Tag: Sherlock Holmes

Investigating the Mystery of the Phantom of the Opera

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews2 Comments

My January post about the Phantom of the Opera inspired me to buy and reread Sam Siciliano’s Angel of the Opera.  I last read it six or seven years ago, but I find my feeling toward it was much the same this time–and it’s an odd, odd feeling.  When I look at the disparate elements of the book, I dislike far too much.  And yet somehow, taken as a whole, I enjoyed the book.  Baffling!

It may be the premise.  Sherlock Holmes meets the Phantom of the Opera; I love both of them in their original forms, so it’s hard to resist a cross-over.  People I tell about this seem to have trouble picturing the two stories coming together, but it actually makes a certain amount of sense.  The premise is that the managers of the Opera are deeply distressed by this Ghost business (as they are in every version), and decide to hire a very famous London detective to come investigate–Mr. Holmes.  Holmes arrives in Paris and goes exploring through the Opera in an effort to work out the mystery of the Phantom.  Siciliano also makes much of Holmes’ love of music (which is an element in Arthur Conan Doyle) and that ties things together in an extra way too.

If only that clever emphasis on Holmes’ love of music had been part of a broader, equally clever portrayal of Holmes.  But there’s where we begin to have problems.  This book begins very, very badly.  Watson has been booted from the scene and we have a new and original narrator, Holmes’ cousin, Henry Vernier.  The second sentence of the book reads, “My purpose at the time was to reveal the real Sherlock Holmes as corrective to the ridiculous fictional creation of John Watson.”

Ouch.  I mean, really, ouch.  Henry goes on in this way for a couple of pages, maligning poor Dr. Watson and discounting Watson and Holmes’ friendship, then peppers the rest of the book with occasional caustic references to Watson and his writing, both from Henry and, even more painfully, from Holmes.  It’s always a chancy business trying to write another author’s characters, and frankly, if you’re going to attempt it, you had better approach the original with a great deal of respect, bordering on reverence.  It’s hard to believe that Siciliano even likes Doyle’s stories.

The particularly stupid part is that I don’t think all this added anything or was at all necessary.  Henry is pointless as an original character.  He fills exactly the same role as Watson, right down to being a doctor, and I nearly forgot at times that he wasn’t Watson.  Other than a fear of heights and occasional musing about whether he ought to marry a girl he’s been courting, he has very little personality to add.  And Holmes is almost Holmes, but not quite.  Siciliano plays around a bit, and not to Holmes’ advantage.  His attitudes towards women and religion are mucked about with, and his deduction skills are not shown to any great advantage.  He doesn’t do much of the “I saw a telltale clue and drew 14 conclusions from it” that Holmes is so well-known for.  He does figure out a lot about the Phantom, but it all seems like fairly obvious details–although I admit, Holmes doesn’t have my advantage of familiarity with some 14 versions of the story to help him along.  Anyway, the whole thing ultimately comes off like Siciliano realized he couldn’t quite write Doyle’s Holmes, or that Doyle’s Holmes didn’t quite fit his novel, and decided he’d better come up with an excuse for the differences.

He does better with the Phantom side of things. This is plainly based on Leroux, not Webber–Raoul’s brother is in the story (delightfully awful), Meg Giry has dark hair, several minor characters from Leroux are at least mentioned, and there’s just an overall atmosphere of Leroux.  That actually may be my favorite part.  Siciliano brings the Opera, with all its confusing passages and dark cellars, to life in a wonderful, fascinating way.  It really may be the atmosphere that carries this book more than anything else.

The Phantom characters were better handled than the Holmes ones too.  Siciliano wrote what is probably the most annoying Raoul I’ve ever seen (which is saying something) and his Christine is a nice mix of well-meaning and flighty childishness.  The managers, Carlotta and Madame Giry are well-portrayed.  And I thought he did well with the Phantom (although we don’t see him as more than a shadow until two-thirds into the book).  He’s dark, complex, a musical genius, and I actually really enjoyed Holmes’ insight into the Phantom.  And points for getting his name right–Erik.  Such a simple thing that is so rarely done correctly.  Siciliano does slip on one character–like Watson, he maligns the poor Persian, who was the most heroic figure in Leroux but here is dark and villianous and (metaphorically) drenched in blood.

