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rj_andersonI found this old essay today -- had almost forgotten I'd ever written it. For the fellow Sherlockians among you, here it is:
In Defense of Mr. Godfrey Norton, Esq.
Also, has anybody out there read Carole Nelson Douglas's Irene books up to and including Chapel Noir? If so, what did you think of the latter? Because I have a pretty strong opinion on it and I'd be interested to find out if I'm not alone...
In Defense of Mr. Godfrey Norton, Esq.
Also, has anybody out there read Carole Nelson Douglas's Irene books up to and including Chapel Noir? If so, what did you think of the latter? Because I have a pretty strong opinion on it and I'd be interested to find out if I'm not alone...
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Date: 2003-07-12 07:21 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-07-12 07:44 pm (UTC)Chapel Noir
Date: 2003-07-12 08:37 pm (UTC)Re: Chapel Noir
Date: 2003-07-13 02:39 pm (UTC)I haven't read "Chapel Noir"...
Date: 2003-07-12 11:03 pm (UTC)Oh, and I like Nell.
Re: I haven't read "Chapel Noir"...
Date: 2003-07-13 06:35 pm (UTC)Wow, you really think so? I can only say that this just confirms my long-held suspicion that when it comes to otherwise competently written stories, Mary Sue is very much in the eye of the beholder. I like both the Irene books and the Russell series, but if I had to play "Pick the Mary Sue" I would choose Irene long before I got to Russell.
Of course, it all depends on which classic Mary Sue attributes tend to ping your radar first. For me, hearing that a heroine is not only the mental match of Sherlock Holmes but also outstandingly beautiful, endowed with a perfect figure, able to charm everyone she meets, sings divinely, can act as well as any professional, and is continually on the cutting edge of fashion (with whole pages of the story devoted to describing just exactly what she happened to be wearing on any given day) makes said heroine a much less sympathetic and plausible character in my eyes.
Russell is like Irene in that she's highly intelligent and an excellent detective, of course, but she's also more fallible and ordinary in a lot of ways. There are times I want to smack her, as I do Irene, but not for being nauseatingly perfect.
Re: I haven't read "Chapel Noir"...
Date: 2003-07-13 10:27 pm (UTC)1) Takes place of canon character (Watson) and is much more suitable companion than him. (Poor Watson - the damage those films of the 40s did to his character, as opposed to canon!)
2) Is the equal of hero of original series.
3) Is teenage girl when inserting herself in said hero's life. (Yes, she grows up. But that's how she's introduced.)
4) Romance with hero. Ending with marriage to hero.
Irene's traits of being beautiful, a great actress and singer and the mental match of S.H. WERE established by Conan Doyle, so Douglas didn't make them up. And Irene does not become romantically involved with Holmes.
Re: I haven't read "Chapel Noir"...
Date: 2003-07-14 08:03 am (UTC)#4 is also, IMO, a matter of taste and has nothing to do with Mary Sueness in itself. If Conan Doyle had been the one to write a wife for Sherlock Holmes, we wouldn't be accusing him of creating a Mary Sue, would we? And when William Gillette married off Holmes in his stage play (with Conan Doyle's own, quite famous, line of permission "You may marry or murder or do what you like with him"), I doubt the theatre patrons were running around grumbling about Alice being a Mary Sue (or the Edwardian equivalent thereof). They might well have objected to the idea that Holmes would ever fall in love or marry at all, and they might have complained that Alice was not in their opinion the sort of woman who would attract Holmes, but I can't imagine anyone just deciding out of hand that any female character who has a romance with Holmes and/or marries him is a badly drawn, superficial, cliched character (which is, after all, what the epithet "Mary Sue" implies) by default.
I'm also not quite sure about the "equal of hero". More than once Holmes beats Russell to the solution of a case, and/or she ends up on the sidelines while he does the heroic catching-the-villain part. I also get the distinct impression that Russell doesn't have her heart in detecting the way that Holmes does; theology is her first love and she would much rather sneak off in a corner with a pile of books and manuscripts and not be bothered with detective stuff at all.
On the other hand, I agree about the mishandling of Watson -- it's been a long-time complaint among Russell fans, and Laurie has got an earful from us about it. :) But the idea of Holmes working with Russell rather than Watson doesn't bother me, because Watson is in retirement. And the whole idea of the series is the chance to see Holmes through eyes other than Watson's -- feminine eyes for a change -- so it would defeat the purpose if Russell didn't take Watson's place as narrator.
I understand that some readers don't like Russell and don't approve of what Laurie King is doing, and that's fine. Not everything is to everyone's taste. But I don't think the difference between Irene Adler and Mary Russell is the difference between a well-drawn character and a "Mary Sue". In fact, for all that she's ostensibly taken from canon, Irene strikes me as far more idealized and glamourized by her author (which is the thing that pings my personal Mary Sue radar most of all) than Russell. I don't get the sense that Laurie King wishes she were Russell, or that she writes as though everyone ought to love Russell unconditionally; I do get the sense that Carole Nelson Douglas wishes she were Irene, and that anyone in or out of the story who doesn't worship Irene for being so clever and beautiful and witty and chic is wrong. That's really what I meant. But of course, YMMV.
Re: I haven't read "Chapel Noir"...
Date: 2003-07-15 12:25 am (UTC)You're right about marriage not being a necessary qualification for Sue-ness. But I think I might have continued the Russell books beyond No.2 if she hadn't married Holmes, or fallen in love with him. Because yes, a female perspective on Holmes could have been intriguing. As it is, the falling-in-love and marriage hit two of my personal squick buttons - the other being mentor/student relationships. (Which is, for example, why I don't read Giles/Any of the Scoobies stories in the Buffyverse.
