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Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

Arthur Conan Doyle–“The Speckled Band” [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes] (1892)

Posted in Arthur Conan Doyle, Murder, Mystery, Sherlock Holmes, Short Story on April 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: March 24, 2024] “The Speckled Band”

The eighth story in this collection is a bit longer than the others and offers some good complications.

I enjoyed that Watson sets this story up by saying that it’s an older story but he has been prevented from writing about it because the woman it involved was still alive.  Now that she has recently passed, it was fair game.

A woman comes to Holmes fearing for her life.  She literally woke up in a cold sweat and flew as fast as she could to Baker St.

Helen Stoner has been living with her stepfather for many years.  He married Helen and her twin sister’s mother when the girls were two and living in India.  They moved back to England, but rather than him starting his medical practice as he proclaimed, he returned to his family’s old mansion and set about doing his own thing.

Rather than being a beloved old resident, he has become a monster–fighting with people, causing the police to come out to the house at all hours.  He has also become quite peculiar:

He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies, and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end. He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and a baboon, which wander freely over his grounds and are feared by the villagers almost as much as their master.

He has a cheetah and a baboon roaming the grounds. (more…)

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Arthur Conan Doyle–“The Blue Carbuncle” [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes] (1892)

Posted in Adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle, Christmas, Geese, Greed, Mystery, Sherlock Holmes, Short Story on March 31, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: March 4, 2024] “The Man with the Twisted Lip”

After a couple of lesser stories, the seventh story in this collection returns Holmes to his glory.  For instance, he looks at a felt hat and determines

That the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him.

Outstanding.

The hat belongs to a man who was carrying a Christmas goose.  He was set upon by some thugs and dropped the goose.  But when he fought off the thugs, he smashed a window.  Peterson, a constable happened upon the scene, but everyone fled, leaving Peterson with a hat and a goose.  No one claimed the goose, so Peterson ate it and Holmes took the hat.

But Peterson comes back soon after saying that in the goose was a blue gem–the Countess of Morcar’s blue carbuncle.

Holmes lays some simple traps and determines that at least two people are not suspects in the theft.  But this case, which seems so challenging actually get solved fairly easily.  The remainder of the story actually lays out how the jewel wound up in a goose.

I have read another version of this story (in comic book form) and I feel like the “how” part may have been placed in a different order, which made the story a bit more suspenseful.  But perhaps I am misremembering.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The four novels of the canon:

  1. A Study in Scarlet (1887)
  2. The Sign of the Four (1890)
  3. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
  4. The Valley of Fear (1915)

The 56 short stories are collected in five books:

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
  2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894)
  3. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
  4. His Last Bow (1917)
  5. The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) contains 12 stories published in The Strand between July 1891 and June 1892

  1. “A Scandal in Bohemia” (June 1891)
  2. “The Red-Headed League” (August 1891)
  3. “A Case of Identity” (September 1891)
  4. “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” (October 1891)
  5. “The Five Orange Pips” (November 1891)
  6. “The Man with the Twisted Lip” (December 1891)
  7. “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (January 1892)
  8. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” (February 1892)
  9. “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb” (March 1892)
  10. “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” (April 1892)
  11. “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” (May 1892)
  12. “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” (June 1892)

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Arthur Conan Doyle–“The Man with the Twisted Lip” [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes] (1891)

Posted in Arthur Conan Doyle, Drugs, Murder, Mystery, Sherlock Holmes, Short Story on March 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: March 4, 2024] “The Man with the Twisted Lip”

The sixth story in this collection was rather slight and seemed to have a lot more set up than actual mystery.

It was especially odd because it begins with a woman coming to Holmes (and specifically Holmes’ wife) for help finding her husband.  He has been going to an opium den for quite some time, but he always returns.  But he hasn’t been home for two days!

Holmes goes to the den and finds the man.  He puts him in a cab, but while he’s there, Holmes catches his attention.  Homes has been undercover in the opium den because of a case that he’s on.  He asks Holmes to help him.

