A Slight Trick of the Mind: - Mitch Cullin

Not really a Sherlock Holmes Adventure

I have read almost unanimous good reviews for this novel and its true its written well. But is it really a Sherlock Holmes story? Not really I would argue. You see I was expecting it to be sad and moving which it is, but also to have a mystery in it - and it doesn't really. In fact even within the earliest of the 3 tales woven together which is supposedly set in the period the original Conan Doyle stories were set, Sherlock Holmes as written here doesn't really come across as the Holmes I know. And I realise the author is deliberately trying to show a different side to Holmes but really this could be any main protagonist. And I don't say that just because Holmes has been aged for the bulk of the novel, which is an idea I like - I just don't feel the Conan Doyle character was within these pages even aged 90.

I've read all the original Sherlock Holmes stories many times and also many of the later additions by other novelists. It seems to me that the key to a good Sherlock Holmes story is the mystery itself and the skill displayed by Sherlock Holmes in unravelling it. That and the Victorian setting and the friendship with Watson. This novel by design of the author has almost none of these elements. So what we are left with is a piece of well written, moving, perhaps even depressing, prose. Thats my opinion, many Sherlock Holmes fans seem to love it though and you may too.

"What have you ever known about loving anyone?"

In this fascinating portrait, Sherlock Holmes, now ninety-three, deals with the indignities of old age and the forgetfulness which accompanies it. It is now 1947, and Dr. Watson has been dead for many years. Holmes lives in a small country house in rural Sussex with a housekeeper and her 14-year-old son, spending much of his day tending to his bees and working on his writing. Frail and reliant upon two canes to get around, Holmes is dedicated to the pursuit of longevity and believes that the royal jelly from his hives is a key ingredient.

Holmes has just returned from postwar Japan, where he has been seeking information about the prickly ash plant and its life-giving properties. His host there, the son of a diplomat who disappeared when World War II broke out, tells Holmes that his father once met with him in England, but Holmes no longer remembers the man. As he reminisces about his trip, he wants to help the man come to terms with his father's mysterious abandonment.

These two settings, one in rural Sussex and one in Japan, in 1947, alternate with "The Case of the Glass Armonicist," an uncompleted story about one of Holmes's cases from 1902, which Holmes hopes to finish before he forgets the details. The story concerns a young man whose wife keeps disappearing following her lessons on the glass armonica (sometimes called the "glass harmonica"). Holmes follows the woman, often donning a disguise to get closer to her. In formal Victorian language, Holmes tells a story reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in style.

Cullin has created a plausible psychological profile for Holmes, who, to the best of anyone's knowledge, has never been in love and has never allowed his emotions to govern his life. Now, at the end of his life, he has the same needs and fears as the rest of mankind, a man far more human than we have ever seen before, though he retains his dignity. Vibrant physical details about the natural world and the places in which the action takes place bring life to the narrative, which is unusually sensitive in its descriptions of the inner world of an elderly man whose memories consist of "brief remembrances that soon became vague impressions and were invariably forgotten."

Gracefully combining all the story lines, Cullin leads the reader to a conclusion which is especially memorable for its completeness. Here Holmes concludes his searches, lays his philosophical ponderings to rest, and tries to find whatever peace is possible for a solitary man. An intriguing continuation of the Sherlock Holmes legend. Mary Whipple