The Adventure of the "Gloria Scott"
Feb. 8th, 2012 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
setraHere I am at the beginning of the thing, and already I'm quite late at starting. I want to re-listen to Empty House in the near future, and I thought I might as well try a few more.
This story is told by Holmes to Watson, in the past tense, so the wording is occasionally odd. It is about Holmes's first case, and it is brought to Watson's attention as worthy of study by Holmes himself which is very rare.
It is from this case that we learn what first inspired Holmes to turn to crime investigation, and see the way in which the science of deduction was perhaps slightly more piecemeal and less perfected than it was as he used it in most of his cases.
We are introduced here to the infamous Victor Trevor, often contemplated as one of Holmes' first lovers in non-asexual universes. Possibly he is the reason that Holmes had been hesitant to talk of this case to Watson, or the reason that Watson chose to present it in the way that he did and so late in his writings as he did. Regardless of fandom interpretation, he is one of the only men Holmes ever refers to as someone he is close to and that makes him a valuable character.
From what little we see of him, we know that he invited Holmes into his father's home, and that he turned to Holmes for advice when his father was ill and the situation with Hudson had become intolerable. I wonder what it would have meant to a Victorian sensibility how frail and shocked Trevor Jr. seems to have become upon the discovery of his father's history. Compared to Holmes and to other men in other cases, I think it makes him appear quite delicate in his sensibilities, but perhaps any man would have been expected to react thusly in such a circumstance.
The story uses the third-word code, which will forever remind me of The Presbury Letters, the fic I am perpetually drawn back to anytime I listen to a lot of ACD canon.
"The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head keeper Hudson we believe has been now told to receive all orders for fly paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."
It is an interesting case, and told very well, though in the end the case is solved by two disappearances and a death rather than by any intervention of Holmes himself. It is, rather, only of record and interest because of the code, the friend, and the suggestion that he go into the world of investigation rather than the sciences.
This story is told by Holmes to Watson, in the past tense, so the wording is occasionally odd. It is about Holmes's first case, and it is brought to Watson's attention as worthy of study by Holmes himself which is very rare.
It is from this case that we learn what first inspired Holmes to turn to crime investigation, and see the way in which the science of deduction was perhaps slightly more piecemeal and less perfected than it was as he used it in most of his cases.
We are introduced here to the infamous Victor Trevor, often contemplated as one of Holmes' first lovers in non-asexual universes. Possibly he is the reason that Holmes had been hesitant to talk of this case to Watson, or the reason that Watson chose to present it in the way that he did and so late in his writings as he did. Regardless of fandom interpretation, he is one of the only men Holmes ever refers to as someone he is close to and that makes him a valuable character.
From what little we see of him, we know that he invited Holmes into his father's home, and that he turned to Holmes for advice when his father was ill and the situation with Hudson had become intolerable. I wonder what it would have meant to a Victorian sensibility how frail and shocked Trevor Jr. seems to have become upon the discovery of his father's history. Compared to Holmes and to other men in other cases, I think it makes him appear quite delicate in his sensibilities, but perhaps any man would have been expected to react thusly in such a circumstance.
The story uses the third-word code, which will forever remind me of The Presbury Letters, the fic I am perpetually drawn back to anytime I listen to a lot of ACD canon.
"The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head keeper Hudson we believe has been now told to receive all orders for fly paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."
It is an interesting case, and told very well, though in the end the case is solved by two disappearances and a death rather than by any intervention of Holmes himself. It is, rather, only of record and interest because of the code, the friend, and the suggestion that he go into the world of investigation rather than the sciences.