The case is fairly straightforward.  A man left his home to go to the city to get presents for his children.  On the same day, his wife heads to the city to pick up a package.  While she’s in town, she sees her husband in the window of the opium den.  When she goes to investigate, she is foiled by the den owner.  The police are quickly called and the only person they can find is a beggar Hugh Boone who is well known to everyone (he has orange hair, a giant scar and a twisted lip).  There’s no sign of the missing man except for his clothes and an open window.

It is presumed that the man was tossed out the window into the sea and is now dead.

Holmes puzzles over this for a night and then reaches the conclusion that solves the mystery.

I know that some of the mysteries are ones that can be solved by the reader, but this one has a lot of details that the reader couldn’t possible know.  In fairness, I guess Holmes wouldn’t know them either.

On the other hand, the backstory about the missing man is pretty interesting and that alone pretty much makes the story a good read.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The four novels of the canon:

  1. A Study in Scarlet (1887)
  2. The Sign of the Four (1890)
  3. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
  4. The Valley of Fear (1915)

The 56 short stories are collected in five books:

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
  2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894)
  3. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
  4. His Last Bow (1917)
  5. The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) contains 12 stories published in The Strand between July 1891 and June 1892

  1. “A Scandal in Bohemia” (June 1891)
  2. “The Red-Headed League” (August 1891)
  3. “A Case of Identity” (September 1891)
  4. “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” (October 1891)
  5. “The Five Orange Pips” (November 1891)
  6. “The Man with the Twisted Lip” (December 1891)
  7. “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (January 1892)
  8. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” (February 1892)
  9. “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb” (March 1892)
  10. “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” (April 1892)
  11. “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” (May 1892)
  12. “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” (June 1892)

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Arthur Conan Doyle–“The Five Orange Pips” [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes] (1891)

Posted in Arthur Conan Doyle, Australia, Blackmail, Lady Lamb, Magana, Mitski, Murder, Mystery, Racism, Regrets, Robbery, Sherlock Holmes, Short Story on March 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: February 4, 2024] “The Five Orange Pips”

The fifth story in this collection is notable to me for the context of the mystery more than the mystery itself.

A gentleman named John Openshaw tells Holmes that his Uncle Elias has been killed.  As a young man, Elias went to Florida, joined the Confederate Army, made some money and came back to England.  John lives on his estate.

Recently Elias received a mysterious letter from India with the initials K.K.K. on it.  The only thing the letter contained was five orange seeds (pips).  Elias frekaed out and became even more reclusive.

Elias was found dead on the grounds of his house, but it was ruled a suicide.  John did not believe it was a suicide.

John’s father inherited the estate.  He soon received a similarly peculiar note with orange pips.  This note told him to leave Elias’s papers at the sundial.  But Elias had burnt the papers.  John’s father was dead soon after–this one ruled an accident.

John has now received a letter asking for the papers and that’s why he has come to Holmes.

What’s most notable about this story is that the K.K.K. (and this seems really obvious now, but who would have guessed) stands for Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was effectively defunct at the time he wrote this.  Sadly it has been revitalized since this writing and remains the scourge that it was at the time.

Obviously, Holmes didn’t go after the Klan, but it’s nice to know that the ship carrying the Klansmen was destroyed in the story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The four novels of the canon:

  1. A Study in Scarlet (1887)
  2. The Sign of the Four (1890)
  3. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
  4. The Valley of Fear (1915)

The 56 short stories are collected in five books:

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
  2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894)
  3. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
  4. His Last Bow (1917)
  5. The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) contains 12 stories published in The Strand between July 1891 and June 1892

  1. “A Scandal in Bohemia” (June 1891)
  2. “The Red-Headed League” (August 1891)
  3. “A Case of Identity” (September 1891)
  4. “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” (October 1891)
  5. “The Five Orange Pips” (November 1891)
  6. “The Man with the Twisted Lip” (December 1891)
  7. “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (January 1892)
  8. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” (February 1892)
  9. “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb” (March 1892)
  10. “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” (April 1892)
  11. “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” (May 1892)
  12. “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” (June 1892)

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Arthur Conan Doyle–“The Boscombe Valley Mystery” [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes] (1891)

Posted in Arthur Conan Doyle, Australia, Blackmail, Lady Lamb, Magana, Mitski, Murder, Mystery, Regrets, Robbery, Sherlock Holmes, Short Story on February 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MAGANA-Teeth (2024)

I saw Lady Lamb back in 2019 when they opened for New Pornographers.  In my post I had singled out her bassist Jeni Magaña

fantastic bass from Jeni Magana.  Magana is also the bassist for Mitski and she has such a dynamite sound.  I could have listened to Magana play all night long.

