The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

[conclusion in English is in the bottom of this post] Buku ini berisi kumpulan cerita pendek kasus-kasus kecil yang ditangani Sherlock Holmes, yang dicatat dan dituliskan oleh rekannya, Dr. Watson. Ke 12 kisah ini dipilih Watson karena keunikannya, dan sebagian besar merupakan kasus yang nampaknya rumit, padahal pemecahannya sedeana saja. Kasus-kasusnya bervariasi, dari saat Watson masih berbagi apartemen dengan Holmes di Baker Street hingga saat Watson sudah menikah dan menempati rumah sendiri namun masih sering menemani Holmes dalam penyelidikannya.

Yang paling menarik mungkin adalah kasus pertama, A Scandal in Bohemia. Klien Holmes adalah seorang Pangeran penerus tahta kerajaan Bohemia yang pernah menjalin hubungan asmara dengan artis opera cantik bernama Irene Adler. Sekarang ia ingin mendapatkan kembali foto mereka berdua yang kini disembunyikan Irene, yang dikhawatirkan akan menjadi skandal bila terungkap. Kasus ini menjadi sangat menarik karena di sini Holmes berhadapan dengan musuh yang seimbang, yakni Irene Adler. Irene bukan hanya cantik namun juga cerdik, dan menurut Watson hanya Irene-lah wanita yang pernah memberikan pengaruh dalam hidup Holmes, meski mungkin bukan dalam hal romansa namun lebih kepada kecerdikannya yang dikagumi Holmes. Selanjutnya Holmes beberapa kali menyinggung tentang Irene dengan menyebutnya sebagai 'wanita itu'.

Sedangkan kasus yang akan membuat anda paling jantungan mungkin adalah The Adventure of The Specled Band, yang mengisahkan sebuah keluarga dengan ayah dan dua anak perempuan tirinya. Si ayah pernah berkelana ke Asia, dan kini hidup terisolir. Saat anak gadis sulungnya akan menikah, terjadi sebuah tragedi. Si gadis meninggal padahal tak mungkin ada orang lain masuk ke kamarnya. Yang lebih aneh lagi adalah dua kata yang diteriakkannya sebelum menghembuskan napas yang terakhir: speckled band! Apa maksudnya? Sebuah teka-teki yang membutuhkan keahlian analisis dan deduksi setaraf seorang Sherlock Holmes untuk memecahkannya. Yang jelas ketegangan pada detik-detik menunggu 'speckled band' itu benar-benar memacu adrenalin!

Selain itu ada kasus yang melibatkan pembalasan dendam Ku Klux Klan yang lumayan mengerikan. Kasus ini menonjol karena Holmes harus berpacu dengan waktu untuk menghindarkan kematian calon korban berikutnya. Kengerian tiap kali kita mendengar atau membaca tentang sepak terjang KKK ini lumayan terasa di sini.

Meski keahlian Holmes sangat mengagumkan, namun kurasa Conan Doyle kurang menunjukkan sisi manusiawi Holmes di buku ini. Seperti yang ditulis Watson tentang Holmes, yang ia ibaratkan sebagai sebuah mesin,

“He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position.”

Conclusion:

Being the only short stories collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which was included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, of course The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has been quite intriguing for me.

Overall, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is varied from boring cases, to an exotic case (A Scandal in Bohemia), and suspenseful ones. I can get to know better about Holmes (by personal character and by his methods) from this book, however I still feel the lack of emotional tight in it. Perhaps it’s because this book is a collection of short stories, or perhaps Conan Doyle has written (through Watson) the stories in a formal and descriptive style, that it feels like I'm reading a report, instead of stories.

After reading this book, I can’t but compare Holmes with the works of Agatha Christie. Christie was more focus on characters who are involved in the cases. It is how the conflicts were built, as if we were involved emotionally inside the scene. Then from there, the detectives build their analysis. In Doyle’s works, he often uses narratives (most of them were narrated by Watson, although there are several which were narrated by Holmes himself, and the rest by third persons). I guess that's what makes Holmes stories seems dry and emotionless, despite the greatness of the deduction made ​​by the master of reasoner and 'father' of the next generations of detective stories, Sherlock Holmes. Good, but emotionless.

