Title: The Sign of the Four (1890)
Genre: Novel
Pages: 160
Origin: Read on Kindle during July 2012
Nod Rating: 3 out of 5
'Which is it to-day?... morphine or cocaine?’
And so begins this story about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the book’s narrator, Watson. Dulled by a lack of events, Holmes has taken to a bit of recreational drug-use of the kind that would scare those in authority in today. Only the sniff of a good case and putting his deductive reasoning skills to the test will allow him to "just say no" to 'a second dose of cocaine’.
This is the Worm’s second foray into the world of Sherlock Holmes; more than one year ago the first instalment in the series – A Study in Scarlet – was reviewed and given scant applause (see below). The novel itself, as written by Watson, is alluded to in the beginning of The Sign of the Four by a critical Holmes: ‘Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.’
Watson retorts: ‘But the romance was there.’ Of course, this clearly shows the divide between Holmes and Watson; a conflict that has endured and delighted readers for more than a century. Much more than the recent movies or other incarnations of the pair, the original books offer so much more character development; as can be seen by Watson’s constant observation and analysis of Holmes: ‘More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic manner.’ More strongly, is Watson’s later cry out: ‘You really are an automaton… There is something positively inhuman in you at times.’
The Sign of the Four - also popularly known as The Sign of Four - is the second novel to feature this dynamic duo. It charts the unfolding of a missing fortune, of double-crossing and revenge between an original foursome from the subcontinent of India. Holmes continues to spout his own philsopophy and way of working: ‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’ Whilst Watson continues to inject the romance into the story, continually questioning his own role, Holmes’ methods, the love-interest (Mrs Morstan), and how the whole story hangs together. In wonderful fashion, all of the threads come crashing together with a final confession and extended flashback from the chief culprit (thankfully, the flashback does not consume more than a third of the book, as was the case with A Study in Scarlet).
Without wishing to spoil any of the main plot threads, the adventure ends as it begins, with Holmes reaching for the ‘cocaine-bottle.’ The novel is a more coherent whole than the earlier A Study in Scarlet; whilst a greater emphasis is added on the stereotypical Sherlock settings. Late Victorian London is detailed in fine Gothic style: ‘The whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and ill-grown shrubs, had a blighted, ill-omened look which harmonized with the black tragedy which hung over it.’ Two novels in, and already the legend is being formed; a legend that exists more than one hundred and twenty years later.
The Worm will return to the adventures of Holmes and Watson, and is intent on devouring all the books and short stories in Conon Doyle’s inventive and wonderful series.
Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sign-Four-Arthur-Conan-Doyle/dp/0241952964/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345745407&sr=8-1
A Study in Scarlet review:
http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/study-in-scarlet-sir-arthur-conan-doyle.html
