Frank: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

So I finished reading March's Book of the Month and it was as good as I expected. I actually remembered them being a bit dryer and stuffier, as books go, but that must have been some of the later works. These were short, pleasant stories that tantalized the imagination and one's deductive skills. There was really one quote that I wanted to bring up and a bit of a long one. It sums up why Sherlock is so interesting, at least to me. This quote is from the beginning of "A Scandal in Bohemia"

"It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions. and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen; but as a lover, he would have placed himself in a false position. ... But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his."

There are a lot theories about the relationship between Watson and Holmes, but I find most of them fail to take into account this description of Holmes. He is more an observing and reasoning machine than a person. He has human-like qualities, but ultimately he is detached from what  makes a person human. Perhaps it would be better to describe as a well trained animal, rather than a machine, but that is splitting hairs. I think this uneasiness with Holmes' nature, the desire for us to claim him as one of our own, makes us project human qualities onto him that he simply does not show.
I greatly enjoy BBC's remake of Sherlock Holmes, but I think they went a bit too far in humanizing him. He lost a bit of the eerie, unsettling machine like quality that I always associated with the great detective. Still, they made the show and they get to determine what kind of Sherlock we see. To sum it up, Sherlock does not relate well to people, especially when it comes to  love and similar emotions that interfere with his reasoning and observing powers. I find  that as unsettling Sherlock can be, it is comforting to know he can go where we can't, dive into  the darkness of the criminal and bring forth a truer justice than any policeman.

It is rare I have the opportunity to discuss Sherlock Holmes, and even rarer to find an opportunity to discuss Sherlock's medical twin, Gregory House. I am a big fan of House, mainly because he reminds me of Sherlock. However, I find House is obsessed with emotion and its effect on people, which leads into his simple but  stunted emotional capacity. The one truly perfect parallel between these two characters is that they both stare into the ugly, wicked heart of the human condition and see the worst of humanity in all its horror, and they do not look away. They accept it and use it to solve criminal and medical cases. I do find Sherlock more forgiving than House, and less surprised when people do the right thing, but House's antics are far more entertaining.

Frank: It's Snowing!

I shoveled the driveway again today. I'm getting a little tired of it, but what can you do? In other news, my D&D game starts this coming friday, I'm really excited. I'll be posting the game recap next weekend, so stay tuned for that.

Again, the book club is now official on the blog, and March we'll be reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If you're interested in joining me, Liz and Dad, here are the actual case names for the stories contained in Adventures: A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-Headed League, A Case of Identity, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, The Five Orange Pips, The Man With the Twisted Lip, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb, The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet and The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. It's twelve stories in all.

So I figured out how to modify my blog profile settings and make this one private. So I'm back to being Frank, although my posts will still be written as Octavian, because Octavian is cool.

Frank: Family Book Club!

So Liz and I were reading Winnie the Pooh this past month. We sort of started an pseudo book club, and we thought it would be fun to invite the rest of the family in on it. I'll have the details about March's book at the end, for now I would like to discuss A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh and House at Pooh Corner.


I finished the book today, and I literally could not stop crying. The ending isn't that sad, I would compare it to Toy Story 3's ending for a reference point. Still, I think there was just something, different about this book. It was truly different from anything I've ever read. It had a simplicity that disguised its clever and witty prose. It was an honest book, which is something I don't think I've ever encountered before. The characters were true to themselves and I suppose the stories were like reliving childhood playtime. I have been struggling to think of a book I have read that was more enjoyable, more meaningful and provoked an equally strong emotion from me and I can't think of any. For now, I would have to consider this my favorite book ever. It truly was fantastic and I highly recommend it to everyone. Don't let the Disney Pooh fool you, the real Pooh is a endearing, lovable, silly old bear and the real stories are wonderful to read. There are some fantastic lines that I can't recall at the moment, but for the next book, I'll be sure to write down my favorites and share them with you.



March's book of the month is going to be: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. We're trying to do books off the BBC Book List Challenge on Facebook. Most of us have it as an app already. You're all welcome to join me, Liz and Dad in reading it. More details on the book club coming and I'll post the specific Sherlock Holmes titles before March.