Three pipes for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, are the special gift I’d like to give to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for his 153^rd  birthday which is today, May 22^nd, 2012. Happy birthday Sir, we are thanking you for bringing such a famous detective and great cases to our literary world for over a century!

Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Fomat: e-book

Publisher: Project Gutenberg

Sherlock Holmes on The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Character Thursday (12)

Character Thursday is a weekly meme that requires you to post on every Thursday, your character choice from the book you are reading or you have finished with. It can be the protagonist or the antagonist, characters that you love the most or hate the most. You can pick any book of any genre as you like. Please  feel free to grab the button below and paste it in your post. Last but not least, please add URL of your post in the linky at the bottom of this post.

<center><a href=http://klasikfanda.blogspot.com/><img border="0" src="http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q594/FandaA/character-thursday-button-1.jpg "/></a></center>
So, this is my Character Thursday of this week:

Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes is one of detective figures who became the forerunner of other detective figures in the next era. He is a chemist (besides criminalist) with high analysis and deduction skills which helped him in settling many unsolved cases. Realizing his high expertise, Holmes became a man with high self-esteem and excessively high ego. In one of his records, Watson has written about Holmes:

"I was repelled by the egotism which I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my friend's singular character."

When examining Watson’s writing about their cases, Holmes criticized Watson for writing a few cases with more emphasis on the sensationality of the case rather than the sharpness of deduction of Holmes himself. It showed very much of his high ego.

Holmes has a very 'Victorian' personage, with a high appreciation on nobility. He preferred to deal with cases of the nobles and respectable people, or dealing with an opponent who has the elegance in their actions. He has a little regret when he was more often dealt with cases of ordinary people.

"The days of the great cases are past. Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools. I think that I have touched bottom at last. "

I think Holmes is someone with more logic than passionate feeling. When he helped a client, it is mostly for the challenge in the case Itself that he did it, rather than for offering a help. When he failed to prevent his client from a murder, Holmes was sad not for failing to save the life of a human being, but for his own failure in the first place.

"That hurts my pride, Watson. It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. "

The only woman Holmes has ever give a certain attention is Irene Adler, the female protagonist who  ever paralleled Holmes. Read what Watson has written about Holmes and his connection to women:

“He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position.” 

Sherlock Holmes is famous mostly for his intelligence and also his uniqueness in conducting his jobs. Other than that, his unique marks of personality (using magnifying glass, lighting his pipe every time he does his thinking, his skill of undercover), are the aspects that have set his fortune throughout the world. Other than that, I think, he is not such interesting as a person.

So…who is your Character Thursday this week?

Weekend Quote (1): From The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

This time I join a weekly meme created by my new blogger friend, who has the same passion of classics readings as I do: Listra from Half-Filled Attic. It’s called Weekend Quote, which from the title you can guess that it is all about favorite quote you’ve found from books you are reading.

The idea is to pick a quote from a book or author you read, like, or hate, and write your comment about it. You can post the “Weekend Quote” article every weekend (Saturday or Sunday), or at any weekend suits you best.

Here are the rules:

• You have to pick one quote and comment about it. It may be the reason why you agree or don't agree with it, or why it is interesting for you. I can also be your experience that reminds you of that quote. Feel free to use your imagination. :D
• Please put the picture of “Weekend Quote” on either your blog sidebar or everytime you post the quote. (It helps people to know what we are doing).
• Please give a link back to Listra’s blog at your post.

I know it is Friday, and normally the weekend has not been started yet, but as I seldom have time to post on weekend, I will post Weekend Quote every Friday. Anyway, for me, Friday is my first and best day of the weekend!

As this week I am reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I pick up one quote that I found interesting:

“A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.”

Of course, that is the way Sherlock Holmes manages his brain as a reasoner who works mostly with his deduction skill. Although we are not a detective, I think we also need to apply Sherlock Holmes’s way to manage our own “little brain”. With so many news, data, gossips etc. which is floating in our mind everyday, we need to pick only the important ones to be kept in our ‘little brain attic’—as Holmes took it, and leave the rest of them in the lumber room. Very interesting and very useful indeed! Thank you Sir Conan Doyle for this quote!

What is your favorite quote of this weekend?