“I ought to make you
sign a paper to that effect.”
“Why?”
“Because in five
minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly simple.”
“I am sure I shall say
nothing of the kind.”
--Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, “The Adventure of the Dancing Men”
Leigh:
I feel like I've started every
email of the new book off with, "I really liked this story" but it's
true. I really did like this one. The first time I listened to it, the person
reading it tried to read every little picture as well which just made it frustrating
to listen to. Add to the fact that I was working at 5am while listening to them
and needless to say that I didn't remember this one much while reading it this
time around so it was like I was reading it for the first time.
And while I liked this story, the first half of it, I couldn't help
but think, "Didn't we read this one already?" It seems that there are
a lot of Sherlock Holmes stories that have a wife who has a secret that she
won't tell her husband so he goes behind her back to find out what is going on.
I felt a little ripped off while reading the first half because I felt like
I've read this before with “The Yellow Face”. There always seems to be a bit of
a formula with Doyle's stories but this one felt more formulaic than normal at
first.
 |
| I can't translate this. It's way too vulgar. |
But then it gets interesting. There's a murder that is the turning
point in the story for me and which seems to be happening more often in
Sherlock Holmes' world, and a crazy set of dancing guys which is a secret
language made up by an organized crime group of some sort. So possible mafia
and a murder definitely makes it more interesting than a little girl with a
weird mask.
Is it just me, or do the stakes seem higher more often now? It feels
like every story has a possibility of murder or an innocent being blamed for a
crime. It doesn't seem like it's as simple as a husband who is posing as a bum
or a girl being held captive by her family. Those could be considered serious
but murder is more serious I feel.
What did you think?
Austin: You're
right. This seemed very similar to that earlier story when there was the young
married couple who didn't communicate well. What's great about this opening is
that even Sherlock thinks is familiar. He felt like Abed at the beginning
calling out Watson for his repetitive responses. Then during the story Sherlock
even says, why don't you just ask what her secret is. Like the previous story,
I was really impressed with Doyle's writing during the huge exposition dump. He
really made Hilton Cubitt (dumb name) feel like a real person.
THEN HE FLIPPIN' DIED.
I did not see that coming and I felt genuinely bad about this.
You're right, the stakes are raised. This isn't a stupid mystery where an
affair is hidden. There's something crazy going on and it involves these
dancing men. Was this Doyle's homage to Treasure Island? Because these
symbols reminded me a lot of the Black Dot. (However this was more
complicated.)
 |
| Treasure Island. Muppet Treasure Island. Cabin Fever song. Dancing Men. KEEP UP. |
Now as fun as
it was, did it entirely play fair? Did the story connect the dots in an
intelligent manner or were there some jumps? I know one thing bugs me a little
bit.
Leigh: If
there's one thing that we can agree on it's that after Sherlock Holmes and Dr.
Watson, Arthur Conan Doyle kinda sucked at naming people. His characters that
he creates for these mysteries that are just one offs have some of the dumbest
names.
There is one thing in the whole plot solving bit (which wasn't so
much Sherlock retelling what he had already done around a fire but more of an
explanation which I really enjoyed) that did annoy me. There is a theory that was written by Rex
Stout that Watson was a woman and Holmes' wife. It's a relatively interesting
theory until he gets to the part where he is explaining how he figured it all
out. It is literally him picking random numbers that correlate with Sherlock
Holmes story titles and they JUST SO HAPPEN to spell out Irene Watson. There's
no rhyme or reason as to why he picked the letters he did except that they
happen to eventually spell out Irene. That was the point where I rolled my eyes
so much that Liz Lemon would've been proud of me.
 |
| Liz is so proud of you, Leigh, she's choosing to look at you instead of Oprah. |
When Holmes was explaining how he started figuring out the code, it
sorta felt like that. Sure, guessing with "e" is a pretty safe bet
but I've watched enough Wheel of Fortune to know that there isn't always going
to be an E in every word. There have been plenty of people lose their possible
$30,000 because they got a word with no E's and 3 L's.
That scene
seemed a bit more of guessing from Sherlock Holmes than is appropriate, I
think. Holmes has always said that guessing is a bad thing. (“I never guess. It is
a shocking habit — destructive to the logical faculty”) and yet, here he is just kinda taking a
stab at it. I also didn't feel that the whole situation was explained. Slaney
shoots at Cubitt and kills him, Cubitt misses Slaney, somehow the wife was
severely injured in all of this. Did I miss that part in my attempts not to
fall asleep (just because I was tired, not because the story was boring) or was
it not explained very well? And really, how obsessive do you have to be to
travel to a different continent to try to marry a woman who is happily married
to someone else? I think the characters here, while interesting, don't really
make sense with their actions most of the time. Just think of how creepy that
guy would've been if it were present day and he had Facebook and things like
that?
Austin: That's
exactly what I was alluding to! Those damned "e's. So many aspects of
mysteries are about cracking the uncrackable codes. Having each dance refer to
a different letter wasn't that crazy of a concept. Everybody take note because
this isn't going to happen again for awhile, but I thought Elementary
handled the code solving techniques better than Doyle did.
Codes are the perfect example of why people are so interested to
this day about the character of Sherlock Holmes. It's about the truth being
hidden in plain sight but only the truly intelligent or perceptive are able to
solve it. I still think the best example of a code like that being used in
media was in the first season of The Wire where it took a brilliant
detective weeks to figure out how uneducated gangsters were hiding their cell
phone numbers. Even though The Wire wasn't popular in its first season,
to spread this little puzzle over a few episodes means that the audience has
all that time to crack it before the characters. Yet the answer is so
wonderfully brilliant because it's so simple. (It helps that it was based off a
real technique used by criminals.)
 |
| "The code was 1-2-3-4-5 which is also the combination on my luggage." |
As for the complications that were literally witnessed, I'm not sure
how much I can clarify. Holmes seems to have found the murderer and the law
decided the rest of the guilt. The American psychologically messed with the
wife, confronted them, fired at the husband (we'll never know who fired first),
and it all ends with the wife killing herself, perhaps as a dark act of
revenge.
At the end of
the day, Sherlock isn't interested in being a barrister. He just wants the
truth and he found it even if that truth was ridiculous. This will be
especially true later this week when Sherlock Holmes has a cell phone and that
helps him solve a string of serial suicides. Get excited.
And here is
Leigh Montano with the last word…
Leigh:
Leigh:
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