Hound, Chapter Nine: The spirit of the moor.

Hanging out in chapter nine of The Hound of the Baskervilles, one can see how desperate Watson gets for entertainment out here on the moor. Sure, he's all about protecting Sir Henry, but when we find ourselves hiding among the rocks on the top of a hill just to watch the baronet pantomiming "Love Victorian Style" in the distance . . . well, maybe we should just be napping back at the Hall.

I mean, look at them.

"I'm Sir Henry of Baskerville, I own this whooooooole moor!"
"I'm Beryl Stapleton, blink, blink. I'm the prettiest girl on this whooooooole moor!"
"I should own you, then!"
"No, I will run away and a dog will eat you!"

Okay, Watson's looking a little testy at the play-by-play, and Stapleton is running in like a referee to break up the hold Sir Henry got Beryl into anyway. This whole Sir Henry - Beryl - Stapleton weirdness has at least gotten Stapleton to quit going on and on about the legend of Hugo Baskerville and the hound. Though he claims to be a naturalist, he almost seems like more of a supernaturalist.

If you've ever been through The Hound of the Baskervilles before, the romance between Sir Henry Baskerville and Beryl Stapleton has to be the most spoiler-killed part of the story. I mean, the dark, creepy moor at night is still a dark, creepy moor at night. The giant black dog is still a giant black dog. But this love story between the Canadian and the girl with the exotic foreign look? Once you've been to the end of this book, there's no unseeing what you've seen, right?

Yikes.

But eventually we get to see Watson in solo action as a mystery-solver as he recruits Sir Henry in some sneaky-sneaky to see what John Barrymore (not the actor) is up to. We've seen Watson do the late night vigil with Sherlock Holmes to a successful result. But when he tries it with Sir Henry Baskerville? Let's see.

Sitting in Sir Henry's room silently until three A.M. -- check!
Turning down the lamp to look like everyone's asleep -- check!
Lighting up cigarettes and smoking like fiends -- WATSON!!!

No wonder it takes two nights for Barrymore to finally give up and try to creep past this obvious  stakeout. Sure, he's a little deaf, but his nose still works! I bet he can even smell what's cooking when Sir Henry and Doctor John start grilling him. But he's a good man, that Barrymore. He doesn't spill his wife's problems. Luckily, Eliza Selden Barrymore is made of just as sturdy stuff, and gives us all the next big key to this adventure. I say "key," because what she says gets us into one of the best moments of our little visit to Dartmoor.

Out into the autumn night, the smell of damp decaying foliage, the rustle of dry leaves as a light rain starts to fall. Armed with guns and riding crops to beef up our courage. And then, the minute Sir Henry mentions "that hour of darkness in which the power of evil is exalted," the slow rising howl coming across the moor, "the whole air throbbing with it."

The spirit of the moor, the howl of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Even when Watson names the beast, you can hear the capital "H" Hound in his voice. It doesn't stop the two brave chaps, though. On they go, chilled to the bone, stumbling over the rocks, but pressing onward until they find a single candle burning behind some rocks. And in the light of that candle, they find a man who would seem to have been infected by that very howling spirit of the moor, a bestial fellow who primally heaves a rock at them and escapes.

But then, we get a moment that to the enlightened Sherlock Holmes fan is the Bat Signal appearing over Gotham City. A vision that, just as the howl of the Hound possessed their world just moments before, now takes back the night. High on a granite tor, silhouetted againet the full moon is a tall, thin man with crossed arms, seeming to ponder the land before him before passing god-like judgement upon all that lays beneath.

"He might have been the very spirit of that terrible place," Watson will write when he's safely back indoors. Watson has the right idea, but this isn't the spirit of the moor. This is a spirit of uncovered truth. A spirit of bright light shown on dark corners. A spirit of justice . . . basically, the Batman of his day, so the dark outline against the moon thing suits him well. A mystery to those who don't know him, but to those who do . . . .

The answer to a giant ghostly hound has come to the moor.

