Sherlock Holmes, living happily in retirement in Sussex, is pressed with questions by his friend Watson ... What happened during those two years when the detective is supposed to have disappeared into the Reichenbach Falls? And where did he go?
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To those who have already read Solution to 7% from the same author, this novel is a coherent sequence of "leakage" of Holmes, and his sudden death, even death, a complete fabrication.
Holmes has indeed moved to Paris during this period, experiencing a newfound freedom, trying to earn a living by providing violin lessons, then ended up being involved in the orchestra's gleaming Opera Garnier.
This book is a pretty pastiche. Not only because it brings together symbolically two heroes of literature I worship, but also because it is always interesting to mix the experiences of two distinct fiction without the writer gets tangled brushes! Obviously, Nicholas Meyer takes shortcuts, including some household arrangements to make his story consistent. I think the game is very fun to drive, although I admit I preferred the solution to 7% in the end. But I'll come back later.
The large gap (the famous two-year period in which Holmes is believed to be dead) has arrested thousands of Holmesian, especially because Conan Doyle did not say much throughout her stories, and that necessarily, imagination broth to the idea that this character eminently popular, this detective essential to justice in his time (in his fictional world do we hear), could one day disappear, to reappear with explanations remain almost in the improbable ...
In the 7% Solution, by Nicholas Meyer's idea is to make us believe that Holmes had disappeared some time to heal his little "quirks."
In the 7% Solution, by Nicholas Meyer's idea is to make us believe that Holmes had disappeared some time to heal his little "quirks."
Having conquered his demons, Holmes simply takes a little vacation, and what would look like a resort quickly takes on the appearance of a new life.
The beautiful and pure Christine remains true to Leroux's image and is candid, but I felt much more naive and childlike than what the character really is.
Now we come to the ghost ... That one, I was waiting at a halt, and with an acid spirit ... If the author had abused me, I'd have him violently wanted! (Not but) But contrary to what I believed in opening this book, the appearances of the ghost are rare, they remain, strictly speaking, in the spectrum. In reading this novel (without knowing that of Leroux), one is almost inclined to believe that the Phantom is indeed one, because it is invisible, elusive, and Holmes actual sentence to see clearly ...
Obviously, the plot follows the main chapters of the novel by Gaston Leroux, taking some liberties without much innovation.
Raoul, the lovers, is not roughed up by the author. It remains as it is, ie, young, rather impetuous, and very clumsy (inseparable from his youth).
What I regret is that there is not a confrontation worthy of the name between the two characters, an atmosphere tenser, darker .... Now it is about more than a very brief final scene, which left me on my hunger.
I had imagined a more intellectual opposition, a feline subtlety, reportedly agreed to these two wonderful men that are each in their way, two minds pure, extraordinary intelligence standards.
In my opinion, Nicholas Meyer was limited to the plot without deepening the characters who fully deserved, what I find a shame. But it was perhaps not intended, you will say ...
The tone remains light, and the novel is a pastiche pleasant and charming in many ways, but which lacks definitely a little "something" ...
For this reason, I probably prefer to 7% Solution, because it seemed more original about the concept, and also much more fun (see the scene that happens opera Vienna, where I was crying with laughter while reading the summary of Watson a Wagner opera ... ) ... There are of course in the SH and the Phantom of the Opera a few winks pleasant, probably due to the presence of the character of Irene Adler, causing strangely, once it occurs, migraines brutal and strange palpitations that poor Holmes decidedly ... ^ _ ^
