Dear Sherlockians,

This is pretty late I know - anyway, here's wishing u all a "very belated" but
very Hardik Holi ki shubhkamnayen. And, now that we are nearing it, for those
from Tamil Nadu and AP, wishing u in advance a very Happy New Year.


Sridhar

sumalsn <no_reply@...> wrote:

Dear Sherlockians,
Avery happy Holi to all. Let there be happiness and prosperity in
your life today and always
sumal





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dear all,

wish u a very happy holi. Let us enjoy holi "colourfully" so that we all will be
eligible for the membership of "the red headed league".

vishwesh
mumbai

sumalsn <no_reply@...> wrote:

Dear Sherlockians,
Avery happy Holi to all. Let there be happiness and prosperity in
your life today and always
sumal





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Dear Sherlockians,
  Avery happy Holi to all. Let there be happiness and prosperity in
your life today and always
sumal

Dear Sherlockians,
  Avery happy Holi to all. Let there be happiness and prosperity in
your life today and always
sumal

Dear Sherlockians,



            Through the site of this unique group I seek to thank Mr. Sumal Sen
for allowing us, through his e-mail dated 24 March 2005, to have a glimpse of
his review of Jamyang Norbu’s “The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes”. He has not only
added his own critical views, he has also provided epiphanic flashes of
different issues discussed in Norbu’s work. We can well guess that “The Mandala
of Sherlock Holmes” is a post colonial response to Doyle’s imperial ideology,
and I am sure it is one worth reading. I shall be grateful to Mr. Sen if he
immediately lets us know which company has had published the book, from where,
and what is the date of its first publication. It would be also kind of him to
inform us where and when had been his brilliant review published.



I am eagerly waiting for an answer from Mr. Sen.



Yours sincerely,



Pinaki Roy,

Department of English,

Balurghat College



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Dear Sherlockians,



Please allow me to wish all of you a very happy and prosperous Holi through this
e-mail.



(Pinaki Roy)



From:



PINAKI ROY,

FACULTY MEMBER (P),

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH,

BALURGHAT COLLEGE



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Dear Sherlockians,
I had reviewed This book sometime back . I reproduce it here . Please
comment on it.



  It is perhaps very rare in literary history that the character
created by an author becomes more famous than its creator. I can
think of two such instances off hand, one is of course, Sherlock
Holmes created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the second is James Bond
created by Ian Fleming. In the case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Sherlock Holmes drew away the spotlight from his more serious works
like, "The White Company" and "The Lost World", so much so that he is
now more remembered for his detective stories featuring Sherlock
Holmes. The popularity of these detective stories piqued Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle so much that he decided to kill Sherlock Holmes in the
hands of his arch enemy , Prof Moriarity in "The Final Problem",
both meeting their end in the foot of Rein Bach Falls . However
bowing to pressure from his devoted fans including his own mother,
Sir Doyle was forced to bring back Holmes to life in "The Adventure
of the Empty House". Holmes explains to Dr Watson that he spent two
years in Tibet in guise of a Norwegian Explorer, Siegerson.
Aficionados of Sherlock Holmes often speculate about his exploits
during this period, seven years (i.e. the time interval between "The
Final Problem" and "The Adventure of the Empty House".

      It appears that the exploits of Sherlock Holmes during these
years have been recently discovered by Jamyang Norbu who has
published it as a book, "The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes". Norbu has
done a great service to all Sherlockians by editing and publishing
the reminiscences of Shri Huree Chandra Mukherjee who accompanies
Holmes during his tryst in Tibet. The book opens in Bombay when HC
Mukherjee of the Ethnological Survey of India is asked to keep an eye
on a mysterious foreigner, who turns out to be none other than
Sherlock Holmes traveling incognito. Readers of "Kim" by Rudyard
Kipling would be familiar with HC Mukherjee and his exploits.Norbu
manages to seamlessly merge two distinct literary characters into
having an exploit of their own. Returning to the book, Holmes is hot
on the heels of the remnants of the Moriarity organization, chiefly
Colonel Sebastian Moran, ace Shikari. Holmes faces several attempts
on his life by the gang using exotic oriental poisons but he manages
to outwit them using his sublime powers of deduction.

      Events take a sudden turn as Holmes is appealed to by the
Panchen Lama to intervene in saving the life of Dalai Lama. The
Chinese are playing a deadly game in Tibet and are trying to usurp
the legal authority of the Dalai Lama. Holmes approaches this
commission with uncharacteristic disinterest but slowly gets drawn
into the vertex of a dangerous conspiracy. Jamayang Norbu builds up
the pace steadily and climaxes it   into a startling denouement.


     Norbu sticks close to the style of Sir Doyle and has not taken
any liberties with Sherlock Holmes's depiction. The only departure he
has taken is that instead of Dr Watson being the narrator, HC
Mukherjee becomes one. The personality of Holmes is portrayed as
having spiritual bent which has never been explored before by even
Sir Doyle. Fans of Sherlock Holmes would delight in the book as a
valuable addition to Sherlockiana. British India circa 1890's has
been described very well and the writer has taken pains to research
extensively on this period. I recommend this book also for its
description of the plight of Tibetans and their tormented country.

    sumal

About Holmes' disinterest in women: I'm sure some of u must have read the
Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (don't remember the author right now), in which
Holmes is, in fact, a manifestation of a Tibetan monk. Therefore, it follows
that he does not actually "hate" women but is just forced by his vows not to
think about them in terms of "Freudian libidinous behavior." I guess that would
answer most questions about this character of his.