Time to cheer, because this bit's about to get real.

Would I sleep with Sherlock Holmes?

Penn Jillette likes to tell a story of how he once met a woman who had the chance to sleep with Elvis and turned it down. After finding out that fact, he didn't want to have anything more to do with her, as the thought of not taking the chance to sleep with a legend, just to be able to tell the tale, was unbelievable to him. He always concludes his story by saying that he, as a heterosexual male, would definitely sleep with Elvis, given the chance.

As I wrote yesterday, the Baker Street Babes raise a lot of questions in their latest podcast, but one of those is something they were asking their guests in the initial interview: "If you had the chance to bang any character in the Canon, who would it be?" Interestingly, not all of their guests answered, "Sherlock Holmes."

I mean, when I stop to think about it, I have to sympathize with Penn Jillette. It's Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes. I mean, I never found the guy attractive, but hey, it's Sherlock Holmes. You could write (or have ghostwritten) a book called I Slept With Sherlock Holmes and have people buy you drinks for life. Sure, the next day's conversation would probably go like this:

"Hey, everybody, Sherlock Holmes isn't gay after all!"
"How do you know that?"
"Well, I slept with him. He didn't seem that enthused."
"You're barely acceptable as a heterosexual, no wonder he wasn't thrilled."
"Yeah, but have you slept with Sherlock Holmes, Miss Thang?"
"Well, no . . . ."
"So there. Call me when a literary legend finds you hot enough to sleep with."

See? Suddenly you've just one-upped everybody.

Now we just need an actress starring as Sherlock Holmes who makes this hypothetical concept a little more palatable. (I'm sorry, the young lady playing Holmes in Carter DeLaat's web series 221B just looks a little too young. Like twelve sometimes. No wonder Watson's upset when she's injecting cocaine.) Helen Mirren? Parker Posey? Uma Thurman? But then, does female Sherlock Holmes count as the Sherlock Holmes?

Ah, well. Far too many questions flying around these days, thanks to the new blood in our Sherlockian circles. But we'll get around to answering them all eventually, even if we have to jump a few sharks to do it . . . this surely was not a blog post I ever expected to be writing.

And now, back to Dartmoor and The Hound, where nobody is doing anything the least bit scandalous . . . .

One man's point of view on sexy Sherlocking.

Any time one starts to discuss "men are this way, women are that way," one is just looking for trouble. Gender traits are definitely a sliding scale, and as much as we'd like to claim either sex is all the same, it just ain't so. Given all that, and the trouble I'm apt to get into on a discussion of same, here goes nothing . . . by the way, this particular blog is for the eighteen and older set, so you kiddies scamper off now.

Soooooooo much foreplay on the latest episode of the Baker Street Babes' podcast. Pre-show intro, proper intro, asking multiple guests the BSB questions . . . were this podcast run by men, I should think they'd get to the actual sex part a whole lot sooner . . . or would they? After a hundred years of male-run Sherlockiana, why is this the first recorded conversation on Sherlock and sex? Has the internet finally loosened cultural norms up that much, or were us guys all afraid of getting in trouble with the missus? Or does it run much deeper than that?

Episode 44 of the Babes podcast, "Sherlock After Dark, Part 1," raises a lot of questions. I don't care if you're male, female, gay, straight, asexual, bisexual, or something else that hasn't fully caught on yet, sex can usually stir up a conversation, especially when we're amongst our favorite companions. And it's not like it's never come up in Sherlockian circles before . . . my blushes, Watson! But the ladies have opened up a can of penis-shaped worms this episode, and I can't help but blog a comment or two.

The Babes raise the classic question of a stereotypical male encountering slash fan fiction, "Why do women enjoy imagining two men together?" and, yes, there are males out there so narcissistic that they can't comprehend any point of view but their own. But I think the question they're truly asking is something that runs a lot deeper in our culture: "Why are you women going there?"

