Sherlock Holmes Chronology

Ok here's the final timeline I've made after rereading the entire canon and making notes on dates. This does not apply to any fanfic I've written, which play by their own rules. This is just what I've worked out from the Holmes stories themselves, but attempting to make chronological sense. I will use the four-letter abbreviations by Jay Finley Crist, to save typing.

In the "Adventures" stories, Holmes and Watson keep referring between cases as if they happened in order, but I ignore those references as Watson self-promoting, just like in SIGN he keeps referring to STUD as if it was recent, rather than years ago, and pretends that the Baker Street Irregulars haven't aged. As I said before, Watson lies out of discretion. In SPEC for example, Watson specifically states that he could not publish it until after the lady (Helen Stoner) died. In other cases, the principle people have not yet died, so Watson could be changing names and dates out of discretion for the clients. That's the only way to make GLOR make sense, that Watson substituted the Crimean War from 1855 instead of a war from 1845, so that the real Victor Trevor cannot be identified. Holmes could have asked Watson to do so, for the sake of his college friend.

Even if we assumed that Watson was honest, the dates would not make sense. For example, Watson claims that SCAN occurred on March 20, 1888, then he leaves IDEN undated other than a reference to the King of Bohemia some weeks ago. But REDH refers to Mary Sutherland's case (that is, IDEN) being just "the other day" even though REDH is in autumn 1890. How can IDEN be just weeks after March 1888, yet just "the other day" before 1890? (Unless there was some second case for the King of Bohemia, in 1890, for which Holmes accepted a gaudy snuffbox for payment.) Thus these references between stories can't be relied upon. It's dramatic license pretending that Holmes is commenting as each story is published. Holmes after all faked his death in May 1891, and Watson published the short stories starting in July 1891, after the presumed death.

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Get out the vote

Early voting has started for some municipal and school board elections, but today is a state holiday called San Jacinto Day. Apparently it's the day the white Texans defeated Santa Anna and got independence from Mexico. I mean, the fact that Texas history books pretend that this was some noble war for freedom rather than a hostile takeover because they wanted to keep slaves while Mexico outlawed slavery, is a sign of how screwed up Texas is. The white guys deliberately moved to Tejas knowing the existing laws; they intended to manifest destiny themselves into taking over the place. Nobody forced them to come here and fight at the Alamo, or anything. Fucking colonizers.

So I'll be voting tomorrow, trying my best to elect Democrats where I can. Virginia is having a special redistricting election today, so vote Yes, if you can!

Earth Day is tomorrow. I hope it's not too late to save the world despite all the US fuckery. Many other countries are still fighting climate change at least. Hungary ousted Orban at least. And the Onion is taking over Infowars, hooray! Now if only we can stop this stupid war and Israel's war crimes.

CBS Radio HOUN, SIGN, STUD, and REDH

I've listened to more CBS Radio Mystery Theater episodes. (The Sherlock Holmes episodes most often star Kevin McCarthy and Court Benson, but according to Russell's comment here they use different actors in some episodes. These adaptations are written by Murray Burnett (I think the same guy who co-wrote the play that was the basis for the movie Casablanca). Burnett makes some minor changes in each story, like changing Mrs. Barrymore to Mrs. Harrison, and cutting some other characters from Hound of the Baskervilles. That seems somewhat logical, to cut a novel-length story down, but other changes are weird, and the comments by the host E. G. Marshall are sometimes eccentric and wrong. For example, at the end of Sign of Four, Marshall claims that Doyle never killed off Watson's wife Mary. Technically he may be right that Watson never makes clear what his "bereavement" was in "Empty House", but Watson then moves back into Baker Street by the next story, so something tragic must have happened.

There are some good edits, like dropping the Mormon plot from A Study in Scarlet, changing Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson to members of a gambling club. Burnett also cuts out mentions of the Baker Street Irregulars from both STUD and SIGN, and he cuts Jonathan Small's confession from SIGN. The description of Tonga is made to be a little less racist, though he's still called a savage. At the end, Holmes even comes to tell Watson that Small dumped the Agra treasure in the Thames, and he actively encourages Watson to propose to Mary Morstan. But in the "Red-Headed League," there's a strange subplot added about Jabez Wilson falling in love with a woman, and also being told by letter that he must go to Surrey for the League to debate whether to ban him because he's not married. These might be interesting, but the story ends abruptly with no resolution to whether the woman was in on John Clay's plot.

