![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So this Sunday, I thought I'd look at body parts, specifically lips and ears.
The most striking thing about "The Man with the Twisted Lip" is Watson's wife calling him James instead of John (as he is referred to in all the other stories). There are many theories about What it Means. I just think it's ACD being careless but I think the theories are fun.
So Watson does a favor for a friend of his wife's and pops the husband out of an opium den. In the process of this, he stumbles upon Holmes who is investigating the disappearance of Neville Saint-Clair. To cross over with my Edward Gorey collage, perhaps Neville died of ennui! Ha! No. It's a decent story, but it grates for 2 reasons: 1. the 'reveal' involves Holmes wiping Saint-Clair's face and removing his make-up/disguise. Theatrical make-up is not that easy to remove. and 2. I don't like the underlying assumption about homelessness. It smacks of that conservate myth that homeless people are making/could make a lot of money if they begged properly (so they shouldn't receive help, public or private, because they're really okay, leading to the 'welfare queens' myth).
Five years ago, I tried my hand at Paget's illustration of Holmes in his large blue dressing gown.
"The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" is from March 1892. One of Watson's patients acquires his injury by means that seem like a case, so Watson takes him to Holmes. The engineer almost gets squished by a hydraulic press used by counterfeiters. One source I read said ACD got the idea from Wilkie Collins' story about the mysterious bed, which I like a lot.
I posted this video back in the Sherlock 60 days. These guys prove that Hatherley could not have gotten his thumb chopped off the way ACD describes.
The most striking thing about "The Man with the Twisted Lip" is Watson's wife calling him James instead of John (as he is referred to in all the other stories). There are many theories about What it Means. I just think it's ACD being careless but I think the theories are fun.
So Watson does a favor for a friend of his wife's and pops the husband out of an opium den. In the process of this, he stumbles upon Holmes who is investigating the disappearance of Neville Saint-Clair. To cross over with my Edward Gorey collage, perhaps Neville died of ennui! Ha! No. It's a decent story, but it grates for 2 reasons: 1. the 'reveal' involves Holmes wiping Saint-Clair's face and removing his make-up/disguise. Theatrical make-up is not that easy to remove. and 2. I don't like the underlying assumption about homelessness. It smacks of that conservate myth that homeless people are making/could make a lot of money if they begged properly (so they shouldn't receive help, public or private, because they're really okay, leading to the 'welfare queens' myth).
Five years ago, I tried my hand at Paget's illustration of Holmes in his large blue dressing gown.
"The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" is from March 1892. One of Watson's patients acquires his injury by means that seem like a case, so Watson takes him to Holmes. The engineer almost gets squished by a hydraulic press used by counterfeiters. One source I read said ACD got the idea from Wilkie Collins' story about the mysterious bed, which I like a lot.
I posted this video back in the Sherlock 60 days. These guys prove that Hatherley could not have gotten his thumb chopped off the way ACD describes.