Blog Announcement

Since the old blog theme has been updated by its maker, adding links of a particularly hideous color, I have switched to another theme altogether.

I apologize for the inconvenience, but it was making my eyes hurt.

Also, I hope you like the new header. In case you’re wondering, the pictures come from Bellegambe’s Immaculate Conception (the woman is St. Anne; Mary is the little glowing fetal baby), a Fra Angelico Annunciation (I love it that Mary’s saving her place with her finger!), Carpaccio’s drawing of Mary reading to Christ, and then a little illumination from the Hague, of Mary weaving while little Jesus reads to her! What artists do with this Marian reading theme is just endlessly interesting.

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#330: Ch. 1, The Nebuly Coat by John Meade Falkner

I’m starting another novel. This one is by John Meade Falkner, whose smuggling novel Moonfleet used to be a staple of children’s lit, and whose ghost novel The Lost Stradivarius is creepy as heck.

Cullerne, once a Dorset seaport, now is a tiny town in the middle of a marshy nowhere. Its huge old church badly needs restoration, and Arthur Westray is sent by his firm to handle matters. But sleepy Cullerne is full of old secrets and mysteries, and everywhere you look is the Blandamer coat of arms — The Nebuly Coat.

(The Nebuly Coat‘s Anglican church setting and bells seem to have been something of an influence on Dorothy L. Sayers’ masterpiece The Nine Tailors, but I could be wrong.)

Chapter 1

32:26.

I apologize to everyone in Dorset for my horrible attempt at your lovely regional accent.

Also, I would like to emphasize that I have no idea why all my links have suddenly turned green. It distresses me as much as it does you, and I will look into the matter.

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#329: Part 2, “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” by Ronald A. Knox

“Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” concludes with an account of the eleven components of Holmes stories (including their Greek names!), the Sherlockismus, and the wonders of the Watsonian bowler.

“Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes”, Part 2

30:12.

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#328: Part 1, “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” by Ronald A. Knox

Presented to the Gryphon Club at Oxford in 1911 and published in Blue Book Magazine in 1912, this essay by Ronald A. Knox (then a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, but eventual becoming mystery writer, Bible and bio translator, and convert Catholic priest) laid the groundwork and established the primary areas of investigation for the “Great Game” of Sherlockian mock-scholarship.

Bible scholars, English majors, and Holmes fans will probably get a lot more of the in-jokes, but it’s pretty funny stuff for anybody. (The first paragraph betrays Knox’s indebtedness to Chesterton, but the rest takes off into his own territory.)

“Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes”, Part 1

20:03

I’m really quite fond of the Deutero-Watson idea, which hasn’t gotten enough play in the past century. No doubt all the fictional Deutero-Watsons found in re-set Holmes stories are evidence of the subtle power of this shadowy figure. 🙂

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