Holmes the bohemian

 (This post is available in audio format here on Youtube.)

Bohemia, bordered on the North by hope, work, and gaiety, on the South by necessity and courage; on the West and East by slander and the hospital.”  --Henry Murger,   La Vie de Bohème    We often think of Sherlock Holmes as the epitome of the scientific mind, "a calculating machine," as Watson calls him. But Watson also acknowledges another side to Holmes: the Bohemian. Here's an excerpt from, aptly enough, A Scandal in Bohemia:

"...while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.

Another contribution from The Engineer's Thumb:

"I continually visited him, and occasionally even persuaded him to forego his Bohemian habits so far as to come and visit us." 

But was Holmes truly Bohemian?  Or is Watson tossing off the word carelessly, describing Holmes's aversion to society and nothing more? What does the term even mean, beyond its connotation of an anti-social bent? Let's dig in.

Plot and subplot plotted

The Veneerings Dinner, by Sol Eytinge

“Where does he come from? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his tastes? Shares. Has he any principles? Shares. What squeezes him into Parliament? Shares. Perhaps he never of himself achieved success in anything, never originated anything, never produced anything? Sufficient answer to all; Shares. O mighty Shares! To set those blaring images so high, and to cause us smaller vermin, as under the influence of henbane or opium, to cry out, night and day, 'Relieve us of our money, scatter it for us, buy us and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech ye take rank among the powers of the earth, and fatten on us'!”

--Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

I'm now going to throw a passel of two-dollar words at you just to work toward an idea that's rather simple. Forgive me, that's the way my mind works, like a popcorn machine-- when it works at all. It's usually because I'm trying to convince myself of what I'm saying. I'm rarely preaching to the choir even when I'm talking to myself.

We're going to start with Cartesian coordinates, the x and y axes. We're going to label the x axis, the horizontal, plot. We'll call the y axis, the vertical, subplot. Or we could just as easily designate them as melody and harmony. Or to borrow the language of semiotics, syntagm and paradigm, which should give us a little more room to work in. What are those rooms?

Review: The Versailles Formula

The Versailles Formula starts with an eerie, haunting image: a ghost patters down a long, dark hallway night after night, past a suit of armor, trying in vain to seize its prize, the portrait of an angel--but always vanishing before he wins his goal. Genevieve Sturbridge nee Planche is back. And solving this mystery will only lead to more mysteries, a trail of bodies, and desperate danger.

Genevieve, of course, is the Huguenot heroine with French heritage and British loyalties, with one foot in the art world and the other mired in espionage. In this third book in the series she's teamed with an army captain almost as stubborn and resourceful as she is. Sparks fly.

(An audio version od this post is available here on Youtube.)

First Book Redux

 I've been behind-hand in reminding you about my favorite cause, First Book. With the administration threatening to shut down the department of Eduction, First Book's mission becomes even more vital. And what's the mission?

To put books into the hands of kids who can't afford them.

Review: My Name Is Emilia del Valle

 

I was afraid the book had gotten away from her. It had gotten away from me, and I thought irretrievably. It begins slowly like one of those austere Chilean warships she writes about, becomes unwieldy, and when the engine explodes, I was sure we were going to the bottom. It sailed into port like a hand in a silk glove. But let me try to be a little more prosaic. 

The titular Emilia del Valle grows up in San Fransisco during the 1890s, the last gasp of the gold rush. Her mother, an Irish girl, was about to take her vows as a nun when she was seduced by a Chilean aristocrat who abandoned her and her child. She finds shelter and eventual domestic bliss with a  greathearted schoolteacher, but she always harbors a desire for revenge upon her seducer. And she tries to transfer that vengeful desire to her daughter.

Who will play the Sherlocks?

 

Sherlock Holmes devotees all have an opinion on one crucial question: Who played the best Sherlock? From William Gillette to Benedict Cumberbatch, they will wrangle over every actor who was ever measured for a deerstalker cap. Writers of Sherlock Holmes pastiches have a slightly different question, however:

Who would play my Sherlock best?

 

Or in my case, my Sherlocks. (Well,  it'sConan Doyle's Sherlock, of course, but my transliterations thereof.) And I use the plural because I have written three Sherlock books which portray the Great Detective at three very different ages--36, 58, and 70. I suppose if Netflix were doing a miniseries, they'd use one actor and plenty of make-up and CGI. But if they were three separate movies, what then?