Sridhar

Tim Symonds <tim.symonds@...> wrote:
I'm not sure Holmes is exactly 'averse' to women, Sumal, though he
definitely sees them as a different species, like a lion might view a
leopard.  He seems to have developed considerable respect for the ones - one
in particular - who outwitted him, but as you say, he spends his spare time
with hobbies such as the violin, or opium, and never sets out to meet women.

-----Original Message-----
From: sumalsn [mailto:no_reply@...]
Sent: 19 February 2005 11:58
To: SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...
Subject: Re: [sherlock holmes society of india] Holmes' Tools



Dear sherlockians,
Sherlock Holmes's personality is depicted as a cold, conceited, and
astute reasoner. He is eccentric; engages in his "occasional revolver
practice within doors, "his addiction to music at strange hours",
and "his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments". He is
averse to women, but shows a special love for his art of detection;
he cares nothing for any type of publicity or wages but to
investigate and solve any case that appeals to his tastes.I think
that is why we all revere Holmes since he is so different from
us .Any comments
sumal









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Many thanks to the author of these excellent notes on Conan Doyle's
background.  My only thought is that writers write for the society they live
in, particularly when, as in Conan Doyle's case, they urgently need to make
some money from publishing stories.  The Victorian era in which Conan Doyle
was raised was disastrous for women, stripping the majority gender of rights
they had had for perhaps a thousand or more years, particularly property
rights and rights over their children in cases of divorce or even to which
school a child would be sent.  The Victorian legal canon of 'pater familias'
was based on the (dodgy) belief that if you gave the man the absolute
control and responsibility for everything to do with 'the little woman', he
would manfully live up to those responsibilities and look after her welfare
fully and for ever.
Also, Conan Doyle may have been responding to widespread fear among men
about the hidden nature of Woman in his time.  Even his inclusion of very
sharp-witted and clever female adversaries could be because there was and
remains a belief in many men's minds that women can be very cunning and
dangerous creatures if you do not control them by fist and fiat, a  terrible
belief that women worldwide have to confront to this day, not just in the
Developing World but the West too.

-----Original Message-----
From: pinaki roy [mailto:monkaroy@...]
Sent: 20 March 2005 08:04
To: sherlockholmessocietyofindia@...
Subject: [sherlock holmes society of india] On women in Arthur Conan Doyle's
life



Dear Sherlockians,



                               I have bemusedly observed that none of the
eminent Sherlock Holmes critics, including William S. Baring-Gould, Allan
Eyles, and Leslie S. Klinger, have chosen to focus extensively on the role
of women in Arthur Conan Doyle's life. Three episodes, all centring on
women, had lasting effects on the author's life: first, the influence of
Doyle's mother and her relationship with Dr. Brian Waller; second, his
marriage with Louise Hawkins, and finally, his problematic relationship with
Jean Leckie.



                                Mary Foley, "ma'am" to Arthur, married
Charles Altamont Doyle (1832-1893) in 1855, after a brief period of
courtship with the young resident of her mother's boarding house, and soon
after the first four of her nine children were born, Arthur Conan Doyle
being the eldest, she began to face severe financial constraints.
Baring-Gould describes Charles as "a civil servant and spare-time painter of
Irish descent" (Baring-Gould 4). With a 'modest' income, he failed to
support his family well, and soon fell into a deep depression and
alcoholism. He was fired from his job (in 1876), asylumed at Fordoun House,
Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and Crighton Royal
Institution (1876-1893) and later became an epileptic, with intermittent
violent fits lasting until his death.



                             Mary Foley Doyle, who "could trace her ancestry
back to the ancient house of Percy-Louvain, three times allied by marriage
with princesses of the Plantagenet line", was strong enough to bear the
pains of her misfortunes with a smile (Baring-Gould 5). She shared stories
about chivalry and knights with her children, and took care to remind them
of their blue blood. These gave the young children courage and the power to
deal with the uncertainty of their situation. Arthur was particularly
inspired. In his memoir, he wrote, "I am sure, looking back, that it was in
attempting to emulate these stories of my childhood that I began weaving
dreams myself."



                          However, if Foley Doyle inspired Arthur, she also
gave him the qualms. Her relationship with Dr. Brian Waller, an Irish
physician who became her boarder when she started taking in paying guests
after Charles Altamont Doyle had been asylumed, had led literary historians
conjecture a torrid love affair between them. In his autobiography, Doyle
writes, "My mother's taking boarders may have eased her in some ways, but
was disastrous in others." However, Dr. Waller (b. 1853) helped the
impoverished Doyle family financially; and it is only under his influence
that Arthur enrolled for a course in medicine at Edinburgh University,
Waller's alma mater. Though Waller was many years Mary's junior, they shared
a live-in relationship from 1882 when she and two of her daughters moved
into a cottage on his estate, and lived there until 1912 (rent-free). It is
probably one of the reasons why Doyle has avoided detailing courtship and
passionate affairs in his sixty Sherlock
  Holmes stories.



