Lock your Holmes

When i have some free time, i read Sherlock Holmes on my iPhone.

A close friend, who has a collection of Sherlock Holmes' books recommended them to me. He had this very old version of them, with dog eared, brownish-yellow dull pages here and there. He pinpointed Holmes' extraordinary observation skills and his egoistic character.

So i have started reading since and the stories have never disappointed me. Wonderfully written, superb language, this is the definitive detective story you have to read. I'm not interested with all these CSI-detective-cop stories but Sherlock Holmes is just fun to read. Period. Of all fiction i've read my entire life, this is the book i would recommend to anybody and everybody.

After some time reading it, i realized that he has an ego equal to Dr. House. And it's not a surprise that you could find on wikipedia that both characters have parallel attributes. Both have this perception that they are the best in what they do. Both are drug addicts : Holmes to cocaine, House to Vicodin. House lives in Apartment 221B, while Holmes lived in 221B Baker Street. While you have watched Dr. House's observatory skills, here's an example of Holmes'.

This is from a story called The Stock-Broker's Clerk in 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'. After having a small conversation and inviting his sidekick Dr. Watson for an investigation of a case in Birmingham, Holmes remarked that Watson 'has been unwell latelly'. And so Dr. Watson asked :

"How, then, did you know of it?"

"My dear fellow, you know my methods."

"You deduced it, then?"

"Certainly."

"And from what?"

"From your slippers."

Then Holmes continued :-

"You could not have had them more than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are slightly scorched. For a moment i thought they might have got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of course have removed this. You had, then, been sitting with your feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly do even in so wet a June as this if he were in his full health."

Dr. Watson, the sidekick who is the narrator of almost all these stories/adventures then reflected upon his explanation, "He read the thought upon my features, and his smile had a tinge of bitterness."

"I am afraid that i rather give myself away when i explain," said he (Holmes). "Results without causes are much more impressive. You are ready to come to Birmingham, then?"

That's an ego the size of a universe.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of these stories was a physician and wrote these stories while waiting for patients in his usual daily practice. His epitaph reads, "Patriot, Physician and Man of Letters." He certainly was a man of language.

Hope the movie does not disappoint, although i know it will since the experience of reading the stories was excellent, it would take a gigantic effort for the movie to overwhelm the books.