A Study In Scarlet

By Arthur Conan Doyle
★★★☆☆

Three Things I Like About A Study in Scarlet:
1. Non sequiturs that emerge from Sherlock's internal logic.
2. Sherlock's manic approach to sleuthing.
3. Use of Mormon Salt Lake City as a setting for intrigue.

A couple weeks ago I came across a recommendation for a new BBC drama called Sherlock – a modern adaption of Sherlock Holmes. The series (thus far) consists of 3 90-minute episodes, based on Doyle’s novellas and short stories. I downloaded the first episode, “A Study in Pink,” based on A Study in Scarlet, and loved it.* Being a stickler about reading books before watching their movies and never having read ay Sherlock Holmes before, I decided to spend some time with the genuine article before watching the next two episodes.

A Study in Scarlet is the first Sherlock Holmes story. It begins with the first meeting of Dr. Watson and Sherlock. Dr. Watson is fresh from Afghanistan, having retired from service following an injury and subsequent illness, and is looking for a flat mate. Within 24 hours he and Sherlock have moved into 221 Baker Street and Dr. Watson is embroiled in Sherlock’s latest case – a man found murdered with the ambiguous word “Rache” written on the wall in blood, though the body has suffered no wounds. The mystery spans from the streets of London all the way to the wilderness of the American West, as the backstory unfolds in the fledgling Mormon city of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Like I said, I’ve never had any experience with Sherlock Holmes before. This was a good introduction – being that it is the introduction – but I’ve heard that Doyle’s later stories are much better, and I do have to agree that this one had its flaws. Sherlock didn't say "elementary" even once! And the backstory to the murder is excessive and takes up almost half the novel. I cut Doyle plenty of slack, though, because this was his very first novel and he wrote it in 3 weeks. Plus, how can you really criticize the work of someone who created one of the most iconic characters of all time?**

I enjoyed this novel particularly in juxtaposition with the first episode of Sherlock, which played off A Study in Scarlet without exactly replicating it. I won’t go into details for fear of spoiling either the book or the show, but the general introductory framework of A Study in Scarlet remains intact in the episode, as does the presence of the word “Rache” and the means of murder, though the actual circumstances and motives vary vastly. So if you have the time and interest, I definitely recommend reading A Study in Scarlet (it won’t even take you long, as it’s hardly 100 pages) and then watching Sherlock. I daresay you won’t be disappointed.

I’ll be reading more Sherlock Holmes soon, partly because I’m getting a kick out of him right now, and partly because The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes will be #40 on my BBC Top 100 list. Woot!


* Seriously, it’s awesome. Sherlock is played to perfection, and the modern setting is used surprisingly effectively. It kicks the recent Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law version’s butt. And there’s three times more of it! What are you still doing here?
** Random thought, but I wonder if people will be making television adaptions of Harry Potter in like 100 years. That is, if anyone still watches TV anymore.

Books Read This Year: 20
Top 100 Progress: 39/40

The Angel's Game

By Carlos Ruiz Zafón

★★★★☆

Hooray! I finally managed finish the pleasure book I’ve been reading on the sly all month, sneaking in a couple chapters here and there while the heavyweights* domineering my time for J-Term weren’t looking. I resent the fact that all those people who told me I wouldn’t have time for pleasure reading in college are kind of right. It’s not that I don’t have any time for pleasure reading – believe me, I make time – but it is true that I pretty much read as many books throughout the entirety of first semester as I did in one and a half weeks home for winter break. Le sigh.

The Angel’s Game is one of those prequel-but-not-really books. It features the father of Daniel Sempere, the protagonist of The Shadow of the Wind, and gives the backstory behind Shadow’s opening scene, when Daniel is taken to the Cemetery of Lost Books for the first time on the morning he wakes to find he can no longer remember his mother’s face. In The Angel’s Game, we’re introduced to Daniel’s mother – a feisty and idealistic author-in-training named Isabella, apprenticed to David Martín.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Angel’s Game tells the story of David Martín, who has spent the majority of his life sequestered in a foreboding old tower house in Barcelona, writing an ongoing series of mystery/crime novels entitled The City of the Damned, and eternally frustrated with himself for selling out for the sake of a paycheck. When a mysterious foreign publisher, Andreas Corelli, approaches him with a commission for 100,000 francs that would free him from his enslavement-by-contract to the publishers of his pulp fiction, David cannot refuse, despite his misgivings about the sinister nature of the commission itself – to write the doctrine of a new religion.

The further David delves into his new project and into the mysteries shrouding his elusive publisher, the stronger his apprehensions become as David’s gothic home begins relinquishing its secrets and exposing uncanny connections between David, his increasingly unnerving and otherworldly publisher, and the house’s former occupant, who died under mysterious circumstances a generation before. As David reaches the completion of his work and the unraveling of the mysteries surrounding it, he’s forced to wonder just what sort of game he’s gotten himself into, and whether it’s one he can escape with his life – or his soul – intact.

The prose is beautiful, as usual. Zafón is a master at creating lurid, surreal, and captivating worlds for his stories. But the plot itself crescendoed without the satisfying forte and decrescendo of The Shadow of the Wind. Instead of coming together smoothly like the teeth of a zipper, the plot threads were tied into a ‘this-has-gone-on-long-enough-let’s-wrap-it-up’ knot. And I'm all for leaving some things ambiguous at the end of a book - there's a kind of beauty in needing to think for yourself to make complete sense of things - but I felt too ambiguous at the end of The Angel's Game. Standing alone, it might have been a five star book. But The Shadow of the Wind set the bar so high that its own companion novel couldn’t measure up.

*You know, all those archaic, dry (but kinda sorta influential) texts I’ve been reviewing lately: Livy, Virgil, and this one guy named Cicero… 

Books Read This Year: 7

Top 100 Progress: 38/100