Vacation Truncated
Without going into the gorey details....I broke a tooth last Monday night. Really. Broke the damned thing eating a cheese pizza. I mean, really. How dumb is that?
Waited until Wednesday to get a temporary cap. It turned into bona fide, full blown dental surgery. So, to make myself feel better....while still in the flush of adrenaline and "What The Fuck Just Happened to Me?" I went next door to the bookstore and picked up a very portable copy of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Go Bantam Classics!
Much pain on Thursday/Friday. I told Mr. C that I felt like someone had taken a chisel to my head. He just stared at me in that "House" way....you know the one....the big eyes stare, the head tilts, the chin rises?
Yeah, that one that silently says, "You're an idiot, woman. Someone DID take a chisel to your head."
I was supposed to leave for vacation last Monday.
So, what with being waylaid for a few days....I took the opportunity to relax at home, and use Anbesol liberally (honestly, Mr. C wants me to take Vicodin and said, I quote, "Ah, yes. Anbesol! That well known gateway drug. Next stop, heroin.")
So, instead, I drink Cheap White Wine ("CWW") in copious amounts and read my Sherlock Holmes.
For some strange reason I picked up the second volume first. Dunno why. Blame it on the pain. I've finished "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (yeesh) and am just now wrapping up "The Valley of Fear."
While I really have no screaming comparisons to make between "House" and the Holmes stories from my current reading, I did want to quote a little something from the introduction.
It's about Watson and I've really been dwelling (perhaps unhealthily?) on the Watson/Wilson respect debate I mentioned previously.
"ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BOSWELLS
I submit for your inspection one John H. Watson: medical man, late British Army surgeon, raconteur, journalist, connoisseur of women, Knight of the Battered Tin Dispatch-Box, valiant and loyal friend.
[snip]
Watson was the first to confess that his friend's analytical mind worked on a plane he himself could scarcely conceive, and although in The Hound of the Baskervilles he poked some good-nautred fun at himself for fancying he had mastered the science of deduction in the matter of Dr. Mortimer's stick, he never pretended to skills beyond his own considerable ones. (emphasis mine)
[snip]
A man for his time, then; for the detective himself was not above bludgeoning cadavers in the dissecting rooms or attempthing for no little time to transfix a dead pig with a harpoon in a butcher's shop, all in the pursuit of criminal knowledge. But to his credit, a cipher without key or a pair of spectacles abondoned at the scene of a crime were of infintiely more interst to him than an unimaginative corpse. So they are to us, and hence the reason for this collection [of stories].
If there is a Valhalla for superhuman sleuths and their all-to-human compatriots, it will allow them freedom at night to catch the racing hansom cab in the mustard fog and provide them a cozy cluttered place by day to feast upon cold pheasant and tales from the tin box. If the detective should suffer over much from the artistic temperament, and his fellow lodger should dwell overlong upon the fairness of a wrist or the timbre of a feminine voice, so much the better, for us and them. Literature never produced a relationship more symbiotic nor a warmer and more timeless friendship."
Excerpted from "On theSignificance of Boswells" by Loren D. Estleman. Introduction to both volumes of Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories; Bantam Classics, NY, NY 1986 reissued in 2003.
vii-xviii
Boxed Set: ISBN 0-553-32825-5
The reason I quote these passages is because I'm convinced that the Sherlockians and the Holmesians (who are quite in the know on these matters) would agree that Holmes held Watson in high esteem.
Also, I just think it would be amazingly cool if, at the end of the House's run, we find that it's all been told through Wilson's eyes.
Waited until Wednesday to get a temporary cap. It turned into bona fide, full blown dental surgery. So, to make myself feel better....while still in the flush of adrenaline and "What The Fuck Just Happened to Me?" I went next door to the bookstore and picked up a very portable copy of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Go Bantam Classics!
Much pain on Thursday/Friday. I told Mr. C that I felt like someone had taken a chisel to my head. He just stared at me in that "House" way....you know the one....the big eyes stare, the head tilts, the chin rises?
Yeah, that one that silently says, "You're an idiot, woman. Someone DID take a chisel to your head."
I was supposed to leave for vacation last Monday.
So, what with being waylaid for a few days....I took the opportunity to relax at home, and use Anbesol liberally (honestly, Mr. C wants me to take Vicodin and said, I quote, "Ah, yes. Anbesol! That well known gateway drug. Next stop, heroin.")
So, instead, I drink Cheap White Wine ("CWW") in copious amounts and read my Sherlock Holmes.
For some strange reason I picked up the second volume first. Dunno why. Blame it on the pain. I've finished "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (yeesh) and am just now wrapping up "The Valley of Fear."
While I really have no screaming comparisons to make between "House" and the Holmes stories from my current reading, I did want to quote a little something from the introduction.
It's about Watson and I've really been dwelling (perhaps unhealthily?) on the Watson/Wilson respect debate I mentioned previously.
"ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BOSWELLS
I submit for your inspection one John H. Watson: medical man, late British Army surgeon, raconteur, journalist, connoisseur of women, Knight of the Battered Tin Dispatch-Box, valiant and loyal friend.
[snip]
Watson was the first to confess that his friend's analytical mind worked on a plane he himself could scarcely conceive, and although in The Hound of the Baskervilles he poked some good-nautred fun at himself for fancying he had mastered the science of deduction in the matter of Dr. Mortimer's stick, he never pretended to skills beyond his own considerable ones. (emphasis mine)
[snip]
A man for his time, then; for the detective himself was not above bludgeoning cadavers in the dissecting rooms or attempthing for no little time to transfix a dead pig with a harpoon in a butcher's shop, all in the pursuit of criminal knowledge. But to his credit, a cipher without key or a pair of spectacles abondoned at the scene of a crime were of infintiely more interst to him than an unimaginative corpse. So they are to us, and hence the reason for this collection [of stories].
If there is a Valhalla for superhuman sleuths and their all-to-human compatriots, it will allow them freedom at night to catch the racing hansom cab in the mustard fog and provide them a cozy cluttered place by day to feast upon cold pheasant and tales from the tin box. If the detective should suffer over much from the artistic temperament, and his fellow lodger should dwell overlong upon the fairness of a wrist or the timbre of a feminine voice, so much the better, for us and them. Literature never produced a relationship more symbiotic nor a warmer and more timeless friendship."
Excerpted from "On theSignificance of Boswells" by Loren D. Estleman. Introduction to both volumes of Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories; Bantam Classics, NY, NY 1986 reissued in 2003.
vii-xviii
Boxed Set: ISBN 0-553-32825-5
The reason I quote these passages is because I'm convinced that the Sherlockians and the Holmesians (who are quite in the know on these matters) would agree that Holmes held Watson in high esteem.
Also, I just think it would be amazingly cool if, at the end of the House's run, we find that it's all been told through Wilson's eyes.
1 Comments:
I think we have the same set of books, because that is one of my favourite Waston defences.
I agree, that would take the cake if we found out this was all from Wilson's p.o.v. Good call!
Post a Comment
<< Home