a study in scarlet (novel 1887)
by arthur conan doyle
i should start by saying that i’ve read a bunch of the short stories in the adventures of sherlock holmes, and seen a decent number of film adaptations, but this is the first sherlock holmes novel i’ve read. i always saw him as much more of a static character, but he seems much different in this novel than i remember him being in the short stories. so i’m glad i’m reading these in order so i can see if there’s deliberate character development on doyle’s part or if he just gradually learns how to write him, finds the formula as it were.
i feel like most depictions i’ve seen of holmes have shown him as more of an… all-encompassing genius of sorts? or maybe that was a misreading on my part. but i just distinctly remember having him slotted in that category of characters’ whose main personality trait was “smart,” like spock or beast or doc brown.
in any case, the idea that he would, as he does in this book, not know something as basic as the fact that the earth revolves around the sun is just stunning to me. and his entire argument about avoiding “useless facts elbowing out the useful ones” is just… not how brains work, my dude. though i do find it hilarious that when he says, “depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before,” he is basically asserting that the human brain works on the same principle as a pokémon having to forget one of their four moves to learn another one. (“HOLMES wants to learn EARTH GO ROUND SUN… …however, HOLMES already knows four things…”)