                                 Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle met Louise 'Touie'
Hawkins in 1885 when he was treating her terminally ill brother, Jack, for
cerebral meningitis. They married on 5 August 1885, and led a happy life
with two children - Mary and Arthur Alleyn Kingsley - resulting from the
wedlock, until 1893 when Louise was diagnosed with tuberculosis. In the same
year, the couple moved to Davos, Switzerland, for a change, only to return
in 1897 to Surry. His first wife lived a fragile life until her death in
1906, and the thirteen years between diagnosis and death caused Doyle
immense mental torture, which was aggravated by his passion for Jean Leckie.




                                         Doyle and Leckie met with each other
and fell in love instantaneously on 15 March 1897. She was beautiful, a
trained vocalist and later conducted researches in parapsychological realms.
But Doyle's codes of honour prevented him from accepting the relationship,
and they kept it a secret until Louise's death. They married in September
1907 and for ten years the physician was tormented by his concern for his
diseased wife and his affinity for Leckie. And that might be one of the
important reasons why women have been so sparingly described in the Sherlock
Holmes narratives, and why Sherlock Holmes chooses to remain single all
throughout "lest.[he].bias[es his] judgement" ("The Sign of Four").



It would be very kind of the esteemed members if they allow a conversation
to be waged on this issue.



Thanking you,



Yours sincerely,



Pinaki Roy,

Department of English,

Balurghat College







(For references, please see: Baring-Gould, William S. "The Annotated
Sherlock Holmes". Volume 1. 2nd edition.  New York: Clarkson N. Potter,
1967).





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Dear Sherlockians,



                               I have bemusedly observed that none of the eminent
Sherlock Holmes critics, including William S. Baring-Gould, Allan Eyles, and
Leslie S. Klinger, have chosen to focus extensively on the role of women in
Arthur Conan Doyle’s life. Three episodes, all centring on women, had lasting
effects on the author’s life: first, the influence of Doyle’s mother and her
relationship with Dr. Brian Waller; second, his marriage with Louise Hawkins,
and finally, his problematic relationship with Jean Leckie.



                                Mary Foley, “ma’am” to Arthur, married Charles
Altamont Doyle (1832-1893) in 1855, after a brief period of courtship with the
young resident of her mother’s boarding house, and soon after the first four of
her nine children were born, Arthur Conan Doyle being the eldest, she began to
face severe financial constraints. Baring-Gould describes Charles as “a civil
servant and spare-time painter of Irish descent” (Baring-Gould 4). With a
‘modest’ income, he failed to support his family well, and soon fell into a deep
depression and alcoholism. He was fired from his job (in 1876), asylumed at
Fordoun House, Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and
Crighton Royal Institution (1876-1893) and later became an epileptic, with
intermittent violent fits lasting until his death.



                             Mary Foley Doyle, who “could trace her ancestry back
to the ancient house of Percy-Louvain, three times allied by marriage with
princesses of the Plantagenet line”, was strong enough to bear the pains of her
misfortunes with a smile (Baring-Gould 5). She shared stories about chivalry and
knights with her children, and took care to remind them of their blue blood.
These gave the young children courage and the power to deal with the uncertainty
of their situation. Arthur was particularly inspired. In his memoir, he wrote,
“I am sure, looking back, that it was in attempting to emulate these stories of
my childhood that I began weaving dreams myself.”



                          However, if Foley Doyle inspired Arthur, she also gave
him the qualms. Her relationship with Dr. Brian Waller, an Irish physician who
became her boarder when she started taking in paying guests after Charles
Altamont Doyle had been asylumed, had led literary historians conjecture a
torrid love affair between them. In his autobiography, Doyle writes, “My
mother’s taking boarders may have eased her in some ways, but was disastrous in
others.” However, Dr. Waller (b. 1853) helped the impoverished Doyle family
financially; and it is only under his influence that Arthur enrolled for a
course in medicine at Edinburgh University, Waller’s alma mater. Though Waller
was many years Mary’s junior, they shared a live-in relationship from 1882 when
she and two of her daughters moved into a cottage on his estate, and lived there
until 1912 (rent-free). It is probably one of the reasons why Doyle has avoided
detailing courtship and passionate affairs in his sixty Sherlock
  Holmes stories.



                                 Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle met Louise ‘Touie’
Hawkins in 1885 when he was treating her terminally ill brother, Jack, for
cerebral meningitis. They married on 5 August 1885, and led a happy life with
two children – Mary and Arthur Alleyn Kingsley – resulting from the wedlock,
until 1893 when Louise was diagnosed with tuberculosis. In the same year, the
couple moved to Davos, Switzerland, for a change, only to return in 1897 to
Surry. His first wife lived a fragile life until her death in 1906, and the
thirteen years between diagnosis and death caused Doyle immense mental torture,
which was aggravated by his passion for Jean Leckie.



