I
was around twelve when I read “The Hound of the Baskervilles” for the first
time. I actually snuck to the adult section of the library for it (and,
luckily, the librarian knew of my taste for mystery and crime novels and
allowed me to check it out, despite my age).
For
Christmas that year I wished for a complete collection of all Sherlock Holmes
novels and short stories (there was a paperback edition in pink, of all
colours, out in Germany at that time). I was lucky to receive it and spent the
next six months or so reading my way through it - more than once in some cases.
I’ve been in the habit of rereading “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (my
favourite Sherlock Holmes novel) very regularly, first in German, later on in
English, for years. I might actually have been reading it once a year or more
often for a long time. By now, I could probably reproduce most of it. (The only
other book I ever got that obsessed over in my life was “Dracula” - in case you
want to know.)
I
was weaned off Sherlock Holmes later on, preferring the more ‘human’ approach
by experience as shown by Agatha Christie’s protagonists for quite a while. I
just didn’t have the capacity, by mind and, funnily enough, experience, then to
really appreciate the deductive approach. Many more modern authors, some of
which I still adore very much, also allowed me to broaden my mind. I kept
coming back to Dartmoor, though, to the eerie, glowing dog and the poor Charles
Baskerville, scared to death. I liked the more modern approach by Laurie B.
King, the novel “The Moor.” I most certainly enjoyed the movie made by the BBC
in the early 2000th. I really loved the version they did for “Sherlock.”
Recently,
after I had bought my Kindle and started buying e-books from Amazon, I also
acquired a full collection of all the Sherlock Holmes stories (plus Doyle’s
excellent “Tales of Terror and Mystery”) and had it sitting on my hard drive
for quite some time. I read the first two novels in the collection (“A Study in
Scarlet” and “The Sign of Four”) while I was fighting with the end of one of my
own stories, “Lightning and Ice.” Afterwards, I just read on. I’m a fast reader
and most of Doyle’s stories are short (he was a master of the short story, but
always thought he was destined to write long historical novels, talk about
irony). I’ve finished the first collection of short stories (“The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes”) and I’m hooked now. I remember a few short stories by name
and a lot more by plot (I was born this way, I always remember the plot, even
if I saw or read something ages ago). Yet, it’s interesting to read the stories
again, quite some in English for the first time.
What
surprises me, though, is how much my own brain has changed in meantime. I was
on Watson’s side as a teenager, when I first read the stories. I was marvelling
on Holmes’ deductions, sure nobody else could draw them. By now, however, I see
what the story shows me and draw my own conclusions from it. More often than
not, even with stories which I don’t remember by plot, I’m right.
I
don’t get all the details, of course, since I don’t have all the experience Mr.
Holmes has (or Doyle had, living in the time in which his character lived as
well). Details about the clothing or behaviour that was not ‘normal’ at that
time usually pass me by. Specific details about cigar ash or quirks gained
through certain professions are something I can’t process, because I miss the
necessary knowledge (but at least I know the earth orbits the sun). Most of
Holmes’ clues are pretty mundane, though, and work with the modern world and my
experience as well.
It
feels as if I’m going to a new place, even though I’m really revisiting. I
still admire Holmes for his ability to spot all the little clues and traces,
but I rather feel like I'm racing along and keeping up with his thoughts than
like I'm waiting for him to reveal them to me alongside Watson, as I have done in the
past. It makes the stories something new, interesting, and invigorating for me.
If you have ever seen an episode from the first season of “Sherlock,” you’re
familiar with the way they made the clues dance over the screen as Holmes found
them, putting the audience on the same level with him (they returned to that
style in the third season, much to my enjoyment). That’s how reading the
stories now feels for me, I spot the clues and my mind, much sharper and more
adult now, starts spinning them around, looking at every angle, trying to put
them together in a coherent story, a coherent ‘what happened.’
I’m returning to Sherlock
Holmes and to his late Victorian world, but it really feels as if I’m going
into a completely new world. Have you ever felt the same, in a positive way,
after revisiting a novel, story, or movie that was dear to you in your youth?
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