Expanding from Watson's letter to Doyle, here's what happened later in April 1883, after the Speckled Band case. Apologies if I haven't caught all the present tense and changed it to past tense.
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Story: Deeper in Memory, partial chapter 16
Pairing: Holmes/Watson, Holmes/Helen Stoner
Warnings: unresolved sexual tension, G
As a break from the boring chronology posts, here's another bit from my DIM novel. Recall that there's a love triangle going on between Holmes, Watson, and Helen Stoner in the 1880s, during their bachelor days. However, Holmes has rejected Helen Stoner since Chapter 21, when he visited her in New York and briefly met Irene Adler in 1884.
Since 1886, Watson has become friends with a fellow doctor, who is also an author. In fact Conan Doyle helped write the Mormon part of A Study in Scarlet, and got the novel sold to a publisher, though they lost the copyright in the deal. The publisher is holding the novel for a year due to the glut of "cheap fiction", and will publish it in December 1887. Meanwhile, the two writers correspond and discuss which other case they should make into a novel next, because then they can keep the royalties and maybe make money. So Watson has written up "sample stories" of some cases such as the Copper Beeches to show to Doyle. As they discuss Holmes in their letters, Doyle asks a question about Holmes's drug use, and this is Watson's response. Notice that he carefully lies and suppresses the full truth about his "strange brief affair" with Holmes in 1887.
Some more reasoning on my Sherlock Holmes chronology.
"The Speckled Band" has long been undisputed by chronologists. Watson says it occurred in early April 1883, and there's nothing to contradict it. It was published in the Strand in February 1892, and Watson opens by discussing "my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes." Chronologists all pounce on a similar opening in "The Veiled Lodger" to calculate the length of Holmes's career, yet they forget that SPEC has this reference to the past 8 years. So, 1892 minus 8 years only gets back to 1884. Is there something else he's not counting? 1881 plus 8 years gets us to 1889.
Oh, I see. He's not counting some months in early 1881 when he didn't go with Holmes on cases, he's not counting some months in early 1887 when Holmes is away in France solving a big case without him (REIG), and he's not counting some months just after his marriage (before SCAN) when he was busy with his new practice and not visiting Holmes. So assuming those months add up to a year, we can get to from 1881 to 1890.
Per "The Final Problem," Watson barely saw Holmes for 3 cases in 1890, and then didn't see Holmes early the next year. Watson only saw Holmes because of Moriarty's threat from April to May 1891 and that wasn't a case so much as an escape to continental Europe. That's why he's not counting that year. So those are the years that he considers himself Holmes's biographer. Keep that in mind for when he recalculates for us in VEIL later. Odd how it's always the early months in the year that he misses recording cases.
Now the next part:
Written in 1886 and published in December 1887, A Study in Scarlet is the first novel in which we ever meet Holmes and Watson. It's greatly entertaining in the beginning chapters, but it has a structural flaw. Half the novel breaks off from the Brixton mystery to suddenly flashback to America to explain a motive for the murderer; he apparently wanted revenge on two Mormons, but all Mormon society in general is depicted as an evil murderous cult.
This is not even framed as a flashback from Jefferson Hope's point of view; it's an omniscient 3rd person narrator describing events happening to John Ferrier and his adopted daughter Lucy, survivors of a wagon train to the West. Some readers are fine with the Mormon section while others prefer to skip over it to get back to Holmes and Watson in the last 2 chapters. Whatever suits you. It's just a melodrama derivative of other anti-polygamy novels of the time period, and Doyle eventually gave an apology to the Mormons.
Unfortunately, the long 5-chapter break from the London narrative allows Conan Doyle to lose the thread of his plot and forget about the dead dog in the sitting-room. What did Mrs. Hudson say, when she discovered it, and the broken furniture and window?
So now I'll begin explaining the reasoning behind my chronology in more detail, taking a few stories at a time. I'm not sure how many parts this will take to do all 60 stories. This is the chunk I'll try to tackle now.
Published in April 1893, "The Gloria Scott" is a well known mess, almost as bad as The Sign of Four with its fucked up dates. There's actually 3 different time periods in this story: 1) the "winter's night" when Sherlock Holmes decides to tell Watson the story of his first case, 2) the year in college when Sherlock was friends with Victor Trevor and "solved" the "mystery" such as it was, and 3) the year that James Armitage participated in a fatal ship mutiny, a scandalous past for which Hudson blackmailed him. These 3 time periods are all fighting each other, creating a headache for any chronologist.
I mean, there's even a 4th time period, if you count Watson's present narration quoting Holmes's narration of the "Gloria Scott" case. Conan Doyle for some reason likes this nested flashback device, and he gives too little time for the past flashback to take place; he doesn't care about such details if he can just tell a ripping good yarn of an adventure.
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 Christ, 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. He has been aware since the end of STUD that Watson will publish his cases, and in MUSG Holmes even affectionately calls Watson his biographer, so it's an known factor.
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.
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.
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.
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.
