A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle – author of The Hound of The Baskervilles – my note is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-hound-of-baskervilles-by-sir-conan.html together with hundreds of other reviews - 9 out of 10

 

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle – author of The Hound of The Baskervilles – my note is at  https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-hound-of-baskervilles-by-sir-conan.html together with hundreds of other reviews

 

9 out of 10

 

No wonder we find The Complete Sherlock Holmes at number one on the list of Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time, as compiled by The Mystery Writers of America association, then it has about 450k ratings on Goodreads and some seventeen thousand and counting reviews on Goodreads…oh, before I forget, A Study in Scarlet, the aforementioned Hound of The Baskervilles, and The Sign of Four are placed on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read compilation, and the latter is on my to read agenda, and a note will be placed here soon

 

It is an astounding mystery, that has the usual murder, then we follow some suspects that turn out to have so many leads, clues and even evidence against them, but these were false premises, and the guilty party turns out to have traveled from so far, seeking vengeance, for a horrible act, which somehow explains the killing

What is so mesmerizing to this reader, and probably many of the half million or so that took the time to share online their thoughts, is that we have the crime in London, and then we read a story that takes place in America, near Utah – spoiler alert, I will write about some details, and things you are not interested in, and the among those 450k reviews, you must find multitudes that are better – and it has…Mormons at the core

 

John Ferrier survives when pioneers die on route, and he saves a girl, Lucy, who will become his adopted daughter, but before that, they encounter a party of latter-day saints, and they are offered a chance to live, if they adopt their religion, or else they would be abandoned in the desert and left to die, so that ‘no rotten element would putrefy the whole fruit’ or something along these lines…they will thrive, John Ferrier become rich

However, he is not really into the Mormon dogma, he had said he would take the girl with this party, under any terms, knowing they would both die otherwise, and he would clash with the fanatics, because his daughter, Lucy, is now a resplendent young woman, saved from being trampled by one dashing young man, Jefferson Hope, who is not of the latter-day saints, and hence he is seen as a heathen, or worse by the group

 

The leader of the sect – I would take backlash for this, if only there were readers, so there is blessing in staying here, in a quiet corner of the net – forbids a marriage outside the faith – it sounds crazy to me, but then so do the Scientology precepts, and all the other religions for that matter – and instructs Ferrier to have her marry someone else

There are two sons of leaders in the Council, Joseph Stangerson or Enoch Drebber, both of them with a few wives – at the time that was not just allowed, encouraged, albeit it is forbidden now – that want to take Lucy Ferrier and more importantly for them, the fortune of her father in their possession and they are the choice of the leader

 

They even give an ultimatum of a month, and then place threatening signs, warnings, making it clear that the independent man either obeys, or else their fate would be sealed, and it would be terrible…they wait for Jefferson Hope to return, and he does so just three days before the end of the term given and they flee the sect

It seems as if they may have won the game, it is a tense, captivating narrative, story within a story, more than well done, and then Hope tries to find a source of food, he is hunting this animal, it is a difficult chase, and then he loses his track for some time, finds himself in unfamiliar territory, with night falling and no moon yet

 

Eventually, the hunter finds his way, but to a gruesome site, the fire is extinguished in the camp, and there is no sign of the woman he loves and her father, worse, he sees a place where the earth indicates a tragedy has taken place, and on top of the place, a sign said that John Ferrier died in 1860, there is no other grave…

The devasted Jefferson Hope sees that there is nothing he can do now to stop the Mormons from sealing the fate of his lover (in a platonic sense, I doubt they had had carnal knowledge https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/07/carnal-knowledge-written-by-jules.html of each other)  but he will act

 

His life will be dedicated to revenging Lucy and her father, he travels back to the Mormon town, where he finds she was forced to marry, but then she dies within a month, and her suffering lover comes to the wake where the women stay with the body, he kisses the corpse on the temple and then takes the wedding ring

This will be a crucial element for Sherlock Holmes, who will seek to understand what each clue means and then will piece together the whole picture – Hope shoots at the house of one of the villains, then tries to kill one with a rock, but eventually, the two scoundrels leave the sect in a schism, and then they seem to be eluding punishment

 

The vigilante follows in their traces, looking in every major town, then finds them, one is rich and the other his assistant now, and they throw him in jail, for enough days that they depart for Europe, with the avenging hero on their tail, looking in Russia, Denmark, Paris and then London, where we get by now what must have happened

Finally, the men that killed John Ferrier, just because he would not allow his adopted daughter to be locked into a harem, and what was clearly a vicious faith – incidentally, Mitt Romney is one of the few decent republicans left out there, an angel when compared with the monstrous Orange Jesus – and then caused the death of the woman, kidnapped, abused, and eventually also murdered, are caught in a different court of justice…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”