For a significant part of my tweens and teens, I was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. It’s fair to say he is still one of my very favorite characters. Over the past 18-something years since we first met, I’ve always intended to return to the series and never followed through completely. But now, enough time has passed that I am ready to commit to it again, this time alongside a fellow blogger (check out Cyberkitten’s review as well!).
A Study in Scarlet is, I maintain, an odd little novel. Reading it with fresh eyes, one can’t help but smile at the quirky protagonist and the peculiar structure of the narrative. Sherlock Holmes predates Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, and James Bond by decades—how weird he would have seemed to a late-Victorian audience! Add to this a Western told in third person sandwiched between pieces of Watson’s account, and you’ve got yourself a strange debut novel indeed. It is no wonder that Sherlock Holmes did not catch on with audiences until “A Scandal in Bohemia,” a good four years later. Nonetheless, this novel introduces us to the beloved duo and presents a number of themes that Arthur Conan Doyle would use throughout the Sherlock Holmes series.
We start off with a classic scenario—two guys looking for roommates. Watson, an army doctor, is back from a harrowing tour in Afghanistan, and Holmes is a freelancing investigator, underpaid and underappreciated. Young Stamford, a mutual acquaintance, brings them together, but loudly abdicates any responsibility for how it may turn out. Watson, bored out of his mind, determines to sus out all he can about his mysterious new acquaintance. In so doing, he finds himself on a crime scene that has bewildered Scotland Yard and put a young man behind bars, all the while learning about the “science of deduction” and criminal cases of the past.
Having read this particular novel several times, most recently in 2017, I recognized much of it by heart. It was a joy to revisit these characters’ meeting and step back into Victorian London of the gently sensational periodicals. With older eyes, I see more of the dated elements and the overly convenient plot contrivances that went over my head growing up. But by and large, A Study in Scarlet is still a pleasant read for Holmes fans, or anyone seeking a little respite in detective-adventure fiction.
Many recurring motifs have their origins in this novel, and the one which stood out to me this time was the plight of women. In many of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Doyle explores the domestic structures of his time, the vulnerability of women, and the oft-recurring lecherous villain. Doyle’s female characters are no mere damsels in distress, however—they bring their own aspirations and agency. Irene Adler gets most of the limelight, but several others (such as Violet Hunter and Helen Stoner) play a significant role in their own rescuing. It is fascinating to me how Doyle took the trope of knight-in-shining-armor and reframed it with a nerdy detective and resourceful but endangered women. His female characters in A Study in Scarlet are not quite as fully developed as his later ones, but you can clearly see the origins of this theme here.
Another motif worth mentioning is Doyle’s determination to achieve both justice and moral vindication for his murderer. This is something he does in many of his stories, and both sides of this coin feel distinctly Victorian—the desire to protect the innocent at any cost and the competing necessity of letting no murderer go unpunished.Where many novelists have leaned in one direction or another, Doyle goes to great lengths on both sides. It shows, to my mind, both the extensive influence of Victorian morals and his own interest in seeing the humanity in even his most desperate characters.
One can’t review A Study in Scarlet without addressing the elephant in the room—namely, the American detour placed smack-dab in the beginning of the second part. Gangster/cult violence feature heavily in a flashback that explains how a murder in London originated in a Mormon settlement in Utah. This is both the most intriguing and the weakest part of the book—intriguing because of its bold potential, weak because of its execution. Had Doyle stuck to a more staid account of polygamy and religious trauma, the novel would have aged much better and served as an interesting critique. As it is, he goes deep into sensationalism and a chapter of history that is greatly disputed, so that those who are LDS will likely be offended and others will be left to wonder what to make of it all. Lacking an educated opinion, what I can say is that it’s very much how Doyle writes historical fiction, having read other works by him such as The Refugees and The White Company—enjoyable tales of questionable accuracy.
Overall, I give A Study in Scarlet a solid 3 out of 5. It remains an odd book introducing an odd character, amidst its faults bringing a great deal of charm.
Classics Considered 
Leave a reply to Hamlette (Rachel) Cancel reply