I recently got a DM from Audio Antihero saying that since I seemed to be a fan, would I like to hear the new Magana solo record?  I initially assumed that it was a new album by the singer of Lady Lamb (Aly Splatro), it had been five years, I can’t be expected to remember everything.

The record didn’t sound anything like Lady Lamb, and that’s when I read the liner notes and saw my mistake.

Teeth is available next month, and you can hear a few songs now.  The bandcamp page says Magana describes the album

as “Witchy Rock,” … unlike any of her past works. An album about “regrowth and a new view on the world,” its sound touches on Acid Folk, Alternative Pop, and even Krautrock as she tackles the bleakest and most brutally honest subjects of her songwriting career.

I liked the album a lot and although I haven’t had time to write about albums so much anymore, I wanted to give this indie label a shout.

All other instruments: Jeni Magaña

The album opens with strummed guitar that sounds slightly-off–in an intriguingly (minorly) dissonant way that I found really intriguing.  Then “Garden” introduces Magana’s lovely full voice.  Keys float in to flesh out the sound as it builds somewhat.  It’s not really an indication of what will come next, but it does hint a little at the unusual music within.

“Beside You” introduces a starkly fuzzy guitar line and what sounds like electronic toy piano.  But most of the music fades back for the verses as an electronic drum (the snare is close to a clap sound) keeps the music going.  It’s like eccentric bedroom pop, but it sounds really clean.  The song is about 3 minutes long and half way through it’s like a full band joins in and the song explodes into fullness–with some terrific harmony vocals.

More unusual instrumentation follows on “Matter” which features not one but two (I think) clarinet melodies to introduce the song.  Then comes in a cool electronic bass sound to propel the song.  Incidentally, Jeni Magaña plays everything on the record except for drums (Jonathan Smith) and strings: Violin: Jenna Moynihan and Cello: Marie Kim.  The mixing of the clarinets and the big synth sounds works wonderfully together–in one of those moments where when the bass notes return after the middle part it’s like an old friend returning.

“Paul” strips the music back to a quiet, prepared-sounding guitar and her beautiful voice.  Magana’s voice sounds familiar in a way that I find very comforting (although I can’t place who I think she sounds like).  After a verse the song builds up with a few flutes and strings.  The melody is lovely.   And I love the return of the clarinets. (more…)

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Arthur Conan Doyle–“The Red-Headed League” [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes] (1891)

Posted in Adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle, Banks, Fraud, Mystery, Robbery, Sherlock Holmes, Short Story on February 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: February 4, 2024] “The Red-Headed League”

The third story in this collection is one that I have heard of and that I know is significant in the canon.  But I didn’t know anything about it, which made reading it even more fun.

Like most stories, it starts with Watson coming over to Holmes’ place while he’s just meeting with a client.  He says he’s quite puzzled by this one.

Jabez Wilson is a man with red hair.  He owns a pawn shop and is not terribly busy these days.  He has a man working for him and the only way he can keep the man is because he accepts half pay.  The employee brought to Wilson’s attention an ad in the paper about the red-headed league.

The league has an endowment and they are looking for a new member to replace one who has left.  For 100 pounds a month, all you need to do is work for a few hours a week.  The line for interviews is very long, but Wilson has the perfect flame-red hair that gets him the gig.  His job is to copy the encyclopedia every day from 10-2.  He is not permitted to leave during those hours and he cannot miss a day or the gig is forfeited.

Pretty weird. (more…)

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Arthur Conan Doyle–“A Case of Identity” [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes] (1891)

Posted in Adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle, Marriage Trouble, Mystery, Sexism, Sherlock Holmes, Short Story, Yuck! on February 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: February 4, 2024] “A Case of Identity”

Many years ago I was on a bit of a Sherlock Holmes kick.  I read the first two novels and then couldn’t get a copy of this collection, so I guess I forgot about the detective.  Since i have recently listened to a couple of Sherlock Holmesian books I decided to track down the next book to read.