                                         Doyle and Leckie met with each other and
fell in love instantaneously on 15 March 1897. She was beautiful, a trained
vocalist and later conducted researches in parapsychological realms. But Doyle’s
codes of honour prevented him from accepting the relationship, and they kept it
a secret until Louise’s death. They married in September 1907 and for ten years
the physician was tormented by his concern for his diseased wife and his
affinity for Leckie. And that might be one of the important reasons why women
have been so sparingly described in the Sherlock Holmes narratives, and why
Sherlock Holmes chooses to remain single all throughout “lest…[he]…bias[es his]
judgement” (“The Sign of Four”).



It would be very kind of the esteemed members if they allow a conversation to be
waged on this issue.



Thanking you,



Yours sincerely,



Pinaki Roy,

Department of English,

Balurghat College







(For references, please see: Baring-Gould, William S. “The Annotated Sherlock
Holmes”. Volume 1. 2nd edition.  New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1967).





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Pretty late to be replying to this mail, but I've got a whole pile of unread
mails!

ACD was one of the original fathers of detective fiction and he would never have
expected that his character would become so popular or be researched so
thoroughly. He was like the cook working in a fast food restaurant, who doesn't
have time to make sure the items he cooks are identical in taste or size or
whatever. He just "dishes them out" as fast as he can. Obviously, ACD was in it
just for the money.

Sridhar

sumalsn <no_reply@...> wrote:

Dear Sherlockians,
    It is quite strange , you see that ACD commited quite a bloomer
there.I think he was justified in creating a mythical creature,
poetic licence, I suppose.
   I always admire the modern writers if not for anything  , for the
meticulous research they do for their works. Michael Crichton and
Fredrick Forsythe are the names which come readily to mind . I
suppose they can't take the risk of making Himalayan bloomers like
ACD.
Sumal






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What was really interesting about Holmes' ability to put together a picture
from small detail was the fact he quickly learnt not to explain how he had
achieved this.  Members may remember how he gave a remarkable analysis of a
man who came to his offices - how the man was a sailor, how the man had
spent time in the East, how he was in fear of his life from a secret society
and so on.  When the man demanded to know how Holmes had done this, and
Holmes had explained (the rolling gate, the tattoo on the arm), the man was
much less impressed and even dismissive of this ingenuity.  Holmes wryly
remarked sotto voce to Watson that he should never explain.



-----Original Message-----
From: sridhar C [mailto:cs_gollum@...]
Sent: 15 March 2005 03:27
To: SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...
Subject: Re: [sherlock holmes society of india] The art of deduction


Gee, Thanks Sumal, but that was eons ago when I was in school. I've not even
attempted it for ages. I'd definitely show my own asinine qualities if I
tried it now! :))


Sridhar

sumalsn <no_reply@...> wrote:

Dear Sridhar,
That was cool and very well done. I too have tried on numerous
ocassions but it has always fallen flat. I made an ass of myself
sumal





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Yahoo! Groups Links

Gee, Thanks Sumal, but that was eons ago when I was in school. I've not even
attempted it for ages. I'd definitely show my own asinine qualities if I tried
it now! :))


Sridhar

sumalsn <no_reply@...> wrote:

Dear Sridhar,
That was cool and very well done. I too have tried on numerous
ocassions but it has always fallen flat. I made an ass of myself
sumal





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Hi

Back after a long break. In my post a while back,
[http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia/message/593],
I had discussed Holmes' method of reasoning. Essentially, Sridhar,
you're  right. Holmes's conclusions[to call them deductions is
incorrect] are probabalistic assessments, based on his observations.
That is, they don't *have* to be true, but, given the Master's
experience and knowledge, they are quite likely to be true. And this
is his true genius. He's often described as a purely logical machine.
In fact, as you yourself have poitned out, a purely logical machine
would be unable to come to any conclusion at all. But Holmes is able
to use a mixture of logic, knowledge and powerful intuition to arrive
at a conclusion in almost every case. So, my view of Holmes is that,
although he is skilled in a logic, his real genius lies in his
intuitive [and rapid] assessment of a situation.

Dear Sherlockians,
  I remember James asking this group about Sherlock Holmes physical
description , In Dr Watson's words, he was something like this,


     "His very person and appearance were such as to strike the most
casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet,and so
excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes
were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to
which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole
expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the
prominence and squareness which mark the reasoner"
   I hope James , I have answered you sufficiently
sumal

Dear Sridhar,
  That was cool and very well done. I too have tried on numerous
ocassions but it has always fallen flat. I made an ass of myself
sumal

Well, yes, most of what Sumal says is true. Of course, one could read all of
these and more and still draw the wrong conclusions (as often happens with me,
though I don't stop doing it all the same!).

The one time I was proved right was when I was in the 10th std. We were having a
science exhibition and many parents, siblings, friends, etc. had come to watch.
There was a certain individual of 30-35 years of age, 5' 5-6'' in height, a
little stout and dressed in a format shirt and trousers. I don't know what
prompted me to ask him, but I did. I asked him to first forgive my impudence but
if he was an asthma patient, to which he replied in a surprised tone that he
was. Then he asked me, like Watson always asked Holmes, as to how I'd figured
that. I told him that it was obvious on looking at the smear on his dark pants
that he had hugged the wall when climbing the stairs. He looked pretty healthy
otherwise and I could not think of a reason for him to do so. I deduced that he
must be weak on the inside rather than on the outside since I'd not seen him
limp or stagger otherwise. I discounted fever or other viral illness at once
since his face looked too bright to be one of a sick
  person. I then thought about chronic illnesses and on a hunch ended up with
asthma (I had not then noticed his inhaler sticking just a little bit out of his
shirt!). A hunch in the end, u see, but still very much the right deduction.