The plot is all right.  Holmes and Henry poke around on the edges of the plotline of The Phantom of the Opera, trying to unravel the mystery.  Siciliano doesn’t really add much, but neither does he do any harm to it.

So–decent plot, well-done Phantom characters, excellent atmosphere, poorly-done Holmes, pointless original narrator.  And there is one more original character who absolutely gives me fits.  There’s a mostly-irrelevant prologue, where Holmes and Henry are tying up an unrelated case, and in the midst of it they get a telegram about the Paris Opera situation.  The main point, though, seems to be to introduce Susan Lowell.  She lives in Wales, is half-British and half-Indian, and is despised by society for her mixed-race status.  She’s all alone in the world.  She’s very beautiful, but for a variety of reasons has always thought that she was very ugly.  And she’s completely brilliant musically.  Is this obvious enough yet?  It gets better.  She’s blind.

Well now.  A novel with a musically-brilliant deformed man features a completely superflous musically-brilliant blind girl.  I wonder where that could possibly be going?  Honestly, I am all in favor of the Phantom getting over Christine, and if that means writing a new character to suit, fine, no problem, go to it.  But at least be a bit more subtle about it!  I also think it oversimplifies to assume that falling in love with a blind girl would solve all of the Phantom’s problems.  I’m convinced that Erik’s problem is not really that he’s ugly–it’s that he knows he’s ugly, and is convinced of his own unworthiness as a consequence.

But that is a long and complex discussion.  Suffice to say here, this book would be better off and far less obvious without the prologue or the epilogue–even if that meant leaving off a basically happy ending.

So where do I wind up in the end?  I don’t know.  I like some parts of this book.  I dislike a lot of very key parts.  And I enjoy it overall.  Draw your own conclusions from that.  I hear there’s another Holmes-meets-the-Phantom book out there, and I am definitely going to check that out to see if it does any better!

Author’s Site: http://samsiciliano.net/

Other reviews:
Better Holmes and Gardens (I love that title!)
My Den
Anyone else?

Out on the Moor with Mr. Holmes

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews1 Comment
Don't you love battered, yellowed old books?

I’ve heard The Hound of the Baskervilles described as a horror novel.  I don’t think I’d go quite that far, but there definitely are some horror elements to it.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is my favorite Sherlock Holmes novel, maybe my favorite of any of the stories.  Holmes and Watson leave their usual stomping grounds of London to venture out onto the moor.  This is the biggest horror-story element.  I loved the setting: the spooky, eerie, mist-covered moor, full of strange croppings of rock, treacherous bogs and mysterious noises.  I felt rather like I had followed Holmes into a Bronte novel.  There’s even a big, gloomy pile of an old manor house: Baskerville Hall plainly belongs in the same neighborhood with Wuthering Heights and Thornfield Hall.

Holmes and Watson are out on the moor investigating the recent death of Charles Baskerville, which seems to be tied in some way to the legend of a monster hound stalking the Baskervilles through the centuries.  Something is stalking Sir Henry Baskerville, Charles’ heir and the new lord of the Hall, and Holmes and Watson launch into an investigation.

Sir Henry is a poor substitute for Mr. Rochester, with a mostly place-holder role in the story, but it doesn’t much matter.  Holmes and Watson are always the significant characters, and there’s a fairly good cast of strange secondary characters surrounding them.

This felt the most like a horror novel when Watson and Sir Henry first arrive at Baskerville Hall (Holmes coming later) and explore the dark rooms.  It seems like just the sort of place to have Frankenstein’s monster on a slab in the basement.  The Hall even comes with an ancient butler and his wife, who have their own secrets.

Quite apart from the horror setting (and, of course, the possibility of a spectral hound), this is a good Sherlock Holmes mystery.  There are strange happenings, unsuccessful inquiries, and odd clues that all come together in the end.  I always love books that end up with all the random bits pulling together to explain everything.  Since Doyle follows a pattern of having Holmes lay it all out for Watson at the end, his stories are uniquely suited to managing this trick.

It causes an interesting problem for Doyle, I would imagine–Holmes always solves everything long before Doyle wants to reveal the answers to the reader.  He creates an extra layer between us and the answer by having Watson narrate, and Watson always stays as much in the dark as the rest of us.  The flaw there is that this means Holmes can’t tell Watson anything either, which sometimes seems a little forced.  Mostly Doyle justifies it by making Holmes, by temperament, an extremely laconic and uncommunicative man.  It stretches a bit, but I’ll take it.  I’ll suspend disbelief a touch for the sake of the story.

