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On Conan Doyle (2011)

by Michael Dirda(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1400839491 (ISBN13: 9781400839490)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Princeton University Press

review 1: I often enjoy these books about reading a single iconic author, though I am far too various and even omnivorous in my reading tastes to be in love with one author as the writers inevitably report themselves as being (they remind me of my grandmother's blinkered devotion to Judaism, a passion that only fully made sense to me when I read her obituary and realized that it had given her life a truly comprehensible shape). I especially like hearing about people's youthful encounters with their beloved author of choice, and the world of fans and how they enact their devotion, whether it's survivalists learning how to churn butter and can fruit in The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure or modern bluestockings agonizing over their custom ball gowns in Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaf... morefe. So not surprising: The best part of this book is about Michael Dirda first encountered Doyle as a boy, thrilling to the description of the hound of the Baskervilles: "A Hound it was, an enormous coal black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes had ever seen." The fan group part, not so much. When Dirda tells us about his group, the Baker Street Irregulars, it's mostly just boasting about how cool they all are, being judges, publishers of small presses, bla bla bla. In fact, the book kind of devolves after the initial rapturous love story of boy-meets-book, apart from interesting background info on Sherlock Holmes; for example that he was based on a famous professor of surgery in Edinborough, Dr. Bell, who used the deductive method to astonish his students and had sidekick/amanuensis named....you guess it...Dr. Watson. Maybe my problem is that the book was too true to its title: On Conan Doyle. I don't really care about Doyle's other works. I was hoping that Dirda would explain the enduring fascination of Sherlock Holmes, who has take up residence in our collective Anglo-American imagination and morphed into so many great updates lately (the Robert Downey, Jr. movies, the two TV shows Elementary and Sherlock, not to mention a host of wonderful "pastiche" novels such as The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King). But that mystery remains unsolved. A case for Sherlock himself perhaps?
review 2: I am a big fan of Arthur Conan Doyle and have read his Sherlock Holmes stories numerous times. I never thought that he had written any other stories. Michael Dirda, long time critic and book columnist, presents a critical analysis of the works of Doyle, all of his works. Beginning with Dirda's own childhood introduction to Sherlock Holmes, he traces his own interest and love of all things Doyle to the present day. Along the way, he introduces the reader to Doyle's other fiction works (fantasy, science fiction,etc.) as well as his nonfiction works. The book is very readable, short but full of interesting facts. I would highly recommend it to any one who enjoys Doyle. less

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