Customer Reviews

Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Friend of Oscar Wilde

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is one of the most amusing I have read in a while. Many clever Wilde quotations are worked into the dialogue. It honestly isn't much of a mystery novel, but it is great fun to read if you have the right sense of humour. If you are a fan of both Sherlock Holmes and Oscar Wilde, this may be the book for you.

Warning: Do not read this book if you "dislike" homosexuals or if you are looking for a straight (if you'll pardon my pun) mystery. You will not enjoy it.

Author Russell Brown is not the first to speculate on the sexual orientation of Holmes, Watson and others in the Conan Doyle stories. While there is nothing explicit in the stories about Holmes having much of a love life (his admiration for 'the' woman notwithstanding), Watson did have many marriages. It is not unusual for modern writers and modern scholars to 'read between the lines' when trying to discern something like 'the love that dares not speak its name', which, by this very definition, means it is not going to be made explicit.

Russell Brown takes the tactic of combining fact with fiction, drawing upon the real life persona and proclivities of Oscar Wilde, a fellow Victorian/Edwardian figure, and draws Holmes into mysteries that at first Holmes resists, but eventually acquieses to. Much of Wilde's lines here are adapted from or taken directly from his own work; much of the Holmesian character is derivative of Conan Doyle, but perhaps with a bit more intention in driving the author's point about tolerance and acceptance, something that takes Holmes some time to reach.

As one can see from reviews, this is a book that many people either love or hate; this probably turns on their attitudes toward the subject matter of sexual orientation than on the work itself, and this is thus a fair indication - if this is a topic that disturbs you, don't get this book. If it is a topic in which you have interest, this might be of interest to you.

If, however, you are looking for Holmes-related material (I collect such things, the good, bad and ugly), this is a minor offering in such literature. It is worth reading, but is not groundbreaking, and would be a second or third tier extra-canonical story. Were it possible, I would grant this three-and-one-half stars, but I am generally inclined to round up.

I really did not like this book.

1) Oscar Wilde is ANNOYING. Yup, the famous wit has been reduced to a rambling nuisance who never shuts up. This would not be a problem if his charm had carried over into the fiction, but honestly, it didn't. Not a bit. What is even worse is that it doesn't mesh well with whatever's going on at the present situation. Nobody (including Wilde himself) acknowledges anything he says in this long, uninterrupted speech of borrowed quotes. He is also described as excessively fat and greasy with other such vulgar adjectives thrown his way, heaven knows why. I never thought I'd say this, but Oscar... please just shut up.

2) Holmes and Watson are disgustingly homophobic to the point where Holmes actually says that men of Wilde's fashion are worse than murderers. Why, do you ask? Because what society sees as vulgar, Wilde sees as common place. This is Holmes' argument, despite it being stated several times in cannon that Holmes hates every aspect of society and all the social norms included with it. As he and Watson are both bohemian in nature and very modern in their thoughts, I found this to be the most unforgivable offense.

3) Though I applaud this book for leaving Moriarty alone, I'm not so sure the alternative is any better. In fact, it's another example of recycling established characters and having them server as every twist instead of adding anything new. Necessary? No. Creative? Absolutely not.

4) Watson has been reduced to an ignorantly minded individual who doesn't think twice about calling a prostitute for carnal pleasures. This is a small detail, and yet I found it impossible to ignore.

5) There are also some gay tensions between Watson and Holmes, which is why I wanted to read this, but because the characters are to skewed it's hard to look here for any sort of interesting interpretation of the matter. If you'd like to see a good example of a romantic bond, then either look towards the extremely well read "My Dearest Holmes" or immerse yourself in the world of fanfiction. Don't bother looking for it here.

6) Last (but not at all least) there is absolutely nothing new here. I'd say a good 60% of this book was made up of existing quotes, characters, and ideas from both Wilde and the ACD stories. The dialogue, introspection; almost none of it is original. I don't know why authors like this find that a necessary thing to do. Either they think they are paying tribute, or else they're too frightened to get it wrong so they just decide to draw directly from the source material.

All in all, the charming characters have been butchered, the prose all borrowed, and really, nothing new or creative can be got by reading this. I don't usually like reading stories involving actual people mixed in with the fictitious, but I'm sure you can fine dear Oscar portrayed with proper elegance elsewhere while Holmes and Watson, too, have seen better justice. If you want to see a romantic romp, look up that other book I mentioned; seriously, it's cheap; it's got wonderful prose; and it's everything good that this one is not.

I genuinely smiled once through the entire course of this book, but even that's not worth the single star I awarded it.

Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Friend of Oscar Wilde
by Russell A. Brown

Good fun 4*

First, this book is clearly not even an attempt to write a missing story that Conan Doyle might actually have written, something that could convince us that the infamous tin dispatch box (which must be the size of a large steamer trunk given all the manuscripts that have oozed forth over the years) was actually uncovered. Instead it falls in that broad category of Holmes pastiches that interpret or expand the Canon very loosely, often with modern sensibilities very much at the front. (It does not seem to me, however, to be one of the sort that tries to satirize or make a disparaging point about the original Holmes stories, a group uniformly despicable.) And while I am not usually very fond of stories that stray too far from the original characters, and Brown's endeavor is not the most polished such effort and does go over the top at places; nevertheless, I found it overall pretty well done and enjoyable ... as well as side splittingly funny in parts. It's certainly worth a read, if not adding to your library.

[For those put off by any "gay agenda", I didn't see one other than that of tolerance. Obviously, simply having Wilde as a main character is likely to bring up the topic, and the mystery involves a man (the "mysterious friend") caught in the toils of a blackmailer due to a supposed gay encounter. One of the points that seems a bit overdone is the degree to which Holmes and Watson are portrayed as reflexive homophobes, taking the official line of the time; but then Brown also overdoes the extent and obviousness, even obsequiousness, of the Holmes/Watson faith in the primacy of England and it's upper classes.]

I did not like this book at all. The author depicts Holmes and Watson as if they hated each other and I found myself wondering if the author had ever actually read any of the orignal stories. My only recommedation would: Avoid this book.

True fans of Holmes and Watson - avoid this book. I couldn't even finish it. The central character is actually Oscar Wilde, and the story is actually an attempt to entrap Holmes and Watson in a modern-day agenda. I have no ill will toward that agenda, but it drives the plot and the author distorts the characters in unbelievable ways. To the author: If you're going to write a book to push your agenda, make it subtle and keep the action honest.