And I was quite surprised to realize that while Arthur Conan Doyle did write a lot of Sherlock stories, most of them were short stories, not novels (See the list below).

So since these were short stories I decided to give a crack at them.

This second story in the book is remarkably… inconsequential?  Holmes has a habit of saying that big mysteries often disguise simple crimes–if it’s a huge deal, then the plotting must be simple.  He also likes that life is far ore bizarre than fiction (amusing in a short story).  But even by those standards, this is a pretty small story.  It also feels not very hard to figure out–I have also realized that much of Holmes’ success comes from not letting on some things that he has figured out (thereby not letting the readers in on it either).

So Mary Sutherland has come to see Holmes about a personal matter.  There is some excellent moments of Holmes reading the woman from outside and telling what her concern is just by the way she is standing.  I also realized that so many of the story really do depend on British mannerisms and behaviors–things that wouldn’t come across as well today.  Like cuffs being mended and ink stains on fingers.

At any rate, Holmes figures she has a story of woe about a romance.  And so she does. (more…)

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Arthur Conan Doyle–“A Scandal in Bohemia” [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes] (1891)

Posted in Adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle, Drugs, Mystery, Sexism, Sherlock Holmes, Short Story on February 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: February 4, 2024] “A Scandal in Bohemia”

Many years ago I was on a bit of a Sherlock Holmes kick.  I read the first two novels and then couldn’t get a copy of this collection, so I guess I forgot about the detective.  Since i have recently listened to a couple of Sherlock Holmesisn books I decided to track down the next book to read.

And I was quite surprised to realize that while Arthur Conan Doyle did write a lot of Sherlock stories, most of them were short stories, not novels (See the list below).

So since these were short stories I decided to give a crack at them.

This first one “A Scandal in Bohemia” is quite well-known as it introduces HER–the woman–Irene Adler.  In this first story Adler befuddles the genius who is Sherlock Holmes.

The story is remarkably tame–even Watson says so as he writes of the case.

The King of Bohemia is meant to be married.  But Irene Adler has a photo of the two of them together that she is using to blackmail him.  She threatens to have the photo get out to the public ass soon as he announces his marriage.

The King is a mildly comical character because he is quite smitten with Miss Adler (who is from New Jersey!).  But she is not of his class so he cannot pursue anything with her.

He has tried several different ways of getting the photo back (legal and decided illegal), but has had no luck. (more…)

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Nicole Krauss–“Shelter” (New Yorker, October 3, 2022)

Posted in Hotels, Humiliation, Israel, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Nicole Krauss, Pregnancy, Short Story on January 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: January 4, 2024] “Shelter”

I wasn’t taken with this story.  The middle part of it was really interesting but I felt like the opening and ending were rather flat.

Cohen is in Tel Aviv.  He is a very smart man who helped to build a company that a bigger company liked enough to buy out.  But since then he hasn’t really done anything creative.

In fact most of his life seems to be settling.

In Tel Aviv he sees a young woman who is very pregnant. He wants to talk to her because she reminds him of his wife when she was very pregnant several decades ago.  But he doesn’t talk to her.  And his wife is cheating on him (with a heart doctor). (more…)

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Caleb Crain–“Easter” (New Yorker, September 26, 2022)

Posted in Caleb Crain, Death, Drugs, New York City, New Yorker, Short Story on January 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: January 2, 2024] “Easter”

This story follows two events in Jacob’s life.

They are placed concurrently often with no discernable change in the narrative.  And that makes sense since Jacob is stoned for most of it.

Jacob had driven from Houston to Galveston to visit Stu. Stu was a college friend.  They had gotten stoned together but never just the two of them–always in a group.  So Jacob was a little nervous.

But they quickly got stoned and all was well.

The other story was a few days earlier when he flew from Harvard to Texas to be with his family for Easter break.  They were all going to stay with Jacob’s grandparents.  Jacob’s grandfather had been a doctor and often self-medicated.  He also medicated his wife.  But since he was no longer practicing, his prescriptions were not always safe. (more…)

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