

Or this near the end of Lord Jim (this may seem to contain a major spoiler; don't take every word literally). 

He [Jim] passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, forgotten, unforgiven, and excessively romantic

 

My rating 4/5 stars

 

 

This is title 24 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge Round IV

 

Lord Jim is my favorite by Conrad so far. Have you read it? What are your thoughts on Conrad in general?

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The Final Problem: a Sherlock Holmes short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

   

• A Sherlock Holmes short story
• Genre: mystery, crime, detective, British Lit
• Published: 1893
• My edition: The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volume II
• Annotated by: William S. Baring-Gould
• Setting: London, England; 1891

If the title were not enough, Dr. Watson, opens the narrative of “The Final Problem” with shocking words:

It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished.

My apologies for the implied spoiler. It is hardly a secret. After all, Sherlock Holmes himself warned that…

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.¹

 

I can only imagine the dismay, or perhaps fury, in Jolly Ole England when “The Final Problem” was published in 1893.

 

“The Final Problem” makes the first explicit mention of Dr. James Moriarty, Holmes’ eventual arch-enemy. However, the Sherlock Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear, published later, but chronologically occurring before “The Final Problem” alludes to Holmes’ suspicion of a criminal mastermind still on the loose.

 

In this adventure, Holmes’ arrives at Watson’s home visibly perturbed and slightly injured. Holmes relates his long-held suspicion.

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.

 

Holmes further relates that he has set a perfect trap for the villain and it only awaits critical timing. The challenge for Holmes at the moment is to stay alive. Moriarty knows Holmes is on his trail and is bent on killing him.

 

This isn’t the most fascinating, nor exciting Sherlock Holmes adventure. Watson, and the reader, just have to trust Holmes both for the case and the trap that he has set for the villain.

 

And the climax, well—no one witnesses it, but there is clear and certain evidence. Holmes has foiled Moriarty, who will no longer plague humanity, any more than Holmes will protect it.

      

 

"The Final Problem” is from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collection, though I read from The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: a two-volume collection of all 60 cases (four novels and 56 short stories) which attempts to put all of Holmes’ cases into fictional chronological order. According to the The Annotated collection, “The Final Problem” is Sherlock Holmes 31st case.

 

¹ The Boscombe Valley Adventure

 

 

The Ascent of Rum Doodle — novel #254

The Ascent of Rum Doodle — To climb Mount Blanc is one thing; to climb Rum Doodle is quite another. ~ O. Totter 

• by W. E. Bowman
• Comic Novel, British Literature
• Published: 1956
• My edition: Pimlico paperback, 2001 (not pictured) with an introduction by Bill Bryson
• Setting: The slopes of Rum Doodle
• Title #23 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge – Round IV

 

In the 1950s an eminent group intrepid adventurers sets out to climb the world’s highest peak: Rum Doodle, 40,000 and a half feet, in remote Yogistan. I don’t believe the book ever states it explicitly, but I had the distinct impression this was a British expedition. Who else could be described as intrepid? The expedition consists of the standard group of experts:

 

Burley – supplies

Wish – scientist

Shute – photographer

Jungle – radio expert and pathfinder

Constant – linguist

Prone – doctor

Binder – expedition leader and unreliable narrator

 

That’s the last serious thing I can say about this book, and in truth, even the names are subtle puns. The cast of characters is completed by several thousand, yes thousand, Yogistani porters, and the cook Pong, who has supernatural ability to make any food stuffs unrecognizable and inedible.

 

As I say, it’s a comic novel and nothing goes as planned. All of the experts are astonishingly inept. Burley is lazy, Wish is just silly, Shute always misses the shot, Jungle is lost in his own tent, Constant makes disastrous Yogistani translations and Prone is perpetually sick. There are gags, puns, ironies, and pratfalls on every page, but the funniest gimmick was the Yogistani porters. They would routinely be sent up and down the mountain on errands, a duty they accomplished with ease, all in support of the historic feats of the august adventurers.

 

Another bit I liked was the oft repeated saying of the enigmatic mountaineer O. Totter. At various points of impasse, someone would quote Totter’s sage surmise that…

To climb Mount Blanc is one thing; to climb Rum Doodle is quite another.

At this the adventurers would, Ah! and Yes! and Indeed! and be visibly revived by Totter’s wisdom

 

Rum Doodle feels like the story Jerome K. Jerome would write, if he were to write a mountain climbing adventure. Indeed, one of the porters is seen reading a Yogistani translation of Three Men in a Boat.

 

I envied him, because that book was funnier than this book. Rum Doodle is often described as hilarious, laugh-a-minute, or as the cover of my version says: One of the funniest books you will ever read.

 

For me, not so much. It was funny, just not laugh-out-loud funny. It may not have aged well, and the subject matter is rather esoteric. I understand that in mountaineering circles it is a cult classic and widely celebrated. There are numerous Rum Doodle namesakes worldwide including Rumdoodle Peak in Antarctica (official) and Rum Doodle Ridge of Pike’s Peak (unofficial).

 

I give it 3 stars

 

  

I learned a new phrase from this book. When mountain climbers are pondering a particular peak, and their chance of conquering it, they are apt to ask…

Will it go?

 

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Gilgamesh: A New English Translation

The Epic of Gilgamesh — The oldest story in the world

• Author Unknown
• Epic Poem
• Written: 2100 – 1200 B.C.
• Adapted by: Stephen Mitchell
• My edition: Atria Books (eBook), 2004
• Setting: Ancient Mesopotamia and mythical locations

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem regarding King Gilgamesh of the Great Walled City, Uruk. He is the son of mortal King Lugalbanda and the goddess Ninsun, also known as Lady Wildcow (ya’d think a goddess wouldn’t stand for that). Gilgamesh is described as enormous and radiant, the text is never precise about his size, but he could travel three days and nights, without rest and cover the distance that ordinary men would travel in six weeks. He is an arrogant and ruthless ruler. The goddess Aruru creates Enkidu — as Gilgamesh’s mirror image and opposite, intending that wild and powerful Enkidu could challenge Gilgamesh and cause him to be a more gracious and beneficent ruler.

 

There are some preliminary events leading up to the challenge, rather mature content, though not graphic or explicit, but the two do indeed fight. I’ll spare the spoiler, but after their contest they become fast friends and set off on a dangerous mission to kill the dread monster Humbaba and other exploits. Eventually Gilgamesh becomes obsessed with finding the legendary man, Utnapishtim who survived the worldwide deluge, by building a large vessel, and taking earth’s creatures aboard to save them. Sound familiar? Gilgamesh believes Utnapishtim can give him the secret to eternal life, since the gods granted it to Utnapishtim after his heroics to save the creatures of Earth.

 

Technically, I didn’t read The Epic of Gilgamesh; I read Stephen Mitchell’s adaptation. I started with a literal interpretation, but it was very scholarly, with many notes, gaps, and repetitions due to slightly differing source tablets. It was very fragmentary and not very coherent. So, I switched to the adaptation, which eliminates the scholarly material and fills in the gaps. I recommend it, if you want a smooth narrative.

 

For me, the story was just ok, not The Odyssey. It’s pretty simple, pretty blunt, not a lot of drama. It does touch relatable themes of love, friendship, grief, and fear of death. It’s historically significant due to an early civilization that held a legend of a worldwide flood and a Noah character, written long before the Biblical account. That was fascinating. It’s also a pretty short read. You can easily read it in one setting.

 

Have your read this or other versions? What did you think.

 

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