Watson: let me just add it would have been possible, imo, to have Russell as narrator without mishandling or even retiring Watson.
One last aside re: Douglas' attitude towards Irene. She contributed a rather witty short story to a vampire anthology in which Irene rescues a chorus girl from the attentions of a vampire and is rather terse about the silliness of falling for aristocrats because of their looks and fancy titles and ignoring the obvious signs of something being wrong, while mentioning (the whole story is a letter to Nell) the charming Willie of Bohemia. Meaning: Douglas is kidding her character now and then, and I got the impression she also wanted us to see Irene as an egocentric. A charming, charismatic one, but an egocentric nonetheless (as Holmes is, too, another reason why Holmes/Irene wouldn't work out).
Chapel Noir
Date: 2003-07-13 12:03 pm (UTC)How's that for strong?
Karen
P.S. Who else thinks that re-naming the previous Irene volumes for re-issue was silly? And that CND's chapter-leading quoting from those books-- under their new titles and with her own name given as author of the quotes-- was both annoyingly pretentious and fourth-wall-breaking??
Re: Chapel Noir
Date: 2003-07-14 08:08 am (UTC)In previous books Nell had been a bit uptight, but not inhumanly so, and there were ample signs that Irene's company was making her loosen up and enjoy life a bit more. But in this book, practically everything out of Nell's mouth was an expression of ignorance or bigotry, and after a few chapters of such offensive nonsense I wanted to grab CND and say "Who is this horrible impostor and what have you done with the real Penelope Huxleigh?!"
Well, it seems like I'm far from being the only one who disliked the book. Good. I'm glad to know I'm not going crazy here. :)
What About Mary Russell?
Date: 2003-07-13 07:47 pm (UTC)Re: What About Mary Russell?
Date: 2003-07-13 07:58 pm (UTC)For those wondering what on earth the joke is about, I run the official Russell series fan site (http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/beekeepr.html) and moderate the associated mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RUSS-L), and have done for almost ten years. I'm assuming James knows this, since he's visited my home page a number of times.
Re: What About Mary Russell?
Date: 2003-07-14 04:51 am (UTC)Re: What About Mary Russell?
Date: 2003-07-14 08:10 am (UTC)Re: What About Mary Russell?
Date: 2003-07-13 08:53 pm (UTC)Re: What About Mary Russell?
Date: 2003-07-14 08:12 am (UTC)Yeah, and in some big, melodramatic, public way too, I'll bet. As if!
Re: What About Mary Russell?
Date: 2003-07-21 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-31 06:44 am (UTC)I liked your essay and I agree with everything you said.
Really.
That said? I read the CND for the parts where Holmes shows up.
I don't think a man--a person--like Sherlock Holmes is ever, ever going to "fall in love" as the traditional Hallmark card version of the sentiment is generally understood. I apply this to Irene Adler, Mary Russell, and even Watson. (Yes, I'm active in all three 'ships.)
I think Holmes' attachment to Russell--and the basis of his possible attachment to Irene--is based on the fact that their minds mesh. They see the world from a perspective uninhabited by more than half a dozen people of his aquaintance, and they are probably the only two women of that number.
Granted, Holmes tells Russell, re the kiss, "I've wanted to do that since I first laid eyes on you." My interpretation? Holmes is a man. A sexual being, probably capable of tremendous sexual energy, who has for most of his life starved this appetite just as he so often starved himself of food in order to serve a higher purpose. He had an immediate physical attraction to Russell, but thanks to his maturity and wisdom and personal sense of honor he never dreamed of broaching the topic until she was quite old enough to reciprocate. The physical attraction, plus the fact that they *fit* (which feeling is to my mind the most profound sort of love possible) served as the basis of their union.
By the same token, Holmes and Irene also fit. In a different way, and certainly not as closely as with Holmes and Russell, but they still shared the bond of being extraordinary. We know that he finds her beautiful. Again, physical attraction + similar minds = basis for a union. A brief one, perhaps, but union nonetheless.
And where, as you say, was Godfrey? Well, there are any number of possibilities. Off on business for the Rothschilds? I believe he need only be absent for a time. Not dead, ill, or a cad--just absent for a bit. I don't for a minute believe either Holmes or Irene above an affair. Certainly, CND's Irene would never "betray" Godfrey, but I consider her and Doyle's Irene to be two different creatures. I believe that Irene and Holmes could very well have had the affair W. S. B-G assigns to them, without winding up together forever or wrecking the Norton's marriage. Granted, if I were Irene I wouldn't *tell* Godfrey about it, but still.
Honestly, Godfrey is the only character in CND's books that I unreservedly *like* which, I consider, is rather ironic. And I think it's cheap to just get rid of him for Holmes' sake. But I believe Holmes and Irene each were too sensible of the rarity and worth of the other to believe that, had they an opportunity to be lovers, even briefly, they would not have passed it up.
bran
aka "Say the word 'martyr' please.'
no subject
Date: 2003-07-31 07:12 am (UTC)Oh, so do I. Just because I don't believe Irene and Holmes would ever have an affair while Godfrey Norton was alive doesn't mean they don't have chemistry. Hey, maybe that was another reason I disliked Chapel Noir so much... not enough Holmes (was Holmes even in the thing at all?).
no subject
Date: 2003-07-31 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-31 07:39 am (UTC)Have you read the sequel? I was debating with myself whether it'd be worth reading it just to find out what happens, or whether I'd just end up ticking myself off even more.