Welcome to my monthly book recommendation for April! On the first day of each month, I’ll recommend a book, new or old, fiction or nonfiction, pulled from my own reading experience. In my recommendation, I’ll introduce the book, discuss why I found reading it worthwhile, and what major themes the book touches upon. I won’t include any major spoilers, but I may discuss some of the characters and specific details or locations from within the book. My recommendation for May 2024 is The Sherlock Holmes Collection by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Available on Amazon
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Genres: Fiction, Detective
Description:
This tastefully produced box set collects Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in six volumes. The drug-addled, anti-social sleuth has become one of the most iconic characters in fiction and the tales collected here will entertain readers today just as much as when they were first published in the late 19th Century. Stories include:
- Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear
- His Last Bow
- The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
- The Return of Sherlock Holmes
- A Study in Scarlet & The Sign of Four
My Thoughts on This Book
The name Sherlock Holmes is famous around the world. I was very young when I first heard of those stories, but my first introduction was from the 2009 movie Sherlock Holmes, where Sherlock was portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., and the sequel A Game of Shadows released a few years after. In these movies, Sherlock is portrayed as a highly unbalanced individual with an indescribable level of knowledge and talent in seemingly every field of industry, science, or art which he utilizes in his investigations. Both of these factors make Sherlock Holmes nearly inaccessible, in a personable sense, from the rest of the world, Watson being the only bridge between the two.
In the series Sherlock which aired in 2010, the talents and personality of this Sherlock Holmes, as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, would make Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock look like an average, down-to-earth guy in comparison. I enjoyed watching the series, but I recognized it was highly fictionalized in terms of Sherlock’s capabilities, the paradoxical complexity and simplicity of the cases, and the scale of difference between Sherlock, Moriarty, Mycroft, and the rest of the world.
The original Sherlock Holmes, written in the late 1800s, is much more realistic. Sherlock Holmes is still portrayed as a genius, but his level of genius is realistic to what could be expected of an actual genius level individual, if not slightly beyond. I consider it akin to the difference between Captain America in the original comics, where his abilities are slightly beyond human capabilities, and the MCU, where he can keep a helicopter grounded by holding it with one hand while he grips a railing with another. I believe that this allows the reader to learn by example from these stories; since this more-realistic Sherlock Holmes solves cases via more-realistic means, the reader might actually glean some small insight into the reasoning process that they may have otherwise lacked, just as a benefit of reading these stories. More importantly, their ability to follow along with this more-realistic, yet still larger-than-life character will make the adventure that much more enjoyable.