Sridhar
PS: He had also read a few of Holmes' stories and was much impressed!

sumalsn <no_reply@...> wrote:

Dear Sherlockians,
How does Sherlock deduce?

Q. In one word-logically. To elaborate further, his knowledge of a
person is derived by his observation of their:
   nails
   sleeves
   trousers (if ladies, their skirt)
   stride
   cigarette ashes
   gait (way of walk)
   their 'air'
     Besides, it does help to have a fantabulously large knowledge of
crime


Any comments on that?
sumal





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Members, like the Great Master himself, survive falls, even if they only
reappear after a long hiatus. The game is definitely afoot and I, for one am
back in it with my trusted Smith and Wesson (that can blow heads clean off!) in
hand. Let's hunt some hawk!


Sridhar

sumalsn <no_reply@...> wrote:

Dear Sherlockians,
It seems members have fallen off the Reinbach Falls , a long hiatus
here. Come on the game is afoot
sumal





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Dear Esteemed Group,



1    fer de lance

2    coin of the realm

3    1921




J27W

Dear Sherlockians,
  How does Sherlock deduce?

Q. In one word-logically. To elaborate further, his knowledge of a
person is derived by his observation of their:
   nails
   sleeves
   trousers (if ladies, their skirt)
   stride
   cigarette ashes
   gait (way of walk)
   their 'air'
     Besides, it does help to have a fantabulously large knowledge of
crime


  Any comments on that?
sumal

Dear Sherlockians,
  It seems members have fallen off the Reinbach Falls , a long hiatus
here. Come on the game is afoot
sumal

Dear Tim ,
  The suggestion was excellent but you see the implementation part is
quite intimidating . What I meant was how do we popularize it among
netizens who are Sherlockians and I requested you if you could
compare and tell us how this Society atands vis  a vis other
Sherlockian societies in terms of quality of the posts , discussion
level and activity etc
  Awaiting your reply
sumal

Dear  Tim,
   I would like to differ with you on the point that the association
was more beneficial for Dr Watson.
  I disagree for the following reasons
  a) Cocaine addiction could have easily destroyed Holmes's career and
he would have ended up like Dr Isa Whitney ( Twisted Lip )
  b)Dr Watson made the exploits of Holmes known to the general public.
    Mycroft Holmes says, " I hear of Sherlock everywhere" ( Greek
Intepreter).
  c) Dr Watson was very familiar with the latest trends in medicine
and kept himself updated. His knowledge of obscure medical monographs
  ( Resident Patient and the Hound Of Baskervilles)would have stood
him in good stead.
d) He is more sucessful than his neighbour which shows enterprise
  Due to the above reasons , I feel Holmes gained more out of the
friendship.
sumal

Dear Sherlockians,
    It is quite strange , you see that ACD commited quite a bloomer
there.I think he was justified in creating a mythical creature,
poetic licence, I suppose.
   I always admire the modern writers if not for anything  , for the
meticulous research they do for their works. Michael Crichton and
Fredrick Forsythe are the names which come readily to mind . I
suppose they can't take the risk of making Himalayan bloomers like
ACD.
Sumal

I agree with those who feel the society needs to publish something - we are
still in an Age when something in the hand - even a quarterly newsletter -
grips the mind better than e-mails alone, though the latter publicise events
and launches extremely well.  Again, I think there would be a good income if
someone started a facsimile of the famous Baker Street lodgings of the
daring Duo in an Indian city.  With a couple of office attached, it could be
the locus of expanding throughout South Asia, really.  After all, we Brits
may have invented cricket but India beats us almost all the time!

-----Original Message-----
From: sumalsn [mailto:no_reply@...]
Sent: 27 February 2005 13:26
To: SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...
Subject: [sherlock holmes society of india] Re: Generalist Commentary



Dear Sherlockians,
  Thanks , James for the detailed response. Can you suggest any way by
which this society can be publicised better so that we reach out to
more Sherlockians. Tim and Dr Roy.I am expecting your replies too.
sumal






Yahoo! Groups Links

Yes, the 'swamp adder' is an invented species, though it comes close to the
North American massasuaga (honest, that's the name).  In any case, snakes
are deaf and they dislike milk.  And a snakebite would have easily been
noticed by a coroner, even in those days.

