Book Log 2007 #23: The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon
Chabon seeks to put a coda on the career of Sherlock Holmes in this novella, which sees the aged detective retired to the countryside as a beekeeper, only to return to his best-known profession when a lodger at a local boarding house turns up dead. A young refugee displaced by World War II and his pet parrot - who likes to repeat strings of numbers in German - add another layer to the case.
I liked the story, but found the hook on which the murder stood to be a little weak. I don't think that's what Chabon was really focusing on, but making it a bit stronger would have helped the mystery match the great prose surrounding it.
Not sure if Sherlockians would approve of it - perhaps our resident one has read it and will make comment - but for the small investment in time it's more than worth a look.
17 June 2007
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1 comment:
I'll give you one thing, Mark - you know how to bait comments.
I haven't read this book yet, as I typically don't care for Sherlock Holmes books that depart from the original Canon (other than parodies). This genre is called pastiche and it can be overused for the sake of ringing up the cash register.
While the world of Sherlockian scholarship has been in vogue since the 1930s and beyond, the world of pastiche has ebbed and flowed. Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Per-Cent Solution brought new attention to Holmes and Watson in the 1970s, albeit to Holmes's drug habit. Meyer went on to write and direct another cult favorite, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and now is an investitured member of the Baker Street Irregulars with me.
Chabon's book seems to parallel the timeline of Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind, seeing that both take place during Holmes's retirement. It's an interesting approach, rather than picking up with Holmes in his own era, as his "retirement years" haven't been explored too deeply.
I recently wrote a blog entry in which I pondered the future of the Harry Potter cottage industry that has sprouted, now that the franchise seems to be at its end. It's now 80 years since the last Canonical Holmes story made its appearance and we're still going strong...
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