Book Review: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Memoir Summary: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

In the memoir, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes is an infamous British detective obviously known for being good at cracking and solving mysteries. Alongside with his partner, Watson, they work to solve and unravel every and any cases citizens find themselves stumbling upon. Throughout the story, Sherlock and Watson help desperate citizens with problems or situations they do not fully comprehend and suffer from.

The story is told from Watson's point of view. Watson is an elegant, smart British doctor who serves as Sherlock's friend, as aforementioned, partner, and flat mate. John H. Watson, was born on the 7^th of July in the year 1852, he is mostly known as Dr. Watson. Watson is described to have a strong build; it is believed this is so because he was a former athlete in a rugby team. Before Watson and Sherlock met, Watson served in the British army as Assistant Surgeon for the army’s medical department in Afghanistan, but later, he was dispatched because he sustained injuries in battle—  his shoulder and his leg; the leg injury explains why he is described to have a limp and carries a cane with him everywhere he goes. Although Watson’s history is well noted, Holmes’ is not as well documented, I find this bizarre because in my opinion, Sherlock does more of the work out of the two and is also more renown, the known information about Sherlock is only that he was born in the year 1854, but even his exact birthdate wasn’t specified. He is described as bohemian to his lifestyle and habits. Watson also says that Holmes is an eccentric man. They are quite the opposite in some ways, even though he is very smart and an analytical machine he is somewhat stubborn... Not in a bad way though, in a dangerous way. By this I mean that he won't give up a case even if it's completely impossible to unravel. It is also said by Watson, that Holmes takes use of cocaine when he does not have any stimulating cases; Holmes states that cocaine stimulates his brain when it is not in use.

Many times in the course of events Sherlock and Watson found themselves stuck with a case that wouldn't seem to be going anywhere, but at the end they managed to find truth behind it. An example of this situation could be their first adventure, Silver Blaze. In this adventure they were requested by Colonel Ross which is the owner of a horse called Silver Blaze- Silver Blaze is racehorse that has won the Wessex Cup 5 times consecutively- the case says that Silver Blaze was stolen from his training stable, but it is not known by whom... When the facts where all delivered to Sherlock and Watson, they thought deeply about it but could not come to any possible conclusion without looking deeper into the timeline of events that occurred the night Silver Blaze was kidnapped. When they got all the facts together they managed to come to a conclusion, they had agreed that the horse had kicked the kidnapper that had already taken the horse out into the fields, after the horse had done this, it had fled and arrived at a neighbor’s house where it was taken care of while they figured whose it belonged to. This is just an example where Sherlock and Watson were stuck with a case that didn't seem to go anywhere, at least for a while.

After Watson and Sherlock continued to solve cases together, an odd visitor appeared at their door in their 221B Baker Street residence. It was a desperate man in urgent needs of Watson’s and Sherlock’s assistance. This man was called Mr. Grant Munro and he had come to Sherlock and Watson because he was very worried about his wife. The facts about the case were that Mr. Munro’s wife had being sneaking out of their house in order to go to another house that was previously uninhabited. Whenever Mr. Munro would walk by the house, he would see a yellow face staring at him all the way from the second floor of the suspicious house. When he had had enough, he made his wife promise that she wouldn’t go there again because he didn’t like for there to be any secrets between them both… but that same night, her wife had sneaked out of the house. It appears that all this had happened the day before Mr. Munro had gone to Sherlock’s residence. When Sherlock and Watson had gotten enough time to elaborate on the case, they had come to the conclusion that maybe Mr. Munro’s wife’s ex-husband who was supposedly dead might be living there. A day later, Mr. Munro sent a wire to the Holmes residence, Sherlock and Watson went over to Mr. Munro’s residence right away. Angry and frustrated, Mr. Munro, Holmes, and Watson infiltrated the suspicious house only to find that Mr. Munro’s wife was there with an African-American child, she immediately confessed that it was her daughter from her ex-husband and that she was only wearing a yellow mask so Mr. Munro would not see her skin color. To Mrs. Munro’s surprise, Mr. Munro did not dislike the child; he actually took the child in as his own. Even though the case wasn’t really a serious one, Sherlock and Watson still enjoyed solving it together.

As more events and cases took place, my character, Watson started realizing that he doesn’t feel comfortable working without Sherlock Holmes because it is easier for both of them to work together. He comes to realize that he is the ordinary man and Holmes is an emotionally-detached analytical machine, they are both completely the opposite and make the perfect detective pair.

As for the title, I believe it was named this way because the book has a lot of different memoirs in it that tell of the moments were Sherlock and Watson were solving cases. I didn’t find any other meaning regarding to the title since it is quite simple, “The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes”. The content of the book was organized by adventures; Arthur Conan Doyle decided to make each chapter have an adventure. Within each adventure there was always a case for Sherlock and Watson to solve.

As I began to read this book in class one day, I thought it was very interesting and I found it very intriguing… this is so because I have always liked books that have both a mystery and still get to have adventure in them. I think that it was a very good read for me because it caught my eye in many different ways, for example, I really found it bright for Arthur Conan Doyle to make each adventure in the book more and more mind blowing than the one before it, this way I would be reeled in to keep reading more and more of it without getting bored at all. Some of the lines I loved in the book where this once when Sherlock and Watson were discussing how to act upon a case and Sherlock simply just said “You know my methods, Watson”. This line told me that Sherlock and Watson were so close together that they didn’t really need to consult the things they do. The second one I really liked also was during the second adventure- The Yellow Face- when Watson said “Any truth is better than indefinite doubt”, because it made me think about it over and over again, I thought that it was very smart of him to say that because it is actually true to me.

Overall, it is a very good book and a very well written memoir for experienced teens and people of all ages that like to read books that take a while to understand. I recommend it because it is very interesting and it takes some time to fully understand the things that happen while Sherlock and Watson solve cases.