-----Original Message-----
From: Srifx [mailto:no_reply@...]
Sent: 02 March 2005 07:11
To: SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...
Subject: [sherlock holmes society of india] Re: On Mr. Srifix's query



Excellent and almost exhaustive analysis, Mr. Roy,  except that you
need not have begged to differ at all. You see, I did not suggest
that the snake in question was a branded krait. I was merely feeding
Tim's appeite for finding out if the swamp adder is indeed the most
deadliest snake in India. My answer addressed two issues. 1. There
is no such thing as swamp adder. However the description of the
snake in the story, remarkably resembles an actual creature. and 2.
that the resembled creature is arguably the most deadliest snake in
India. Both points were a direct answer to Tim's simple general
knowledge question. :)

Sri


- In SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@..., pinaki roy
<monkaroy@y...> wrote:
>
> Dear Sherlockians,
>
>
>
>               I am extremely sorry for the hiatus, but between 26
and 28 February 2005, I had been away at University of North Bengal,
Shibmandir-Siliguri. So I could not participate in the latest
discussions. The suggestion by Mr. Srifix that the snake in `The
Adventure of the Speckled Band' (first published in the February
1892-issue of `The Strand Magazine') is a banded krait. I beg to
differ with this suggestion. I would rather say that the serpent
described in `The Speckled Band' does not really exist. It is just
an external manifestation of Doyle's psychosis about the
debilitating effects of the Orient and the Orientals on the imperial
Britain.
>
>
>
> Biologically, given the hot and humid climate the Indian snakes
like cobra and kraits are accustomed to, it is really debatable
whether the serpent would have survived at all in the chilly
Britain. Contrary to the general belief, the tropical snakes can die
very easily, and climactic changes affect the toxicity of their
venom. A long stint in England would have drastically reduced the
virulence of the adder's toxicity.
>
>
>
> Let us recall Doyle's rather vague portrayal of his `swamp
adder': ".a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which
seemed to be bound tightly around .[Dr. Grimesby Roylott's].head.In
an instant his strange headgear began to move, and there reared
itself from among his hair the squat diamond-shaped head and puffed
neck of a loathsome creature.It's a swamp adder.the deadliest snake
in India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten." (`The
Speckled Band' 207-8).
>
>
>
> It is significant that Allan Eyles, who has otherwise been so
enthusiastic about the different Sherlockian characters in "Sherlock
Holmes: a Centenary Celebration", has maintained a complete silence
about the presence of the snake in `The Speckled Band'. The only
comment we get is: "In .[the story].Sherlock Holmes turns the tables
on the dastardly Dr. Grimesby Roylott" (Eyles 23). Because the swamp
adder exists only in the author's subconscious mind and is not
a `simple creature'. However, Sidney Paget's illustration of Holmes
striking out at the hissing intruder slithering down the bell-pull
in the darkened bedroom at the climax of the story (published in the
February 1892-issue of `The Strand') has become one of the more
famous illustrations in the canon.
>
>
>
>
In `Colonialism/Postcolonialism', Ania Loomba has described
a `stereotype' as `a reduction of images to a simple and manageable
form.[for].perpetuat[ing].an artificial sense of difference
between `self' [that is, the imperial locus] and `other' [for
example, the Oriental colonies]" (59-60). The swamp adder is one
such stereotype, a distorted one at that, which is used to assert
the ever-existing difference between the coloniser (Holmes, Watson,
and Dr. Roylott himself) and the colonised (represented by this
deadly representative from India). Holmes's first lashing at the
snake (`The Speckled Band' 207) and his ultimate dragging it by a
noose to an iron safe (`The Speckled Band' 208) are symbolically his
Foucaultian disciplining of a dangerous colonised `being' and his
ensuring that the coloniser ultimately triumphs over the colonised.
Doyle has constructed his stories in such a way, with all their
ingredients including the snake, so that his texts
>  become acceptable to the imperial Britons. In his "It is the
deadliest Snake in India: an Afterword to `The Adventure of the
Speckled Band'", Baring-Gould notes that "no known species of snake
fully satisfies all the requirements of the speckled band.[which
would have to be].a sinister combination of the Mexican Gila Monster
(Heloderma horridum) and.the.Indian cobra now known as Naja naja
naja" (`The Annotated' 266). Therefore, he refuses to believe in the
existence of the snake. I also agree with Dr. Nicholas Stewart of
the Queen's University of Belfast who categorically denies that the
swamp adder ever existed in his essay, "A Post-colonial Canonical
and Cultural Revision of Conan Doyle's Holmes Narratives" (Belfast:
Queen's University Press, 1999).
>
>
>
> I should also enlist some of Baring-Gould's observations in brief:
>
>
>
>    Doyle actually intended `puff adder' (Bitis arietans), but then
the slow action of the snake's venom on Julia Stoner rules its being
a puff adder
>    Apart from the rather fat and deformed Hydrophiidae sea snakes,
there are no truly aquatic venomous snakes in India. Swamp adder
then could be an African snake like Bitis nasicornis that stay in
damp forests
>    In "The Speckled Band: What Was It?", Douglas Lawson has
demonstrated that the only two groups of Indian snakes that kill by
their poison fangs (remember the "two little dark punctures"?) are
divided into the Elapidae and Viperidie families. From the nature of
Roylott's wounds, the snake could be an Indian viper belonging to
the latter family
>    According to Lawson, the snake that bit Julia Stoner was a
Russell Viper and that which bit Dr. Roylott was an Echis carinata.
He refers to Dr. Raymond Lee Ditmar's description of the serpents'
physiques in "Snakes of the World" (New York: Macmillan, 1931)
>    Considering the loudness of an aroused Russell Viper's hissing,
Watson could not have heard the `low noise' of a Russell Viper. It
might be an Echis carinata that makes the sound of a boiling tea
kettle when excited
>    A Russell Viper is usually four-to-five feet long, but
Roylott's was a mere "three feet"
>    The haemotoxic poison of Viper and carinata can never be so
poisonous that it could kill a person in ten seconds, as is the case
for Dr. Roylott
>    The `puffed neck' does not belong either to Viper or to Echis
carinata. It is observed in cobras
>    A snake cannot be called in a room by a mere whistle
>    A snake does not drink milk by choice and therefore, Roylott's
training the adder by milk seems somewhat absurd
>    A snake can slide down a rope as one suspended from the bell
near Julia's room, but the snake cannot climb the rope up  (`The
Annotated' 263-65)
>
>
>
> It would be very kind of the other Sherlock Holmes Society of
India members if they wage a discussion on the true identity of the
snake.
>
>
>
> Thanking you,
>
>
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
>
>
> Pinaki Roy,
>
> Department of English,
>
> Balurghat College
>
>
>
>
>
> Select bibliography:
>
>
>
> Baring-Gould, William S. "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes". Volume
I. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1967.
>
>
>
> Doyle, Arthur Conan. "The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes".
New Delhi: Rupa, 1989. Rpt. 2001.
>
>
>
> Eyles, Allen. "Sherlock Holmes: a Centenary Celebration". London:
John Murray, 1986.
>
>
>
> Stewart, Nicholas. "A Post-colonial Canonical and Cultural
Revision of Conan Doyle's Holmes Narratives: an Essay". Belfast:
Queen's University Press, 1999.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
>  Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






