Sherlock Holmes

When I left my very first job, with a publishing house in London, my leaving present was a two-volume set of The Complete Sherlock Holmes; and, as I discovered in the pub after my last day at work, the reason was that the colleague who had been empowered to choose the gift, had felt that I reminded him of Irene Adler! He was unable to be clearer than that - he couldn't tell me how, or in what ways, I reminded him of Irene Adler. It was simply, for him, a staement of fact. Now, for my part, I don't see any similarity between myself and Irene Adler, who has been portrayed on television

and in films by a number of leading actresses, but I don't imagine that my colleague at the time was necessarily thinking visually - although as a Graphic Designer, he may well have been; anyway, just for amusement - or as Graham Greene bracketed a number of his books, as beingr Entertainments - I looked out my copy of The Short Stories and started, it is the first in the book, with Conan Doyle's introduction of Miss Adler in A Scandal in Bohemia; even though I have read all of the storiew in the two volumes a number of times, there is always something familiar and comforting in settling down with them - whether they are read sequentially or at random, I feel that the character of Holmes as portrayed by Dr Watson, is so much a part of my own childhood , that it is like meeting an old friend after a period of separation.
I felt something akin to this when I read Julian Barnes' Arthur and George which features Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; he was an extremely complex character - probably far more so than his own Sherlock Holmes - and Barnes' book, which is based on The Great Wyrley Ouirages of 1903. There was a short television dramatisation broadcast earlier this year, with Martin Clunes as Conan Doyle.
And I poarticularly remember as a schoolgirl being enthralled by his Napoleonic series, featuring the dashing, gallane, heroic Brigadier Gerard; I did go through a rather odd period of wanting to be a man, but not just any man, a French Hussar - and I wore my jackets and coats in their style - not perhaps very proper for a well-bred Edinburgh lassie and confirming to the adults in the family that I was a bit of a Tom Boy.

But back to Irene Adler: She has been believed to have been based upon Lily Langtry - popularly known as The Jersey Lily from her childhood in Jersey, in the Channel Islands. She became a popular actress, had several husbands and many lovers and was mistress to several Royal persons. I do remember reading a long time ago that Oscar Wilde was infatuated with her and once spent a night sleeping on her London doorstep in hopes of meeting her in the morning (or parhaps being admitted during the night) - ah, such is adoration.

More Work in Progress

Well, I finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie a few days ago - the film with Maggie Smith captures so much of the tone and tensions of the story that it always repays; I can't remember how many times I have watched it, and it's funny how every time you watch a movie, or read a book, you pick up things you missed on the first time. But when I listed the books I'm still reading - and I do it by picking up a different one every chapter or so, though sometimes I get so hooked that I stick with one straight through to the end - I forgot several others: one is A Dance to the Music of Time,by Anthony Powell. I'm on Volume 1, Spring. And another is For One More Day by Mitch Albom. I first encountered him though Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I don't read a great deal of spiritual stuff - I have an interest in Buddhism - particularly Zen (which kind of goes with the territory if you're my age) but I do like Albom's writing. It's so simple and conversational and leads you, well, Me, through the narrative. This one is about a guy who feels he has hit rock bottom and can see no point in living. I don't like to give things away for anyone who hasn't read a book so I prefer to keep my comments vague. I've never felt that bad myself - though I've certainly had those points when your, well, My, life seems to fall apart - completely out of the Blue! And at such times I've not been able to see any way through the maelstrom - I do mix my metaphors, rather. So, while I have never contemplated suicide myself, I have lost several close friends to it, and can understand that when someone has lost all hope and can only visualise themselves in a black hole with no way out, it must seem as if bringing death forward is a solution which will release them from their anguish and , somehow, set others free as well. Of course, it rarely does the latter, but when you are in such a dreadful place it is probably impossible to see alternatives, or consequences. For many years I worked as an Addictions Counsellor - principally with Alcohol Dependency - and most of my clients were probably heading on that downward spiral Charley Benetto has been on at the start of the book. I think, I hope, my work with them helped them see that there were ways in which they could regain control of their lives, distance themselves from the destructive relationship they had with Alcohol, and start climbing out of the Hole. What Counselling does is offers a helping hand which can lead the client towards the light. Of course, it doesn't solve all the problems which had put them there, but it can help someone find the strength within themselves to take responsibility and, hopefully, rebuild their lives. Of course, if you never see your clients again, you never know what happened next - but in a small town, in a rural area, you usually hear from someone.
Oh and after I had written a heterosexual scene in The Adventures of Daphne and Maude which had given me some difficulty, because it felt not only voyeuristic but also somewhat pornographic to be writing about something I had never experienced myself - naver have, never will - I read a passage in Orlando in which Woolf, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, addresses the diffficulty for a Biographer, if her subject is doing nothing, and writes that for a Male Novelist it is easy, to simply conjur up a Gamekeeper to satisfy the needs of a wife whose husband has had an unfortunate accident with a Combine Harvester, and he need only whistle below the window for a period of activity which can move the story along. This was published in 1926, the same year as D H Lawrence published Lady Chatterley's Lover, which Virginia Woolf must have read - or heard sufficient about, to puit that short passage into her story. Neat, eh?