Thursday, September 8, 2011

Returning to Sherlock Holmes

You may have heard it before but I became interested in mysteries when I was an early teen and reading Sherlock Holmes was one of the reasons for this. 

I decided to go back to read some Sherlock Holmes stories and I am reminded why I was so interested in these stories.  You see - I was astonished like Dr Watson by the conclusions Sherlock Holmes could make based on his observation skills. 

He also fascinated me by some of the things he said.  In A Study in Scarlet for example, how he describes a man's brain being like an attic.  It is a practical description about how a smart person only puts useful stuff in his brain rather than filling it with a lot of worthless stuff.  It is a very good explanation.  Funny how we not only put useless stuff in our heads but we also a lots of times keep useless stuff in our attics (or garages, or closets) as well!! 

So going back and rereading Sherlock Holmes is really been a good experience for me.  Are there things you have read years ago and taken the time to go back and reread them later?

2 comments:

JenningsJunk said...

For me it's Agatha Christie. There are only a couple that I can actually remember "who done it". So, it's almost like a new mystery every time...lol...that's not to say my attic isn't clutter, it's just too cluttered to hold onto the murder :-)

J.P. Hansen said...

I usually don't like going back to mysteries. Don't know why. Classic literary books, like Ellison's INVISIBLE MAN or MOBY DICK, I could read a thousand times. Maybe it's because, for me, so-called literary fiction, at its best, usually allows for a wider variety of readings. Hence, returning to them can be more fruitful.