0002: A STUDY IN SCARLET

DATE

Saturday, June 26, 2010

11:00 a.m.

MEMBERS PRESENT

Ron Del Ciello, Tom Drucker, Resa Haile, Elaine Khan, Gayle Lange Puhl, Victor Rufer.

CHARTER MEMBER

James Haile.

NEW BUSINESS

Resa noted that our new blog is up. Tom talked about the importance of maintaining a paper presence as well as an electronic presence, submitting some papers to university libraries, etc. There was a discussion of the group putting together some type of publication; Gayle suggested once or twice a year. Everyone agreed this was a good idea. Gayle presented a quiz on A Study in Scarlet and Tom supplied the prizes in the form of books which related in some way to the Holmes stories, including a book about Boswell and the reminiscences of a French detective. Victor presented his paper, First Impressions, detailing how Holmes is viewed through the eyes of Stamford, Watson, and Victor himself.


(This paper is available for view on the blog and on the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/The-Original-Tree-Worshippers-of-Rock-County/121545477857624?v=app_2347471856&ref=sgm.)

STORY DISCUSSION: A STUDY IN SCARLET

This is the first of the four Holmes novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the first Sherlock Holmes story ever, and the story in which the significant first meeting of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson takes place.

Ron brought up the question of whether there could be bruising after death, with which Holmes was experimenting before the story begins (as Stamford explains to Watson). Gayle noted that this was also used in the series Murder Rooms, which features Dr. Joseph Bell and Arthur Conan Doyle as the detectives. Elaine noted that she Googled about Conan Doyle and the Mormons and found that he had apologized for his portrayal of them but that sometimes religious fervor leads to these cult situations, which is close to what is in the story. There was a lively discussion of Mormonism and polygamy, as portrayed in the story and in reality, with input from everyone. Tom pointed out that Sherlock Holmes evolves from his first appearance, when his character is similar to Poe’s Dupin or to Badger from The Wind in the Willows, to a more emotional, full character, that he becomes a different kind of personality. Resa noted that Holmes sort of “wooed” Watson, playing on his curiosity.

NEXT MEETING

The Sign of Four (a.k.a. The Sign of the Four)

Minutes prepared by Resa Haile.