Slash fiction, with its oft-explicit Kirk-on-Spock, Holmes-on-Watson sex scenes are a distinctly female past-time. If you look at the hundred years of Sherlockiana pre-TV fandoms, you don't see a lot of Holmes-and-Watson-having-sex pastiches. Not with each other, not with any hottie clients, not even with Dr. and Mrs. Watson on their honeymoon. Sherlockian chronologers even seem to go out of their way to keep Watson chastely at one-wife-and-done. And when you consider that Sherlockiana was male-dominated for so long, with men-only meetings in many cities, you have to stop and wonder why.

I mean, men like sex. Men like sex a lot. A LOT. Women like to talk about how a man will never know how painful childbirth truly is, but . . . and I know many a lady who will argue this with me . . . I don't think most women will ever truly understand just how much men like sex. So why aren't we writing pastiches about Holmes and Kitty Winter rolling around the bushes, or Watson and . . . well, everyone getting it on? Grimesby Roylott was left alone in the house with full-grown twin step-daughters, for gosh sakes! If that's not a premise for porn, I don't know what is.

One could go the "elite devotee" route and claim that the Sherlockian male is just better than that, but c'mon . . . Les Klinger didn't bring up Watson's "ejaculated" on the BSB podcast because he just discovered it. Bawdy bits have been a part of Sherlockian culture for a very long time. But not much sex fanfic.

It doesn't take much strolling around the internet to see one difference in males and females when it comes to constructing sexual entertainments. Men, the prime consumers of internet porn, don't seem to need plot. Or scene. Or characters. Or names. Or costumes. Or . . . well, you get the picture. Fanfic "porn" is about the culmination of a passionate relationship.  The ladies writing it seem to just like to take their time in getting to a story's climax.

Before male Sherlockians spend too much time complaining about the rise of fandom Sherlockiana and all it brings with it, like this new sexy side of pastichery, perhaps we should stop and think about what is actually being brought to the table. A little more foreplay, perhaps. A little more relationship discussion. A little more balance. A chance to see favorite characters from a different point of view.

And before female Sherlockians (and podcasting ladies) spend too much time pondering why men don't get this or that bit, they should also remember that male or female, we are as varied as the colors of the rainbow when it comes to some topics, and for every man or woman you meet that's one way, rest assured there's an opposite number of the same gender somewhere else. Which is why I could well be wrong on any statement I made in the preceding ramble.

Kudos to the Baker Street Babes for keeping it interesting. Looking forward to part two. (Though why you couldn't have just had one very long special episode, I'm not entirely sure.)

Hound, Chapter Eight: Nothing says "bleak" like time on the moor.

And here is where it gets a little dismal. Remember back when we were all, "Hooray! We're going to Baskerville Hall! We're going to get to see the moor!" Well, less than two weeks later, things have gotten so bad that even Watson can't bear to re-live them to write them up when he's working on the novel of this Baskerville business! He just copies off his old letters to Holmes for the next couple chapters of The Hound of the Baskervilles!

I mean, you can only wander around the old stone huts of the local cavemen for so long. You could go dig up skulls with Dr. Mortimer. And all Stapleton wants to do is just keep talking about monstrous hounds and family curses. Weird how he seems to know more about it than any of people who actually live at Baskerville Hall, but I suppose he heard about it from Sir Charles.

The two giant stone fangs at the little valley spot where evil old Hugo met his end are just a little too convenient aren't they? Almost like the story was concocted just to bring tourists down here. Of course, with the local prison unable to hold on to its convicts with any certainty, tourists are probably not going to be loving this place. Watson certainly isn't.

The best thing about the moor seems to be everybody just looking at Beryl Stapleton, but that could be "girl in the comic shop syndrome." In an environment populated by primarily males, that rare female can go from a six to a nine pretty quickly. Of course, it's better to stare at a girl whose brother might not possibly be a wizard. Remember that "dry glitter" thing Holmes was doing with his eyes a few chapters back? Stapleton is starting to do that.

