#behold. i have read a book
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terramythos · 2 years ago
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TAYLOR READS 2023: A STUDY IN SCARLET BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
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Title: A Study in Scarlet (1887)
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre/Tags: Fiction, Mystery, Murder Mystery, Western, First-Person, Third-Person
Rating: 6/10
Date Began: 01/28/2023
Date Finished: 03/04/2023
Returning from war in the Middle East, Dr. Watson finds himself in search of a roommate in London. He makes the acquaintance of a man named Sherlock Holmes, an eccentric private detective with a bold new approach to investigating crime. The duo soon find themselves at the center of a bizarre murder; a corpse with no visible wounds in an abandoned house, and the word “RACHE” written on the wall in someone else’s blood. Through his keen deductive reasoning, Holmes begins to unravel the mystery surrounding the murder— but not before a second body is found, and the culprit’s complicated past takes center stage.
There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him.
For live reading notes, check the reblogs (warning for spoilers of... a book published in 1887).
Content warnings and review (spoiler-free and spoiler versions) under the cut.
Content Warnings: Depicted — Self-harm, drug use, death, murder, animal death, stalking/harassment, terrorism, misogyny, racism, forced marriage, terminal illness. Mentioned — Warfare, traumatic injury, colonialism, sexual harassment, sexual slavery/kidnapping, suicide.
**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**
Some disclaimers before I jump into the review. This is the first Sherlock Holmes story I’ve read, and my exposure to it in pop culture boils down to (1) about a season of Elementary and (2) the Guy Ritchie movies, of all things. Thankfully I avoided the terrible BBC show during its peak hype, so it didn’t sour me on the whole concept. While I know some of the unavoidable tropes, the stories themselves are mostly unknown to me. Second, A Study in Scarlet is actually the first Sherlock Holmes story ever published. This was a coincidence; I have a couple books I picked up at a second-hand store and grabbed this one at random. Part of me wishes I’d started with a later book, but oh well.
The first half of A Study in Scarlet, which is the bulk of the murder mystery, is an entertaining read. I genuinely enjoyed thinking over the evidence and trying to piece together the mystery, a central appeal to Sherlock Holmes. There’s a revenge narrative toward the end, and while it’s no Count of Monte Cristo, I did enjoy the themes and observations about human nature this introduced to the story. Doyle’s prose is serviceable, and there’s several lines and descriptions that really stuck out to me. A Study in Scarlet is an early work, so I’m interested to see how he develops as a writer in the later stories.
Characterization is hit or miss. Holmes is solid. Much of A Study in Scarlet is told from Watson’s perspective, and he meets Holmes for the first time in this story. As a result, both characters feel multidimensional; we get Watson’s honest impressions of Holmes (good and bad), and as a result learn about Watson’s own personality and opinions. The culprit, when revealed, is well-developed for Spoiler Reasons. Beyond that, I found the rest of the cast forgettable. Not every character needs to be deep and nuanced, but some really needed more development, or even a noteworthy trait. I didn’t get that from most.
There are some small details that made me laugh, like Holmes saying he wants his name to be famous. Mission accomplished, buddy. He creates what’s basically luminol in his introductory scene, in a book published decades before it was invented. As someone who mostly reads speculative fiction, I see this kind of thing in scifi, but to see it in a murder mystery is a fun surprise.
Obviously being written in 1887, there’s some aspects of the story that didn’t age well.  Mostly this shows in racism, colonialism, and related terminology. This isn’t a huge surprise coming from a British author in the late 19th century. For what it’s worth, there’s one footnote in this entire story, which Doyle uses to make a snarky comment about sexism. So I guess he gets a brownie point there?
Overall, the book is okay, but not amazing. I have some major criticisms of the story, but they mostly fall into the spoiler section of the review.
