#ac doyle

How do you define the word ‘grotesque’?

Strange--remarkable,

There is surely something more than that, some underlying suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind back ... you will recognise how often the grotesque has deepened into the criminal... The word puts me on alert.

Even my limited sense of humour could evolve a better joke than that.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is the final set of twelve (out of a total of fifty-six) Sherlock Holmes short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927 [wikipedia]

The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle, 1905

as the victorian era is succeeded by the edwardian era, the morality of the sherlock holmes stories shifts a lot, and a double standard becomes plain

in the Milverton story (from which the above quote is drawn) the double standard for women of high and low class shows plainly: to spare a lady from scandal, Holmes begins a dodgy courtship ending in his engagement to be married to Milverton’s maid, a situation he does not extricate himself from at all. without sophistication nor a shred of his typical high-mindedness, he claims there’s some competition for her affections and so the situation will resolve itself -- which upshot, if all plays out as he predicts, removes his technical obligation, but shows no regard whatever for how the maid might feel about the matter, as it seems she cheerfully accepted his proposal. (he has also the nastiness to comment on her poor conversational skills, when he presumably initiated and controlled all of their conversations in order to suck out her knowledge on Milverton’s little estate.) the double standard for men of different classes also shows if one compares the Milverton story to the Black Peter story immediately preceding it. In the case of Black Peter, it appears the murderer was acting in self defence, but Holmes shows no interest in investigating this claim and treats the man with the naked contempt of one who considers himself intrinsically superior. No comment is made on whether he doubts the story, and the reader might for a moment imagine he does, as near the beginning of the tale holmes was conducting a harpooning experiment; but before the man confesses they learn he is an experienced harpooner (that was the use of the clue, as well as how Holmes lured him with the false promise of employment) and he possesses a strength far superior to holmes’ (hint: to pierce the hide of a whale from some distance requires significantly more strength than to pierce a man’s chest at close quarters... and didn’t holmes’ experiments involve a dead pig lol. pigs also have tougher hide than humans; also wasn’t it likely in rigor mortis...). But Holmes is not interested whether this man who probably acted in self-defence is summarily executed for saving his own skin, and as far as the reader can tell, the harpooner removed an evil man from the world, and the only stain on the harpooner’s character is that he failed to report a suspected (but not witnessed) murder years ago. The harpooner’s dismissal is strange by itself but Holmes’ political ideas have always proven rather simple**; perhaps this evinces a belief that ‘the law is the law; murder can never be tolerated’ &c. Now compare the case of Black Peter to the Milverton story, in which holmes & watson, interrupted in the commission of a felony offence, happen to witness the murder of an evil man in revenge -- and they congratulate themselves on not reporting this particular murder, although revenge has less immanent exigency than self defence

**for holmes, the difference is explained readily enough by assuming he doesn’t care too much for justice compared to the resolution of a mystery, but that watson & readers are expected not to care as long as he’s satisfied means the double standard is plainly in evidence

This long tangent ran quite away from the point of the screen shot, which was to mention the little matter of holmes being more apparently gay during the edwardian era which is understandable and yet slightly hilarious. there’s still plausible deniability, but all the leading watson about by the wrist and whispering in his ear, buying his practice so they can live together again, and now holding his hand to reassure him, well people can’t be blamed for reading that a certain way, although watson isn’t gay (he seems to serve as a surrogate for the author, and also never fails to point out that some woman is good-looking to the point that he makes himself somewhat obnoxious... then again doyle might’ve been bi-curious who knows)

A dabbler in science -- a picker up of shells on the shores of a great unknown ocean.