Yahoo! Groups Links

I agree.  Both were very dependent on each other.  Mostly we think Watson
was the more dependent on Holmes, believing Holmes had given him a renewed
interest in living after Watson was demobilised from the Army.  However,
when Watson left and married and started back in medicine, someone secretly
bought out Watson's medical practice for an unnamed but generous sum,
enabling Watson to return to work with Holmes.  It turns out it was Holmes
who provided the cash for the buy-out.

-----Original Message-----
From: sumalsn [mailto:no_reply@...]
Sent: 02 March 2005 14:48
To: SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...
Subject: [sherlock holmes society of india] Holmes and his cocaine habit



Dear Sherlockians,
  I personally feel that the association of Sherlock Holmes with Dr
Watson was mutually beneficial. Dr Watson weaned off Holmes from his
cocaine addiction and Holmes in turn weaned Dr Watson of his gambling
habits. I welcome suggestions on this comments
Sumal






Yahoo! Groups Links

Dear Sherlockians,
  I personally feel that the association of Sherlock Holmes with Dr
Watson was mutually beneficial. Dr Watson weaned off Holmes from his
cocaine addiction and Holmes in turn weaned Dr Watson of his gambling
habits. I welcome suggestions on this comments
Sumal

Dear DR Roy,
  The research was phenomenal. You have raised the bar on all of us.
We hope to be enlightened by such exauhstive research
sumal

Excellent and almost exhaustive analysis, Mr. Roy,  except that you
need not have begged to differ at all. You see, I did not suggest
that the snake in question was a branded krait. I was merely feeding
Tim's appeite for finding out if the swamp adder is indeed the most
deadliest snake in India. My answer addressed two issues. 1. There
is no such thing as swamp adder. However the description of the
snake in the story, remarkably resembles an actual creature. and 2.
that the resembled creature is arguably the most deadliest snake in
India. Both points were a direct answer to Tim's simple general
knowledge question. :)