These are overall very quirky adaptations, just like the "Speckled Band" one I listened to before.

Hard Times

My monthly trash/water bills have usually been about $50 for a long time but now they're $70. Damn, is everything getting more expensive, even if it's not oil-related?  Fuck this shitty war and this crap economy because fucking Trump knows nothing and installs incompetents who only know how to grift! How am I supposed to afford to live, and go on medical leave too? (Soon I will have to get a hysterectomy and go on short-term disability while I recover. And I have to hope that my ovaries aren't cancerous, and if they are, that it's not spreading to other organs.)

But I don't mean to be so bleak. I guess I could spend my recovery time working more on my writing and publishing. Finishing my Holmes chronology. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I did enjoy seeing Ryan Gosling's movie Project Hail Mary, though I hear that the author of the book has bad takes about remaining politics-free. Whatever, dude. The movie was a fun diversion, much like Young Sherlock. As for real space, I haven't had time to follow Artemis II news, though I've seen many comments on social media about how people are inspired by the astronauts. So congrats to them for completing their mission and splashing down safely.

Concerning

I had a biopsy today. I may have a benign fibroid, or a cancerous growth. They also took some blood to do a lab test on my hormone levels, but I hadn't eaten breakfast before, so I felt faint afterward. I had to sit down quickly and hold my head for a little while. When I faint or almost faint, I get nauseous and have a hot flash. I recovered enough to go get some food, my favorite comfort food chao (rice porridge). But I am still achy and tired.

In other news, I read this Wonkette article about tradwives and the manosphere. There's an interesting passage about two types of sexism:

For those of you who don’t remember your women’s studies classes, Ambivalent Sexism Theory is the idea that there are two primary forms of sexism — hostile sexism, which the study defines as being “characterized by overtly negative feelings and attributions toward women as well as beliefs that women seek to humiliate men and undermine men’s power by using sexuality” and benevolent sexism, which the study explained “is a more subtle and patronizing form of sexism that expresses adoration, paternalism, and reverence toward women who conform to gender-role norms.” There are three main facets of benevolent sexism — protective paternalism (men have to take care of women because we are delicate flowers), complementary gender differentiation (belief in distinct gender roles), and heterosexual intimacy (the idea that a man is incomplete without a romantic relationship with a woman).

So yeah, that's definitely the kind of benevolent sexism that Victorian men like Watson have. Holmes feels similarly, though he does not feel incomplete without a woman himself. He'll sometimes make some comments like "if I had ever loved" or "if I had been murdered, I would want my wife to insist on seeing my body" but these remain hypotheticals. Holmes does distrust women, but is capable of respecting them like Irene Adler and Violet Hunter. Also he does look approvingly on couples in love, like Mary Fraser and her sailor from "Abbey Grange". So, no I don't think he's really that hostile.

Meanwhile, I also have been adding to my Grand Gift of Silence fic again. The world is terrible, but you gotta find joy in life.

Orontes found

Ok I think found the answer to my chronology conundrum. I found that it was D. Martin Dakin's Sherlockian book where I had read about the October date for the Orontes troopship in A Study in Scarlet. Strange that the Annotated Sherlock Holmes didn't make a note about it at all, though it quotes from Dakin about other stuff. Dakin describes the previous research on the ship by Percy Metcalfe, and he cited a "Sherlock Holmes Journal" article as the source. But of course, that was from decades ago and I despaired of being able to buy an obscure SHJ article anywhere online. They do sometimes show up on Ebay, but the "Baker Street Journal" issues are far more widely available.

Just when I was despairing of ever locating it, I found a 2 volume book called The Grand Game: a celebration of Sherlockian Scholarship edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie Klinger. It basically gathers together lots of different Sherlockian essays from several decades, and I was able to see Metcalfe's article listed in the table of contents. The 2011 book was published by the Baker Street Irregulars, but their website listed it as sold out. I searched some rare bookshop sites trying to find a secondhand copy to buy, but it was nowhere. I began to despair again, until I found the book on OpenLibrary, where I could create an account and "borrow" the book so I could read the digital copy. Hooray!

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