Help finding an essay--hope this is allowed?

[haveloved]

(Hey, mods--if this isn't allowed, I can take it down; just let me know!)

Okay, so I read A Study In Scarlet a few years back--2008--and I've only resumed reading through the canon in the past few months. Back when I started, I swear that I read somewhere a really convincing argument that said that Watson wasn't shot in the shoulder, but in the...

Comments

[clarice]

Unfortunately I can't help you locate it, but I know I've read an essay which posited that the wound was in the groin region, accounting for Watson's lack of children with Mary and other things that may have been veiled references to impotence in the Victorian context. I'm not sure I buy into it (I think Doyle was just not hugely concerned with consistency) but it makes an interesting argument. Wish I could remember where I read it!

[haveloved]

LOL, I totally agree that Doyle was not the greatest on consistency. I just find the numerous arguments for possible wound locations so fascinating; to me, it's fascinating that people are willing to take it so seriously and scour canon to justify their arguments.

[ghislainem70]

"The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes," Leslie Klinger, Editor and author of the annotations, in three volumes.
This is the last word in Doyle and Sherlock/Watson scholarship, and definitely addresses your question.

[haveloved]

That does seem like it would be helpful; I'll definitely persist in tracking it down. Thanks!

[ghislainem70]

Good luck, its a fun little problem, isnt' it?

[neadods]

I don't know where the essay is, but a Holmesian I know has always been fond of the theory that he was shot in the shoulder initially - and then hit again in the ass when he was being helped up on the horse.

I love that theory.

I also laugh like a hyena at the story where Doyle gives up and has some vague comment like "the bullet in my limb" so he doesn't have to remember which limb it was.

[haveloved]

*snicker* From what I've found through quick internet searches, the two-bullet theory seems to be most prevalent. One in the shoulder and one in the ass... Watson just can't catch a break, can he? ;)

If I'd written as many stories as Doyle did, in an age before you could easily just pull up a Word document or somesuch and search for your info (at least, that's how I continuity-check my larger projects!), I'm sure I'd just give up and give as vague an answer as possible, too!

[gaedhal]

I think we tend to forget that Doyle literally wrote
hundreds of stories with different characters, plus
a pile of lengthy historical novels, plus memoirs,
plus essays, etc. When he wrote the Holmes stories
he didn't seem to think that much of them, so I doubt
he ever thought anyone would read them the way we do --
looking for consistency of detail to any extent.

It was only later he backtracked and tried to "fix" things,
although he never tried all that hard!

[haveloved]

The intro of my edition of the books (the Barnes & Noble omnibuses) says exactly that--that he wrote the stories very quickly and mainly for the money, never thinking they'd end up being as enduring as they have been and that people would scour them for inconsistencies. (From what I know, he was rather dismayed that he'd be remembered for Sherlock rather than his historical novels.) I know that if I had the output he did, I'd get lost, too!

[iibnf]

This was repeated in The Professionals (and English TV show that went for a number of years). Their boss, Cowley, had a bullet wound that travelled to different locations. It's simply known in fandom as "Cowley's Travelling Bullet Theory". Obviously a well known medical phenomenon with a long history of cases.