Hmmm, what else is fun to do around this chapter of The Hound of the Baskervilles? Well, there's the game of going into the empty rooms in the deserted wing of Baskerville Hall with a candle, late at night. That seems to be all the rage, at least for Barrymore (and Watson, sneaking behind him).

And then there's that wacky old Frankland of Lafter Hall, whom Watson calls the local comic relief. His stand-up act is a little hit-and-miss with the townsfolk, but you know how those edgy, breakthrough comedians can be. Old Frankland is like the Andy Kaufman or the Borat of the moor, coming up with performance art lawsuits involving fences and gates. Oh, and old Frankland's telescope? He says he's looking for the escaped convict, but he's really just hoping Beryl Stapleton will stroll by.

I should listen to the Baker Street Babes latest podcast "Holmes After Dark," as maybe they'll talk about Holmes and some beauty who isn't Beryl Stapleton. See you in the next chapter!

Hound, Chapter Seven: Sunlight, fresh air, and the inevitable odd duck.

 The fascinating thing about The Hound of the Baskervilles as a mystery is the great heaping piles of mystery that keep getting shoveled upon those who walk within it. Big mysteries, like demon hounds, and small mysteries, like Mrs. Barrymore's apparent weeping. Why does she sob in the night?

Given the evidence presented so far, we have  . . . well, what? Dr. Watson says her husband is handsome, and she is "large, impassive, heavy-featured . . ." with a "stern, set expression of mouth." Yikes.

Sherlock Holmes was always looking for a female presence to detect romance in a household, but Mrs. Barrymore is weeping after the arrival of a gentleman, known to live with another gentleman, who finds her husband handsome. Barrymore professes that "we were both very attached to Sir Charles," but perhaps it was he more than her, and Mrs. Barrymore found false hope in Sir Charles's death that she could finally regain her husband's affection. And yet here comes the new resident bringing a male companion and no wife nor family.

Hey, we have to look at all the angles here. Sherlock stayed behind in London, so somebody has to spin theories and eliminate them as impossible. Of course, he usually keeps his mouth shut on the most of what he's theorizing about.

There's a pleasant, four mile walk to the village of Grimpen ahead of us, which shall make excellent theory-spinning time . . . unless we're waiting for more facts, so as not to theorize ahead of them. Judging where the "time to theorize" line is can be tricky.

Has anyone ever mentioned the Green Acres quality to the Grimpen area in daylight? A visit to the village grover/postmaster (whose name is apparently not Mr. Drucker) always puts me in mind of that. His son James delivers the telegrams. We've already met Dr. Mortimer, whose house rivals the local inn in size, dwarfing the rest of the little town. And then there's the real character with a butterfly net and a tin box on the road . . . this place is Britain's answer to Hooterville.

Better yet, the guy on the road is a fan of Dr. Watson's Beeton's Christmas Annual work. In 1889, that was the only publication Watson had publicly celebrated his friend's skills in, so this guy has to be a fan who got in on the ground floor with A Study in Scarlet. And why would a Grimpen local be in so early, unless Holmes was as area boy made good?

I really need to keep my theories in my head until they prove out a little more thoroughly.

Watson's fan's name, of course, is "Stapleton of Merripit House" as houses are more important than first names . . . at least to local eccentrics who refer to the rest of the residents as "peasants." Stapleton is a real charmer, just the sort of chap you'd like to stroll through a pony-sucking moor with, while ghost-hounds moan and ravens croak. Who else is going to talk about cavemen couches?

His sister, whom Watson "remembered that I had hear someone describe her as a beauty" appears, which is apparently odd "since ladies of any sort must be few upon the moor." She has a curious lisp, and suddenly we're learning first names.

"Halloa, Beryl!"
"Well, Jack, you are very hot!"

Later, we'll see that Beryl is very hot, too, as these Stapletons are a running family, and yet not, apparently, in shape for it. But for now, we find that she doesn't seem to be the fan of A Study in Scarlet that her brother is, as she doesn't react to the name "Dr. Watson" at all.