**SPOILER REVIEW**
So, the mystery. I was under the impression, before reading this, that Sherlock Holmes stories are fair mysteries, aka it’s possible for the reader to figure everything out on their own based on the clues provided in the story. Unfortunately A Study in Scarlet is only partially fair; you can glean the means of the crime, but not the perpetrator or their motive. During the grand reveal at the end of the story, we learn Holmes had access to information that the reader did not, and that’s how he figured out who committed the two murders. This honestly soured the whole thing for me. It might seem like a small thing, but the problem-solving aspect is what I was looking forward to most with these stories, so knowing I never had a chance makes it feel a little pointless.
My second major issue with A Study in Scarlet is its structure. The story is split into two parts. The first half is pretty much what one would expect— Holmes and Watson meet in London for the first time, we learn a little about their characters, a mysterious murder happens, and we follow the cast around as more clues present themselves. This was by far the strongest part of the story for me. So it was a little jarring when Holmes apprehends the murderer at the end of Part One, with an entire half of the novel to go.
The story then jumps back in time by around thirty years, in the United States, following a new set of characters. From here the story switches from a murder mystery to what I can only describe as a thriller Western. I guess Doyle really wanted to write a Western? Or maybe dunk on Mormonism for a while (fair enough)? To be clear, I love narrative shifts, genre muddling, and time jumps, the more experimental the better, but they have to be done well. This one is not; it feels out of place with Part One, and what it accomplishes narratively could have been done better in other ways.
It’s pretty clear from the start that Part Two exists to establish back-story for Jefferson Hope (the culprit) and why he killed Drebber and Stangerson. But Doyle spends way too long on two characters— Hope’s love interest Lucy and her adoptive father Ferrier— who only exist to get killed off. Despite them being the “focus” for several chapters, their development and personality are lacking, mostly told to the reader instead of demonstrated. “Show, don’t tell” is obviously not a hard rule, but it was much needed in this case. It takes a long time for Hope to enter this part of the story, which is a problem if he’s the protagonist. I admit it’s pretty wild to have actual real Mormons be the antagonists of a freaking Sherlock Holmes story, but other than the novelty and historical context, I didn’t find them to be compelling villains.
Maybe this leap into the past would work better if integrated into the main mystery story, or if it was pared down substantially, or even if the whole thing was told from Hope’s perspective. When Hope describes how he committed the murders toward the end, we do get his perspective… and it’s great! It made me wish all of Part Two had been told in this matter; it’s way more fascinating than what we got.
In all, A Study in Scarlet wasn’t bad, just mediocre. Had it not been attached to the most iconic character in Western canon, I doubt it would still be published and read today. But I’m sure future entries refine and improve upon the formula; I can cut a lot of slack considering this was Doyle’s first attempt at a Holmes story, and they’ve withstood the test of time for a reason. I plan to read a few later stories in the series to see how they compare to this first entry.
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noxcheshire · 2 months ago
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Back again with Danny being adopted by other batfam members.
But this time I thought of the absolute comedy of Damian, tiny squirt and five apples tall, deciding that he is now a father to a grown ass teenage Danny.
It was an accident and had never been his intention to adopt another being.
But it had been placed into Damian’s head that in order to be a potential Batman he had to have his own Robin. And the only way to have his own Robin was to have a child, similar to the way that Father would pick up the various children and teenagers amongst them.
Damain had a very specific list of requirements for his potential child-Robin. Danny did not meet any of those requirements, and yet here Damian was having forged papers for the now Daniel Al Ghul-Wayne, and beginning the treacherous affair of introducing his son to the family.
Danny twisted his new shirt sleeve with a frown. It was a nice green silk that complimented the little green that resided in his son’s eyes. Damian wished to bring out the many carefully crafted features of Danny that could match to Damian. Having his eyes pop, wild hair brushed and losing the battle to nervous hands, would have to do.
At least until Damian taught Danny his mother tongue and began the care of his culture and soon to be heritage.
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chiropteracupola · 8 months ago
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FINALLY! AT LAST! GRANDDAD’S HORNBLOWER BOOK COLLECTION!!
