Sure. Yes, sure. But where would be the fun then ? I am pretty certain we all read far to many books to just float still at the surface…
That is an interesting theory.
Holmes would have felt so superior to the almost-an-animal savage, that he would have completely neglected him in the aftermath… ? – perhaps, perhaps.
As a matter of fact, not even suspected that his own life was potentially in danger as regard to that character ? (On the boat, at the end of the chase.) – But yet, they shot him dead from a certain distance. So it is hard to say.
Yeah… and just as I struggled to separate (or maybe I mean aggregate?) historical context from the novel’s standing as a modern yarn, there is an inherent struggle in interpreting any tale - even one from only 20 years ago - from the modern ethical framework, let alone one old enough to be out of copyright! How dare they so casually assume that Watson’s interest in a woman is sufficient to warrant a presumption of engagement! Have they not considered “me too”?!
As awkward as some of the passages may have read to modern eyes, I can only assume they were “of the moment” when published, and as long as we remember the story is set in a similar time, it’s hard (from my admittedly white male perspective) to judge too unkindly.
To come back to this - yes, I know what you’re getting at. They definitely have a symbiotic existence and their relationship (it’s much more than a friendship) is well crafted. And to the readers through the decades, they are inseparable parts of the same whole. We might think of them as “Sherlock Holmes stories”, but the idea of either character being missing is unthinkable… to the extent that when Watson disappeared to take the lady home, or Holmes wandered off to find the barge by himself, I was jarred with thoughts of… “are they allowed to do that?!”
Last night I watched the very silly 1988 movie ‘Without a Clue’ with Michael Caine (as “Sherlock”) and Ben Kingsley (as Watson). I found it very enjoyable, including its starting premise that Sherlock Holmes is the scripted creation of Dr Watson, who went out and hired an actor to play a detective to conceal Watson’s own work investigating cases too lurid to be respectable for a medical man.
This conceit though is a great way to be aware of Conan Doyle’s presence in the stories and the layering of him (a medical man) writing about Dr Watson writing about Holmes. This story brings the awareness of authoring to the fore in its first few pages “I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings.” The author’s struggle with his character!
Absolutely. And I love that Holmes criticises Watson for introducing romanticism to his narrative, insisting that Watson should have suppressed facts of a romantic nature because they were not pertinent. Sort of the opposite advice to “never let the facts get in the way of a good story”.
Doyle was commissioned to write this book at a dinner held by the publisher of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine at the Langham Hotel in London, in 1889, at which Oscar Wilde was also invited to write a story for the same publication. (Wilde’s contribution would later be published as The Picture of Dorian Gray.)
The terms that the two authors were offered were quite different, with Wilde already a much-fêted celebrity, but Doyle yet to become the household name that his later Sherlock Holmes short stories would make him.
I read in Oscar: A Life (a biography of Oscar Wilde, by Matthew Sturgis) that Wilde was offered £200 to write a story of 35k+ words, while Doyle was offered the lesser sum of £100 for a longer story of 45k+ words.
A bit of internet trawling suggests that £100 in 1890 would apparently be the equivalent of around £13,500 in today’s money.
An online second-hand book seller currently has a copy of the US edition of February 1890’s Lippincott’s Magazine, featuring The Sign of the Four, for something approaching £10,000.
I am currently reading Mrs Dalloway in advance of April’s book club discussion, and its occasional references to “empire” reminded me of something that struck me about The Sign of the Four.
All of the characters, including Holmes and Watson, seem to accept as valid (or at least unquestioned) the plundering of the Agra treasure from its original Indian owner. Any argument over dividing the spoils is limited to how this immense wealth is to be shared between the thieves or later beneficiaries, and nobody at any point suggests returning the treasure to its original home. The unspoken assumption is that the representatives of the British Empire are entitled to claim for themselves the riches of countries such as India. Nowadays, I imagine there would be support for returning the stolen fortune to its place of origin.
I won’t speculate on where the treasure came from before the Rajah amassed it! Perhaps all treasure is an ill-gotten gain, to some degree, when taken back to first principles.
The kind of reflection both Monty Python and Eddie Izzard would agree with
But on a more serious note, given :
whether Doyle agreed with such an attitude on the part of his characters or not, having been sponsored/hired to write the story as you specified in your previous post, maybe he couldn’t allow himself to go against the political view on such matter… (The position/value of an Indian citizen vs an English one.) As @pigfender said, it was of the moment.