It is necessary for Holmes to play it close to the vest, because there wouldn’t be any tension otherwise–and Doyle is very good at tension.  I love the way he plays the story out bit by bit, drawing the reader along through the maze, heightening the danger as he goes.  There’s not actually that much action–it’s mostly people talking–but it’s somehow a very tense and exciting story.

My favorite moment in probably any Holmes story (and I’ve read a lot of them) is midway through Baskervilles.  I don’t want to ruin it for anyone–but Watson is out on the moor, and he’s anticipating a confrontation.  Nothing is happening.  He’s just waiting.  And yet Doyle keeps building the tension higher and higher, and then all of a sudden it snaps…and it’s brilliant.  It’s fairly predictable, but it’s still brilliant.

I love Sherlock Holmes stories, and Hound of the Baskervilles is an excellent one.  I don’t think it’s a horror novel, but it is perhaps a Gothic Sherlock Holmes story, and well-worth the read.

A Brilliantly Mad Sherlock

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews5 Comments
I don't have the TV DVD, so here's my battered original instead.

I may never have mentioned this, but I love Sherlock Holmes.  And I don’t mean any of the various incarnations–I mean the original, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes.  The Hound of the Baskervilles is on my to-be-reread list, and when I get to it I’ll probably give you a review.

But in the meantime, I wanted to review one of those incarnations.  The BBC is doing a TV version called simply Sherlock.  It’s amazing.  And part of what’s amazing is how well they have balanced changing it completely, while keeping it faithful to the original.

Sherlock translates the original stories into the modern day.  That, of course, changes everything–but within that context, it’s beautifully on track to the original.  Watson is recently-returned from the war in Afghanistan, rather than returning from India.  Holmes deduces clues from cell phones and digital watches.  It’s modernized–but faithful to the original.

The characters are brilliant.  Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock is the most accurate-to-the-book Holmes I’ve seen.  He’s completely insane–but a genius, and totally in control, all the time.  Holmes is a delicate mix–when he’s on an investigation (and sometimes when he isn’t) he runs about doing things that look totally mad, and because he has a distinct arrogant and disdainful streak he probably won’t bother to explain at the time.  When he does finally stop and lay out his thought process, you suddenly realize that it all made sense.  You also realize he was in control of himself and the situation the whole time–and he always looks dignified no matter what he’s doing, probably because he always knows he’s in control.

Sherlock pulls this off.  There’s a scene where Sherlock is investigating a crime scene when suddenly something comes together for him, he rushes off, and the only explanation he yells behind him is “PINK!”  Totally mad.  But it turns out that pink really is the key to the whole mystery.  I couldn’t help comparing this version to the Robert Downey, Jr. Holmes.  That movie, though very entertaining, just makes him look insane and out of control.  Undignified, too.

Also, Benedict Cumberbatch has Sherlock Holmes hands.  And the right nose for the role.

Martin Freeman is great as Dr. John Watson, the often-confused but intrigued sidekick.  I think there’s more complexity added to his role than we sometimes get in the Doyle stories, where to some extent he tries to fade out in his position of narrator.  John is the comparatively normal and rational one compared to Sherlock’s brilliant semi-madness.  He’s also ex-military and realizes that he loves the adrenaline of helping on Sherlock’s cases, even while he’s often frustrated by Sherlock too.  There’s a somewhat delicate balance of a relationship here, with two men who really do care about each other, but will never admit it–except possibly in a “we’re about to die” moment.

The mysteries are loosely based on some of Doyle’s original stories, but more by pulling in elements than by duplicating complete plots.  The mysteries are genuine and suspenseful, somewhat wild but that’s the whole point–they only call Sherlock in for the weird ones.  There are occasional twists, and quite a bit of humor.

If you decide to seek this out, American viewers may be a little baffled by British television schedules.  The first season/series has three, ninety-minute episodes.  The third one ends with a cliffhanger (not literally, although in a Holmes-remake it could be an option!) and they’re currently planning the next season.  Sadly, it won’t be available for a while.  I for one am eagerly awaiting it!