The way Holmes solved this was impressive, but also a little to ridiculous. It's awesome that our hero can pick the correct snake out of an endless bag of possibilities, given the clues of an air vent and a rope. It's impressive that he can whip a snake in the dark to the point where it doesn't lash out at him but instead crawls back through a vent and then releases it's "snakish temper" upon the guilty party. But doesn't that seem a little far fetched?
When I used to turn to the back of my encyclopedia brown books, I would see all of the clues laid out before me, but not understand. Then, Encyclopedia would release his 'encyclopedic wit' and bedazzle me with a solution. I would always go "oh! If only I had been smart enough to see it that way." I missed that feeling while reading about the greatest detective of all time.
I had the same reaction after I watched the Sherlock Holmes movie this summer. I really enjoyed the movie, especially watching how everything came together in the end. I feel like the movie did a great job portraying the essence of the Holmes' stories (even though I've only read the one...). I love the fact that the crimes are solved by a combination of the smallest of details, but I agree that it would be a lot more "fun" to read if we were provided with more details, so we could try and solve the cases ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I enjoyed reading the Sherlock Holmes short story much more than I did "A Jury of Her Peers". In my opinion, "Speckled Band" was more mysterious,had more of a sense of danger to it, and was more action-packed than "A Jury of her Peers". Also, the fact that "A Jury of her Peers" was written using mainly dialogue, made it a little bit harder to read.
Oh, also, I remember enjoying tons of Encyclopedia Brown books when I was younger too!