Jack and Beryl Stapleton, their "strange, wizened" manservant, Jack's butterfly collection . . . even with Holmes's injunction to study the neighbors, none of these make Watson think its worth his time to stick around Merripit House for lunch. He seems more concerned about his bodyguard role than that of investigator, and wants to set eyes upon Sir Henry once more, just to make sure he's safe.

Personally, I'd stay for lunch. But given that Stapleton's last establishment fell to a serious epidemic, perhaps that's not the best idea. They never do say it wasn't the food.

P.S. That was two ravens croaking, which makes me wonder if Odin watches over the moor. Perhaps that wasn't the Hound of the Baskervilles, but Fenrir that was seen roaming the countryside.

And now, Sybil Holmes.

That bizarre legal entity calling itself "Conan Doyle Estate Ltd." has finally made its countermove in the "Free Sherlock" case, and things are getting strange indeed.

As a counterpoint to Klinger and company's argument that the character of Sherlock Holmes is defined and useable from all the stories that are currently out of copyright -- thus making Estate Ltd.'s attempts at licensing of the character moot -- the Ltd. folk are claiming that splitting off the last ten stories gives Holmes multiple personalities.

Of course, the Estate Ltd. is ignoring the fact that Sherlock Holmes has had multiple personalities for over a hundred years. Father Ronald Knox pointed out in 1911 that Sherlock Holmes pre-Reichenbach and Sherlock Holmes post-Reichenbach had two different personalities.

They're also ignoring the fact that the Estate Ltd. has been licensing multiple personalities for Sherlock Holmes for years as well. Do Downey, Cumberbatch, and Miller seem like the same guy to you? And those three are just the tip of that iceberg.

It's nice they're concerned about Holmes's mental health, I suppose, and not just fencing off a cultural landmark as an investment strategy, but let's think about this for a moment.

Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet is a very different person from Sherlock Holmes in "His Last Bow." Why? Because we grow and develop as human beings. From Estate Ltd.'s perspective, we all have multiple personalities, because our five-year-old self, whom one could write one sort of tale about, is the same person as our eighty-year-old self, of whom we'd write a geriatric tale. If you break off the traits of the five-year-year old for a story, you're infringing upon the turf of the person writing the eighty-year-old's story.

In a real, actual person, that five-year-old and that eighty-year-old are the same person, and the claim might make sense. But then, of course, if we're going to legally establish Sherlock Holmes as a real person, well, then, the Estate Ltd. folks are totally out of luck -- they can't claim to own him. But we're talking about a creature of story, a legend, with defined characteristics, quotes, and dressing gown colors that can be documented to the nth degree. We know if a pastiche is using material out of "The Red-headed League," with a simple bit of research.

Estate Ltd. can have their ten stories and all that they contain. As long as a writer is writing about Sherlock Holmes in 1887, using only those details we've learned about Holmes in his stories outside of Casebook (all of which took place 1898 or after), a Sherlock Holmes can be created entirely out of non-copyrighted details. And most stories of Sherlock Holmes that people want to write tend to occur well before 1898, where the copyrights come into play.

Let their lawyers chase down sloppy pasticheurs who use 1898-and-after details in Holmes stories taking place in the 1880s. If that's fun for them, they can have at it and be well within their rights. But knocking on the door of movie studios wanting to film a Holmes/Moriarty duel? Not their turf.

The courts, of course, now have to take their usually painfully long time to sort this out. But if they let the Estate Ltd. crowd get by on just that silly argument, well, t'will be another sad day to be an American.

Hound, Chapter Six: Hey, this isn't Hogwarts!

Well, I don't know what you did yesterday, but I went with Sir Henry Baskerville to the park.

Coming into chapter six of The Hound of the Baskervilles, we get to look back at a wonderful dichotomy of the previous afternoon's possible activities for the out-of-towner in London.