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vlagg20 · 2 months ago
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One thing about me is that if there's a book/comic that I really want to read but couldn't because I am to broke or because it doesn't exist in my country, I will resort to just going to many online shopping to search for the book/comic. Not to buy them mind you but to see if the seller's give previews/sneak peeks of the book so I can get a glimpse on what is happening in the book, even if its just a small crumb lol
BUT ITS FUN THO (for me). Like, I love the thea sisters books and it is kinda unfortune that there still so many books of theirs that haven't been translate to English (or some contexts/features in the Italian books that didn't made it to the English books). So my solution is to search them up on online shopping websites to see if there are previews of the books for me to see. Im basically just treasure hunting for the books at this point lmao
And I DO manage to find some crumbs there :D! Here, have Nicky trying her absolute best to balanced the heavy tapestry while riding on her bike in treasure seekers and her doing Tai Chi in one of their adventure back on China (its kinda blurry but oh well)
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Look at her!! So silly <3 (and apparently a beast because it took two grown man to carry that tapestry while walking and here is Nicky carrying the entire thing on her bike with no help WHILE running away from the bad guys. Like, she is something else at this point)
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loxare · 1 year ago
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IT IS DONE
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I'm so happy, I've wanted to get this into print since I finished reading it. The gold spots on the cover are metallic and shiny~
It's done in legal quarto, so almost the same size as a paperback, and it fits so nicely in my pocket. I will absolutely be revisiting this one though, because I have Ideas on how to make it even better
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hella1975 · 2 years ago
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ive got an essay due at 3pm tomorrow and ive not even looked at it i am so so unserious about my degree and by the grace of some higher being i somehow keep managing to crawl through it's actually getting a bit funny
#me and an old friend of mine used to have a running joke during a-levels that im just one of those people where shit Works Out#and it started bc we shared two a-levels (english and economics) and in BOTH classes i regularly didn't do the homework#or the reading etc and yet it would ALWAYS work out for me#like we'd walk into a class neither of us having done the homework and they'd get yelled at while i went under the radar somehow#or that one english essay i got the highest score in the class when i literally hadn't even read the fucking book it was on#and when we pointed the theory out it started just becoming really prevalent#like no matter how late i am for things i'll arrive and by some miracle the thing im late for is also late (e.g a train or teacher)#like im just one of those people that has very very mundane luck#and low and behold i am fighting this degree with bloody fists putting the absolute bare minimum in for my own sanity's sake#and i SOMEHOW keep pulling through. literally failed two modules last year and STILL got a 2:1 average#and the last essay i wrote was the worst essay id ever done in my life and i get my standards are higher bc ik im good at essays#but the point still stands and you know what? i got a FIRST#literally was pure waffle i have never blagged it so hard and i got a FIRST#and all this shit just makes me cockier and cockier and go even more by the skin of my teeth and it ALWAYS WORKS OUT#it's soooo silly but im not complaining. anyway ill keep u posted about this essay <3 it's econ history so is actually interesting#but the most ive done for it is ask the sc ai lmao and for context degree-level essays usually require a good few days of graft#live love laziness#hella goes to uni
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bookshelfpassageway · 8 months ago
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my kingdom for an affordable, existing, English language, for sale copy of the original print of Lackadaisy Vol 2
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khattikeri · 2 months ago
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i've realized i don't actually like liu///shen as much as i like liu qingge himself and his unrequited tragically uninformed shitshow crush on shen qingqiu
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aroaessidhe · 1 year ago
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2023 reads / storygraph
Beholder
YA horror
a boy who can rewind time when he looks in mirrors is the only survivor of a strange massacre at a party where he was hiding in the bathroom
the man responsible kidnaps his grandmother, and he and another boy investigate the supernatural murders tied to the rich art world of NYC to get her back
not to mention he can see Something when he’s looking in mirrors, and it’s getting closer
1st and 2nd person narration
pan MC, m/m
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jacksintention · 1 year ago
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Still unwell about Rilke and PH
I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.
Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that's wide and timeless.
So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace:
a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.
#There's in Rilke and especially in this particular book a lot about the world‚ created in the beholding and loving it‚#and one existing to love the world. There's so much about the world being created by that loving and knowing the world of one individual#person that loves and knows it. A kind of feedback loop of existing and being by love and knowledge that is all a participation#on the act of creation. The person coming to exist to love and know the world‚ and creating the world by loving and beholding it#This is also present on Juan Ramón Jiménez‚ among others‚ but 5 yo me was obsessed with those poems. ANYWAY#This topic made me think of Lacie a lot but in this particular poem that topic + the 'I'm sorry' scene + the figure of Lacie beyond Lacie‚#a Lacie that's legend and real‚ a Lacie always sitting under a tree‚ life ending and life expanding so to speak‚...#That kind of knowing it all in a glimpse that is knowing in an instant and eternal (which again reminds me of Kierkegaard‚#fitting I'd say with Rilke). I'm explaining myself terribly but I don't want to talk too much haha But yeah it all seemed very fitting#There was another poem about spiralling so to speak around god that I also thought was very Lacie but very PH in general#('I live my life in widening circles / that reach out across the world. / I may not complete this last one / but I give myself to it /#I circle around God‚ around the primordial tower. / I've been circling for thousands of years / and I still don't know: am I a falcon‚ /#a storm or a great song?'). The spiralling around god in what is still some sort of emanence or reflection of it while being also#different iterations of the self which all reflect it also reminded me a lot of Cantor's transfinite numbers#Which again is quite fitting and coherent with the other authors and PH imo‚ but I may be biased. Anyway yes. This reminded me of Lacie#I didn't plan on drawing anything at first and now I have to flinch to read the poem#I hope I'll recognise enough of what I've written when I eventually come back to this#I talk too much#I should probably delete this later#mine*
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neige-leblanche · 1 year ago
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finished les miserables btw!! thinking i should read war and peace next bc ive seen some bangin yaoi of it courtesy of die girlies auf tumblr
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queerofthedagger · 2 years ago
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Just hunted down a physical copy of "Pages Passed from Hand to Hand: The Hidden Tradition of Homosexual Literature in English from 1748 to 1914" that's in good condition, affordable, and without abhorrent shipping fees, and yes yes, having to wait three weeks until it gets here is entirely reasonable, but also I'm so excited for it, my already non-existent well of patience is a little kid waiting for presents on Christmas help
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libraryleopard · 1 year ago
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Dual POV adult historical romance set in 1810s England
When a Gareth, London clerk, unexpectedly inherits his estranged father's baronetcy in Kent, he moves to the Romney marshes and realizes that Joss, the man who runs the local smuggling clan, is the same one who he had several clandestine assignations with–before they abruptly things ended on bad terms
The two end tangled in conflicts between rival smuggling clans and the local authorities even as they find themselves drawn back to each other
Very grounded in historical politics, setting, and language
Gay main character; biracial Black/white, gay main character; M/M romance
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hanzajesthanza · 2 years ago
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i finished narrenturm, and strangely enough, it felt like i and the story were in sync. just when i was beginning to feel bored, it picked up. just when i was feeling overwhelmed with action, it slowed down. just as i felt i wished something magical would happen, it did, and just as when i felt a need to return to the mundane, it did. a “wish and you will receive” reading experience!
