July Meeting: The Yellow Face

Summer meetings tend to have low turnouts.  People are on vacation, family time is at a premium, and the weather was beautiful on Saturday, so when we had 13 folks show up for our meeting on The Yellow Face, it was a nice turnout!  Rob, Pris, Elaine, Ed, Adam, Paul, Ann and Bob were there, as well as Margie and Karl coming back after an absence.  They also brought their son Matt and granddaughter Ella with them, and we were also joined new member Kristen.  And man, did we have a lot to talk about!

We started off with a roundup of Sherlockian news.

Ed made it out to Baltimore for Scintillation of Scions and gave us a recap of the event.  It sounded like a great time!

From Gillette to Brett V is coming up in October. 

Elementary has started filming its seventh season.

The Baker Street Irregulars now have a website where people can find information about their events and publications.

A new book, Conan Doyle for the Defense, looks at how ACD used his intelligence to help out wrongfully convicted people in his day.

Kristen brought up From Holmes to Sherlock, a great book for anyone who is interested in the history of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Adam told us about an old episode of The Incredible Hulk where Jeremy Brett played the villain.  It was jarring to see Sherlock Holmes be the bad guy!

Karl shared a picture that Matt had made years ago depicting a familiar Victorian street.  Can you find the crime being committed in it?

And, last but definitely not least, Holmes in the Heartland is next month!  We already have over forty people signed up for the weekend August 10-12, and if you haven't signed up yet, you only have a few more days.  Registration ends on July 31.

Our story starts off with Watson telling readers that "It is only natural that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures."  We then noticed a discrepancy that some editions cite The Musgrave Ritual as a failure, while others cited The Second Stain.  This was a difference between the English and American versions of the story.  There are plenty of other changes in this story other than this, depending on which side of the pond your version came from.

If "Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise’s sake" how did he stay in such good shape?

We discussed Holmes' deductions about Grant Munro.  When Munro fails to acknowledge Holmes' powers on the first try, Holmes shocks him by announcing the man's name to him.  You WILL notice how smart Sherlock Holmes is!

We get a very long exposition of the case from Grant Munro, and we all found it curious that Effie called her husband Jack when his name was Grant.

After Munro has finished his story (which took up to nine pages in some books!), Holmes is very interested in Effie's time in America and her reticence to talk about it.

Munro is then sent off to let Holmes know if anyone is in the mysterious cottage, Holmes tells Watson that he has a provisional theory and expects the case to be one of blackmail.  This flies in the face of Holmes' own axiom: "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data" from another story.

A telegram arrives calling Holmes and Watson to Norbury, as there are still people in the cottage.  Our heroes take off and are met by Munro.  He plans to force his way into the cottage and see what's going on for himself, to which Holmes agrees to follow.

Here we had quite a conversation about the lack of Sherlock-iness of this story.  Has Holmes really done anything yet?  He's listened to Munro tell his story and then agreed to the man's plan of action.  Hardly the typical course of action for one of these stories.

When the three arrive at the cottage, Munro's wife tries to stop them, but Munro announces that "My friends and I are going to settle this matter once and forever."  We found this interesting, because just a few hours before, Munro had said "One does not like to speak of one's domestic affairs to strangers," and "It seems dreadful to discuss the conduct of one's wife with two men whom I have never seen before."  And now they're all "friends."

When the girl in the room is discovered, Watson cries out in surprise.  This from a man who has served in a war?

We then bantered about Effie's decision to leave America.  We discussed her choice as a parent, a widow, a woman with money, someone who's marriage was frowned up, and other factors.  We didn't come to a consensus on her choices, but some very well thought out points were made.

The story has a nice ending, even if Holmes didn't do much in it.  But the ending definitely led to a thoughtful discussion about the racial issues in this story.  Elaine pointed out that Doyle was progressive in his racial attitudes in this story, but not so much in WIST, SIGN and 3GAB.  And it can be difficult to read this story and not see it through today's culture.

We also talked about Doyle's lack of research in his tales.  There were no successful black lawyers in Atlanta during this time and interracial marriage was illegal in Georgia.  Could Hebron and Effie have lived in a town in the northern states named Atlanta?

A handful of group members had their copies of About Sixty, so we talked about the essay on The Yellow Face from there.  That essay argues that YELL is a southern Gothic story that turns the themes on their head.  It's also posited that Holmes failed in this case because it is ultimately a love story about Grant and Effie Munro.

We agreed that YELL isn't the best Sherlock Holmes story, but we all did think that it led to some great discussion! 

It was a fun meeting and great to see old friends and new members.  Our next meeting will be on September 8, when we meet to discuss The Stockbroker's Clerk.  And don't forget to join us for Holmes in the Heartland. 

Come at once if convenient!