Our first choice, the path of Dr. Mortimer, is that of the scientific mind, the "pure amusement" of the happily married intellectual: an afternoon at the Museum of the College of Surgeons.

Our second choice, the path of the full-blooded young bachelor, Sir Henry Baskerville, is to wander the park and "look at the folk." Yes, I know, Sir Henry is a simple farmer in the big city, but c'mon! Just walking around the park looking at random men, women, and children? I think we can safely narrow "folk" down to one of those three . . . and in that category, we can limit it to a certain age range.

Yes, Sir Henry was at the park checking out the la-dies. While Dr. Mortimer was thinking with his brain, displaying the noble intellect given homo sapiens, Sir Henry was thinking with his  . . . eyes. Perhaps you're not male, or actually live in a major metropolis, but speaking as a country boy who has enjoyed many a trip to the big cities, the sites to see there are never just the architecture. Or should I say, the buildings.

In any case, like I said, dichotomy. Look it up. (I had to.)

But this fine Saturday, we find Mortimer and Baskerville bringing their balance of intellect and passion to Paddington Station to meet up with that other intellect/passion team, Holmes and Watson. There the latter's intellectual half will soon be replaced by a curly-haired spaniel.

Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? Yes, you are! Yes, you are!

Sorry, the intelligence level of the dialogue just dropped as we crowd into the first class carriage headed for Devonshire. And even though one might wonder if we're going to get to see the Duchess of Devonshire, famed for her hats, my first thought in any first class carriage these days is: "Is this the Hogwarts express? Will the magic candy vendor be coming through?"

Spending a few hours on a train with good old Watson, a fine young Canadian fellow, a thoughtful country doctor, and a big ol' puppy dog . . . who's a big old puppy dog? Yes, you are . . . well, that's probably a lot better time than dealing with supernaturally-powered school children and their hazards in any case. More relaxing, anyway. It's just pleasant to sit back, close your eyes, and let yourself listen to the conversations.

Of course, eventually you have to open your eyes just to see the lovely and dreamy Devon scenery. Or else Sir Henry Baskerville, who Watson seems to like to look at. He'll later describe Sir Henry in the text with all the detail and considered eye that he usually reserves for the ladies. ". . . as I looked at his dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how true a descendant he was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men. There were pride, valour, and strength in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large hazel eyes."

Why, my, my, Dr. Watson, you are surely about to give a poor girl the vapors with such talk! And they think slash fiction is something new.

Luckily, the train arrives at the lonely little station of our destination and we get a good look at the guy driving the wagonette to pick us up: a "hard-faced, gnarled little fellow" who is either here for us or Baron Frankenstein. His last name is Perkins, but you can call him Igor. It's probably not his name, but he'll be mad at you, not me.

The scenery is like something on the road to Castle Frankenstein, and here's the burgomeister to tell us about a monster, a "wild beast" of a man, loose on the moors. Okay, so he's not really a burgomeister, but he does have the uniform, and the scary guy on the moor is for real. Just like those two towers rising over the trees as "Igor" Perkins points and goes, "Baskerville Hall."

You just want to hear  the "KRAKKA-DOOOMMMM!" of thunder as the lighting flashes behind the ancient manor, but it's a pleasant enough evening, so no such luck. Barrymore the butler soon comes at us out of the shadows to grab open the door of the wagonette, which is creepy enough. No wonder Dr. Mortimer is anxious to ride off in the wagonette and make a quick getaway.

I'll let you take in the details of this five-hundred-year-old, dimly-lit hall with its spooky paintings and corpses of . . . make that copses of trees. Watson is quickly longing for torches to light the place up, which should tell you something right there. and this is where everybody gets to sleep tonight.

That is, if you can, with the deathly silence, broken only by Count Dracula climbing up the outer walls . . . well, maybe it is just rustling ivy . . . sorrowful sobs, and a distant chiming clock.

Baskerville Hall. It's a real party, isn't it? But like I said earlier, at least we don't have supernaturally-powered school kids to worry about. Count your blessings.