Sri


- In SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@..., pinaki roy
<monkaroy@y...> wrote:
>
> Dear Sherlockians,
>
>
>
>               I am extremely sorry for the hiatus, but between 26
and 28 February 2005, I had been away at University of North Bengal,
Shibmandir-Siliguri. So I could not participate in the latest
discussions. The suggestion by Mr. Srifix that the snake in `The
Adventure of the Speckled Band' (first published in the February
1892-issue of `The Strand Magazine') is a banded krait. I beg to
differ with this suggestion. I would rather say that the serpent
described in `The Speckled Band' does not really exist. It is just
an external manifestation of Doyle's psychosis about the
debilitating effects of the Orient and the Orientals on the imperial
Britain.
>
>
>
> Biologically, given the hot and humid climate the Indian snakes
like cobra and kraits are accustomed to, it is really debatable
whether the serpent would have survived at all in the chilly
Britain. Contrary to the general belief, the tropical snakes can die
very easily, and climactic changes affect the toxicity of their
venom. A long stint in England would have drastically reduced the
virulence of the adder's toxicity.
>
>
>
> Let us recall Doyle's rather vague portrayal of his `swamp
adder': "…a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which
seemed to be bound tightly around …[Dr. Grimesby Roylott's]…head…In
an instant his strange headgear began to move, and there reared
itself from among his hair the squat diamond-shaped head and puffed
neck of a loathsome creature…It's a swamp adder…the deadliest snake
in India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten…" (`The
Speckled Band' 207-8).
>
>
>
> It is significant that Allan Eyles, who has otherwise been so
enthusiastic about the different Sherlockian characters in "Sherlock
Holmes: a Centenary Celebration", has maintained a complete silence
about the presence of the snake in `The Speckled Band'. The only
comment we get is: "In …[the story]…Sherlock Holmes turns the tables
on the dastardly Dr. Grimesby Roylott" (Eyles 23). Because the swamp
adder exists only in the author's subconscious mind and is not
a `simple creature'. However, Sidney Paget's illustration of Holmes
striking out at the hissing intruder slithering down the bell-pull
in the darkened bedroom at the climax of the story (published in the
February 1892-issue of `The Strand') has become one of the more
famous illustrations in the canon.
>
>
>
>
In `Colonialism/Postcolonialism', Ania Loomba has described
a `stereotype' as `a reduction of images to a simple and manageable
form…[for]…perpetuat[ing]…an artificial sense of difference
between `self' [that is, the imperial locus] and `other' [for
example, the Oriental colonies]" (59-60). The swamp adder is one
such stereotype, a distorted one at that, which is used to assert
the ever-existing difference between the coloniser (Holmes, Watson,
and Dr. Roylott himself) and the colonised (represented by this
deadly representative from India). Holmes's first lashing at the
snake (`The Speckled Band' 207) and his ultimate dragging it by a
noose to an iron safe (`The Speckled Band' 208) are symbolically his
Foucaultian disciplining of a dangerous colonised `being' and his
ensuring that the coloniser ultimately triumphs over the colonised.
Doyle has constructed his stories in such a way, with all their
ingredients including the snake, so that his texts
>  become acceptable to the imperial Britons. In his "It is the
deadliest Snake in India: an Afterword to `The Adventure of the
Speckled Band'", Baring-Gould notes that "no known species of snake
fully satisfies all the requirements of the speckled band…[which
would have to be]…a sinister combination of the Mexican Gila Monster
(Heloderma horridum) and…the…Indian cobra now known as Naja naja
naja" (`The Annotated' 266). Therefore, he refuses to believe in the
existence of the snake. I also agree with Dr. Nicholas Stewart of
the Queen's University of Belfast who categorically denies that the
swamp adder ever existed in his essay, "A Post-colonial Canonical
and Cultural Revision of Conan Doyle's Holmes Narratives" (Belfast:
Queen's University Press, 1999).
>
>
>
> I should also enlist some of Baring-Gould's observations in brief:
>
>
>
>    Doyle actually intended `puff adder' (Bitis arietans), but then
the slow action of the snake's venom on Julia Stoner rules its being
a puff adder
>    Apart from the rather fat and deformed Hydrophiidae sea snakes,
there are no truly aquatic venomous snakes in India. Swamp adder
then could be an African snake like Bitis nasicornis that stay in
damp forests
>    In "The Speckled Band: What Was It?", Douglas Lawson has
demonstrated that the only two groups of Indian snakes that kill by
their poison fangs (remember the "two little dark punctures"?) are
divided into the Elapidae and Viperidie families. From the nature of
Roylott's wounds, the snake could be an Indian viper belonging to
the latter family
>    According to Lawson, the snake that bit Julia Stoner was a
Russell Viper and that which bit Dr. Roylott was an Echis carinata.
He refers to Dr. Raymond Lee Ditmar's description of the serpents'
physiques in "Snakes of the World" (New York: Macmillan, 1931)
>    Considering the loudness of an aroused Russell Viper's hissing,
Watson could not have heard the `low noise' of a Russell Viper. It
might be an Echis carinata that makes the sound of a boiling tea
kettle when excited
>    A Russell Viper is usually four-to-five feet long, but
Roylott's was a mere "three feet"
>    The haemotoxic poison of Viper and carinata can never be so
poisonous that it could kill a person in ten seconds, as is the case
for Dr. Roylott
>    The `puffed neck' does not belong either to Viper or to Echis
carinata. It is observed in cobras
>    A snake cannot be called in a room by a mere whistle
>    A snake does not drink milk by choice and therefore, Roylott's
training the adder by milk seems somewhat absurd
>    A snake can slide down a rope as one suspended from the bell
near Julia's room, but the snake cannot climb the rope up  (`The
Annotated' 263-65)
>
>
>
> It would be very kind of the other Sherlock Holmes Society of
India members if they wage a discussion on the true identity of the
snake.
>
>
>
> Thanking you,
>
>
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
>
>
> Pinaki Roy,
>
> Department of English,
>
> Balurghat College
>
>
>
>
>
> Select bibliography:
>
>
>
> Baring-Gould, William S. "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes". Volume
I. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1967.
>
>
>
> Doyle, Arthur Conan. "The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes".
New Delhi: Rupa, 1989. Rpt. 2001.
>
>
>
> Eyles, Allen. "Sherlock Holmes: a Centenary Celebration". London:
John Murray, 1986.
>
>
>
> Stewart, Nicholas. "A Post-colonial Canonical and Cultural
Revision of Conan Doyle's Holmes Narratives: an Essay". Belfast:
Queen's University Press, 1999.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
>  Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]