Detectives

I read things! I swear! It's been a year since I last posted, but a year of reading I assure you. Most recently I have been reading, and in some cases re-reading, the stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Part of this was spurred on by the recent BBC (and masterpiece Mystery) program entitled Sherlock, written by the brilliant and twisted Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. I really love this updated version of Sherlock, though at times I sit there shaking my head and muttering that canon is better. But that's because I'm a nerd.

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Mystery stories have always been my core reading love. The first series I ever loved was the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. I read the little paper back stories that came out in the 1980s. My little elementary school library had a whole bookshelf of them, and I just devoured two a week. I would read the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goosebumps series by RL Stine, and some of his teen books. Mystery with a touch of horror, which I liked. My family kept trying to ell me they were too adult, so I moved on to Agatha Christie which is more so, but more acceptable in my household. We watched Poirot stories at home on Masterpiece (I only had PBS, no cable), so I was eager to delve in the books about him, and then Miss Marple ones. This started in middle school, where my peers were reading the Hobbit and The Outsiders. I didn't care for fantasy stories and only Patrick Swayze could make me care about S.E. Hinton. I wanted to solve mysteries, sink my teeth in to a good murder. Sherlock stories on tv always fascinated me, and I am little sad that I didn't start reading them earlier.

The Sherlock Holmes stories never really follow a pattern like so many other series do. Unless you consider Watson being dumbfounded a pattern. The stories were varied and I could not always figure it out before Sherlock's revelations. I like being stumped. I love that Sherlock is an arrogant arse who knows he is brilliant, that he knows when to explain and show his cards and when to keep it close to the chest. These should be unlikeable qualities, but it makes me appreciate what he does. I have always tried to make friends with people who are smarter than me so that I am never bored, so Holmes never bores me. I think my favorite aspect of him will always be his skill in costume and makeup to become invisible in a crowd, his mastery of disguise. I wish the BBC show did more of this. It is the one aspect of Holmes that they rarely touch on, instead having him use acting more than disguise to trick people. Recently it has been fun re-reading the stories that Moffatt and Gatiss have made in to shows, and seeing the differences. I do like that Dr. John Watson is smarter on the show than in canon, and I think the more asocial Sherlock is funny. It sort of makes sense how a man like that would cope in the 21st century, where he couldn't as easily hide away in Victorian mens culture or opium dens. My favorite updates are the whole RACHE things flip and making Irene Adler a dominatrix. That bit was brilliant!