Facts from books about Sherlock Holmes that often pass the reader's attention

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Many books about Sherlock Holmes were read to the holes in childhood. But, if you do not know some of the realities of Victorian England, many interesting details pass by the reader. As a rule, a child knows little about England of that era, so adults have to figure it out.

Holmes graduated from Cambridge, and Watson has no dog

In films, we see the bulldog Watson more than once and are not surprised. After all, moving in with Holmes and exchanging stories with him about the shortcomings, Watson says: "I have a bulldog puppy, and I can not stand any noise." However, further on we never see Watson with a bulldog, and in fact, in some stories, the dog's help even suggests itself.

The answer to the mystery is simple: short-barreled revolvers or a hot-tempered character were also called a bulldog puppy. Which of the two is the doctor warning about? After all, both can be dangerous for a neighbor if Watson does not tolerate noise. We see the answer further. In the same "Study in Scarlet", where Holmes and Watson meet, Sherlock asks him if he has a weapon. That is, he behaves as if he was previously told about hot temper, and not about a short-barreled revolver. And indeed, Watson has a revolver, but pulled from service - and the British army did not use short-barrels.

However, the expression is not the most popular in our time. Unsurprisingly, the English-speaking filmmakers of the Watson-Lowe film decided he had a real bulldog. But the very nature of Watson did little that is not angelic. But in the books, the doctor, indeed, often gets annoyed with his comrade, demonstrating his irascibility (and quick-wittedness).

Mentioning the same dog allowed fans of the book to easily figure out which of the two universities available to Holmes then he studied, Oxford or Cambridge. In one of the fleeting memories, he is bitten by the dog of a university friend - and then only Cambridge students were allowed to keep dogs.

Holmes is far from a biscuit

In the cinema, more and more often they began to make Holmes a low-emotional man, a kind of walking clear mind. But with Doyle, he just constantly shows emotions, with which, apparently, he is often overwhelmed. Excitement - during research and investigation, pride and joy - when something succeeded, tenderness, irritability, anxiety, sadness … And also his habit of improvising melodies on the violin, according to Watson, always makes it possible to track his mood - sometimes joyful, sometimes sad.

Holmes is also quite openly inclined towards theatricality. Introducing a new, unique chemical reagent to a doctor whom he sees for the first time in his life (in fact, Watson), Holmes theatrically throws up his hands, bows and the like. Often he also flaunts in front of the police, obviously deliberately saving the most spectacular clue for the most spectacular moment.

Holmes hardly needed a flatmate

Sherlock looked after his house on Baker Street. By the time the first book about Holmes became effective, the English aristocracy no longer lived there, as before, but the street still belonged to a rather expensive area to live in. Of course, a house where only two bedrooms and one living room can be rented out to gentlemen cannot be called luxurious, but given the location, it was still, let's say, not an option for students. In the same story, where Watson is just beginning to live with him, Holmes calmly lures out the information he needs with gold coins. Watson, for example, cannot afford such a thing on his state pension.

In other words, Holmes was not looking for a flatmate because of the high cost of housing suitable for him. He could rent either a cheaper room in the area, or (judging by the ease with which he part with money) in one person. The economic side was just a pretext. One can only guess why the detective needed a neighbor. Involving it when you need an extra pair of eyes? To amaze the imagination - after all, Holmes, as we remember, is inclined to theatricality? Or is he not such a lonely cracker and does he really need to chat with someone from time to time?

By the way, at the university Holmes also had only one friend - the one whose terrier tried to bite the young Sherlock on the way to church. It may be difficult for Holmes to establish contact with people when it comes to some kind of permanent relationship, such as friendship or love.

Holmes and "extra knowledge"

Yes, Sherlock is giving Watson a real lecture on how to clog up an attic with unnecessary junk, like Dickens's stories or ideas about the structure of the solar system. But this seems to be his characteristic posturing again. Later we see that he easily quotes Goethe, is so fascinated by literature that he even read the correspondence between Sand and Flaubert, publishes a monograph on the theory and history of music … In general, his knowledge is full of impractical ones, despite drawing in front of a friend.

By the way, Holmes reads not only classics. The dialogue between Sherlock and James is indicative (in Britain the middle name was used in everyday life, not the first - that's why his wife calls John Watson "James"). Holmes debunks Watson's favorite literary characters. From their conversation, we learn that it was easy for the detective to persuade the doctor to participate in his investigations - after all, Watson was a big fan of fashionable detective stories. And also - that Holmes himself also read them in sufficient quantity to freely talk about the heroes.

By the way, the books about Holmes themselves and his techniques relied heavily on the books of Vidocq, a French detective of the first half of the 19th century, who was highly valued in Britain as well. Just like Vidocq, Holmes resorts a lot to dressing up and also likes to systematize information about criminals and crimes as much as possible. By the way, some of Widocq's forensic techniques greatly anticipated the work of the police of the future. In his book Geniuses of Detection, for example, the writer Daniel Kluger gives information that Vidocq even suggested using fingerprints.

This chain did not end at Holmes. Books about Holmes were fashionable reading in the childhood of American Francis Lee. She constantly bought new stories and literally raved about the "method of deduction." Later, she became the mother of American (and not only) forensics, creating a working and taking into account many details method of examining the scene.

Holmes family

He does not mention too much of his relatives. His family is landlord by origin. His older brother, Mycroft Holmes, who, apparently, was transferred as a source of passive income of the ancestral estate, works in the British government. Perhaps he pays Holmes a certain amount, which makes him able to be indifferent to the amount of his fee - Holmes does not change it for years and does not increase it when it comes to difficult cases. However, he does not associate with simple ones.

It is also known from Holmes's own statements that his grandmother was French, the sister of the painter Horace Vernet. Later, when Watson sells his doctoral practice in Kensington, it is Holmes's cousin, the young doctor Werner, who buys it. Perhaps Holmes contributed to this.

Holmes is not a misogynist, and Watson cannot have children

Holmes is considered to be a misogynist - and again because of one monologue in which he admits that he does not understand women and they annoy him. But, as already established, Holmes is a poser. In fact, he treats women very warmly - he sincerely worries about his clients, for example (and obviously, clearly more than about clients). He is an admirer of the Czech violinist Vilma Norman-Neruda and gives her many words of admiration. Of course, we are talking about admiration for her talent, but a true misogynist would try to belittle women's achievements.

But only one woman, Irene Adler, could reach his heart. In our time, it is cautiously assumed that Holmes could be so worried about women that he was literally afraid of them and it was even more difficult for him to have an affair than to have a friend. In this case, it is not surprising that he chose one of the most inaccessible women to him as the object of his heart's affection. This made it possible to experience falling in love and not take any steps towards.

As for Watson and the women, he is married three times during Holmes' long chronicle of adventures. His wives die early and, apparently, do not give him a single child. Or Watson's injury, from which he is limping, fell on an area critical for the production of children … Or he is the owner of a genetic disease that leads to fetal malformations and difficult childbirth, killing mother and child. However, these are purely modern theories.

In Doyle's stories, there was a place for outhouse humor

In the most literal sense. In A Study in Scarlet Tones (a work generally permeated with irony) Holmes asks a constable who saw the scene of the murder immediately after the crime was committed. And he says that he was very afraid of the ghost of a person who died because of a bad sewage system, that is, from an illness caught not without the help of an unsanitary toilet.

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