1891-1892 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; 1892-1893 The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

A Study in Scarlet (1887) ; The Sign of Fourth (1890); The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1891-1892)

I'm borrowing a friend's heap of Sherlock Holmes collections--she read them in three weeks, and my challenge is to read them in less.

Unfortunately I seem to dislike to mildly like the short stories so far. A few stand out to me, like the ones that travel to the countryside or feature a tomboyish woman (traditionally I gravitate to stories featuring independent heroines). Still, those stories I only mildly like. The rest are okay.

Considering the vast popularity of the Sherlock Holmes series and its lead character, perhaps I should address how it's possible for someone to quickly lose excitement when reading:

1) Almost all dialogue. Maybe I'm a big fan of the "show, don't tell" strategy to writing or I'm a big of a misanthrope who wants to tell the characters to get over themselves, but I find having almost every sentence within quotation marks exhausting. Roughly half of the stories are three characters (Holmes, Watson, and a client) standing or sitting in a room, the client rattling the backstory. Frequently there are quotes within quotes, like relaying gossip. Sometimes the plot revolves around an almost petty issue so the dialogue sounds like gossip or someone who lacks the spine to resolve their own issues. I never cared for soap opera.

2) Too convenient. The other half of the stories have Holmes explaining step by step the solution to the problem with a deus ex machina quality, like the stars aligned just so that Holmes has everything he needs to promptly reach the right conclusion. Forgo any outliers or natural element of randomness. No one reads this for immersion. Granted, these are short stories, so I can't hold this part against the plot too much.

3) Stiff characters and language. While it is amusing to read with a general, BBC accent and many people love the English elite culture of the Victorian era, I found it all too stuffy. Impersonal. Everyone other than Holmes is colorless and shown next to him as complete imbeciles. Rarely is there someone who is more than an audience in a room. Outside of the round-about aristocratic dialogue, Doyle's writing is of no particular artistry or literary value.

I had to look up what the literary value of the stories were because I couldn't deduce them myself. Apparently Sherlock was popular because Doyle was the first to successfully write a mystery using forensics (others, including Edgar Allen Poe, did it first but didn't rise to main stream success).

It's one of those things where if you're impressed with the main novelty of the story (Sherlock's power of deduction in an era where that was "the" new thing) you'll love the story--most people seem to. However, what's novel to some is often gimmicky to me. I need more depth, even in short stories. ( )

One day I came across The Sign of Four and said, "what the heck let's read it". I loved it. Now I am slowly reading all the books and short stories.
From a historical perspective I loved reading about late 19th century London i.e. the customs, the conveyances, how women were regarded.
My favorite from this volume is the Adventure of the Speckled Band. It was scary and mysterious. How could Sherlock solve it?
Pros : I felt like I was there
Cons: Sherlock always disappears to gather evidence, sometimes I wish we could go along on the trail. ( )

Doze contos admiráveis, dos quais meu favorito é ¨As faias cor de cobre¨ ( )