#i was literally going to make a post earlier that i wish there was more ‘down time’ with the characters to get inside their heads a little#and to take a breather from all the action#and lo and behold. The Prison Chapters. The Eponymous Narrenturm.#me: ‘i wish they’d sit down in one place and just talk’ | them: [spend chapters in prison awaiting torture] | me: oh. well that ‘solves’ it.#txt#it’s very thrilling and… wow this is underrated#or rather people treat it like ‘if you dont like history you won’t like this’#i mean i like history but i am not educated in this particular section of it#but my theory was proven true: just read and have fun and thats all that matters#it’s also so funny because i feel like this series delivers on two Main Criticisms the witcher usually falls under:#‘not enough monsters/magic’ and ‘not enough action’#because… oddly enough there is more magic in here than in a lot of the witcher. and a lot of action too — and blood! lots of blood!#i was honestly alarmed when i read ‘tighten the screw’ and we DID NOT fade to black. i was like ‘AN ACTUAL TORTURE SCENE?!’#also there’s multiple decapitations and head trauma —#so again i say: this is making the witcher look like [dandelion’s voice] child’s play…#the one part in which the witcher has delivered stronger so far is female characters#but i know that in the witcher the female characters start to take better shape in the 2nd/3rd/4th books#i feel like nicolette at the moment has less character development and pagetime than yennefer did in the last wish#she’s not even on the same level as famously underdeveloped essi daven#so i hope she gets more time and embodiment in the future. i think she will. i trust she will#it’s fascinating to see the evolution of the style and interests though…
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stuck-in-the-ghost-zone · 2 years ago
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the vitriolic hatred most people have for things that look weird is so upsetting to me sometimes :(
#update in my search for bristleworm names i came across a newscast from a few years ago where#some fisherman pulled up a big bearded firewormnin their net and shared a video of it#and the whole newscast was ppl being like 'ewww what is that thing' 'if i pulled that up in my net id kill it'#'im never going in the water again ew ew'#like. guyes. its a fucking worm#and its. not even that big. AND its not even native to texas one just got washed thru currents from the Mediterranean (supposedly)#like. shut upppppppppp its just a worm#i see that SO much w ocean stuff specifically snd its like.... its not actually that scary. come onnnn.#its sooo much more fascinating than anything else. and lo and behold the ONE (1) scientist they talked to#was immediately like wow thats incredible and started asking questions. like. aaughrhrghh idk.#its only 8am ive been up for like 3 hours im rlly tired i dont have words yet.#but can we stop immediately wanting to kill every sea creature that gets pulled onto land by mistake. can we stop. youre so annoying.#youre not cute for going ewwwww gross youre just. ignorant and frustrating. head in hands. theyre not some alien monster.#its literally a worm#its a worm! thats all it is! its a worm with unique adaptations to help it survive in a harsh environment#and just because you think it looks weird doesnt mean it deserves to die#ARUGHGHGHHH ppl that dont listen to scientists make me insane. ppl that blatantly ignore science make me SO isnane.#go read a book. go look at a picture of a worm.#GO TO A FUCKIGNGG AQUARIUM FOR CHRISTS SAKE. do u KNOW how many of these bitches ive pulled out of tanks??? theyre everywhere.#and yes we killed them but like. not bc theyre ugly and gross but because too many of them become a pest species#and will literally kill all ur fish. its a balance. like literally everything else in nature. we kept a lot of them!#becasue when a fish dies theyre one of the most efficient decomposers and theyre an incredible help wirh water quality.#we had a tang die in a place that was completely inaccessible to us without breaking a huge coral colony so we couldnt get to it.#letting a dead fish sit in a tank is a death sentence for that tank usually. but we had enough bridtle worms to eat it#thay thing was gone in like a day. with only a minor spike in ammonia. it was insane.#anyway. sorry. got heated abt worms.
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taniushka12 · 2 years ago
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6 for the reading ask game?
6) Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?
i did actually!! The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, its this weird murder mystery kinda deal but with time loops & body hopping in the middle?? i've been so curious on the premise since the first time i read the back cover and its Definitely a 2023 goal to buy & read it :')
also i wanted to read some of stanisław lem's work (particularly Solaris, Tales of Pirx The Pilot, and The Cyberiad), i've heard a lot of good things abt him and i really liked the movie solaris, but it's been a busy year u_u
[end-of-year book ask!] (thank you!! ♥)
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