Sherlock Holmes, Mary Russell, and me
First,
Overall, I really enjoyed it. More than some of the others; I think that's because I respond more to the family melodrama aspects than the mystery stuff. Frankly, I thought the mystery aspects were pretty weak, but then again, none of us are reading Russell for that, are we?
Still, I'm not sure I needed another religious cult story. I'm not that interested, and the people involved are always either evil or totally clueless and vulnerable without much subtlety. I also didn't need the cliffhanger propelled by the very tired "oh, the bullet hit the book/cigarette case/medal in his pocket" trope. They didn't even check? Really? That seems careless, beyond what it should have been given Holmes and Russell's mental state.
But it was good fun, and though he comes off sort of stupid (following Brothers/Hayden around) I'm primed to find Damian Adler attractive: Holmes with pretty feminine features and a tragic past. Hopefully we'll get to know him better, preferably in a somewhat awkward fashion.
I guess I don't have much to say. I enjoyed it, but maybe I wanted more interaction between the three main characters (as in, Holmes, Russell and Damian). I haven't gone to read other reviews yet, and maybe I'll have more to say in response.
But really, my intention was to post about my history with Laurie R. King's Russell, and with Holmes fandom in general. It's sort of interesting to me because while I see Russell being criticized as a Mary Sue, and I certainly think it's possible not to like her, I think there's an important distinction to be made. I think she is, in a very real sense, a self-insert. But then again, she was my self-insert:
Mary Russell and I were 15 at the same time, and so when she stumbled upon Sherlock Holmes while reading a book, my blond-plaited bookworm self responded with considerably more excitement than Russell herself. You see, Holmes was one of my first crushes/idols, and at that time he and Erik vied for top place in my personal pantheon of awesomeness. So to read a book in 1994 that had someone vaguely matching my description (I'm shorter, and didn't wear glasses) falling in with one of my heroes, well, how could I resist?
I realize this doesn't exactly recommend the series, and only explains my attachment to it. It also, probably, explains my disillusion with it later when I started to find Russell herself a little hard to take. I didn't like her much, at one point. It's hard to remember why now, but I stopped buying each book as it came out. I dropped off the RUSS-L mailing list, which I was on in the mid-90's. Actually I wasn't involved in fandom much in general during that time, though I did devote a chapter of my undergraduate thesis to "debunking" feminist notions about The Beekeeper's Apprentice. (It basically ammounted to unease over the type of feminism portrayed, which struck me as entirely male-centered, and was part of a larger work about the appropriation of Holmes for various ends over the years, focusing on Rathbone, The 7% Solution, and Russell.)
Anyway, after joining LJ and stumbling upon lizbee and cesario and their discussion/fic, interest was rekindled and I read those I'd missed. By the time the new one was on the horizon, I was ready. It's interesting, how these things come in cycles. Even now, I'm not sure how I feel about Russell, but my initial meeting with her has combined with nostalgia to fuel my interest. I'm not convinced she's merely a Mary Sue: she has plenty of faults, and not necessarily the sort that make someone even more attractive, and she had to be somewhat bright to pair with Holmes anyway. And I don't think the self-insert aspects are wholly negative, or a statement of quality one way or the other. We all "write what we know" to some degree.
I was going to say more, about my history with Holmes, but it didn't seem to fit in quite right so I'll save that for later. It's funny, a little, how Mary grew up before me but has slowed down, so now I'm six years older than she. But I still feel a little entwined with her, a little spark based on the initial coincidence. And I think that was an extremely important coincidence to the teenage me.
Overall, I really enjoyed it. More than some of the others; I think that's because I respond more to the family melodrama aspects than the mystery stuff. Frankly, I thought the mystery aspects were pretty weak, but then again, none of us are reading Russell for that, are we?
Still, I'm not sure I needed another religious cult story. I'm not that interested, and the people involved are always either evil or totally clueless and vulnerable without much subtlety. I also didn't need the cliffhanger propelled by the very tired "oh, the bullet hit the book/cigarette case/medal in his pocket" trope. They didn't even check? Really? That seems careless, beyond what it should have been given Holmes and Russell's mental state.
But it was good fun, and though he comes off sort of stupid (following Brothers/Hayden around) I'm primed to find Damian Adler attractive: Holmes with pretty feminine features and a tragic past. Hopefully we'll get to know him better, preferably in a somewhat awkward fashion.
I guess I don't have much to say. I enjoyed it, but maybe I wanted more interaction between the three main characters (as in, Holmes, Russell and Damian). I haven't gone to read other reviews yet, and maybe I'll have more to say in response.
But really, my intention was to post about my history with Laurie R. King's Russell, and with Holmes fandom in general. It's sort of interesting to me because while I see Russell being criticized as a Mary Sue, and I certainly think it's possible not to like her, I think there's an important distinction to be made. I think she is, in a very real sense, a self-insert. But then again, she was my self-insert:
Mary Russell and I were 15 at the same time, and so when she stumbled upon Sherlock Holmes while reading a book, my blond-plaited bookworm self responded with considerably more excitement than Russell herself. You see, Holmes was one of my first crushes/idols, and at that time he and Erik vied for top place in my personal pantheon of awesomeness. So to read a book in 1994 that had someone vaguely matching my description (I'm shorter, and didn't wear glasses) falling in with one of my heroes, well, how could I resist?
I realize this doesn't exactly recommend the series, and only explains my attachment to it. It also, probably, explains my disillusion with it later when I started to find Russell herself a little hard to take. I didn't like her much, at one point. It's hard to remember why now, but I stopped buying each book as it came out. I dropped off the RUSS-L mailing list, which I was on in the mid-90's. Actually I wasn't involved in fandom much in general during that time, though I did devote a chapter of my undergraduate thesis to "debunking" feminist notions about The Beekeeper's Apprentice. (It basically ammounted to unease over the type of feminism portrayed, which struck me as entirely male-centered, and was part of a larger work about the appropriation of Holmes for various ends over the years, focusing on Rathbone, The 7% Solution, and Russell.)
Anyway, after joining LJ and stumbling upon lizbee and cesario and their discussion/fic, interest was rekindled and I read those I'd missed. By the time the new one was on the horizon, I was ready. It's interesting, how these things come in cycles. Even now, I'm not sure how I feel about Russell, but my initial meeting with her has combined with nostalgia to fuel my interest. I'm not convinced she's merely a Mary Sue: she has plenty of faults, and not necessarily the sort that make someone even more attractive, and she had to be somewhat bright to pair with Holmes anyway. And I don't think the self-insert aspects are wholly negative, or a statement of quality one way or the other. We all "write what we know" to some degree.
I was going to say more, about my history with Holmes, but it didn't seem to fit in quite right so I'll save that for later. It's funny, a little, how Mary grew up before me but has slowed down, so now I'm six years older than she. But I still feel a little entwined with her, a little spark based on the initial coincidence. And I think that was an extremely important coincidence to the teenage me.