Here is a word that I think I have heard before, but it was used as an adjective in The Valley of Fear, one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. So I looked it up, just to be sure I understood the meaning.
Feted – celebrated, lauded or acclaimed (one who was honored with a fete, which is a festive celebration or entertainment)
Usage: “He could drink hard and show little trace of it; but that evening, has his mate Scanlan not been been at hand to lead him home, the feted hero would surely have spent his night under the bar.”
I just started this new book by Mary Oliver called A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry. Oliver was a world renowned poet, with works like “The Summer Day”, “Wild Geese”, and “The Swan”. I’ve shared a few of her poems here, and will continue to do so as I read them.
I would like to write, someday, like Mary Oliver did. That’s why I got this little Handbook. In her own sweet and simple way, Oliver relays to both amateur poets and readers of poetry tips on how to read, understand, and write poems. What makes a poem? What elements are important in a poem? She doesn’t write like this is a textbook. Rather, it is more of a conversation, maybe even a lecture she might have given to her students. She offers technical terms, but uses examples so that anyone can understand what she is saying. For Oliver, poetry is a way to communicate emotions and feelings of the heart. She wants her readers to be able to communicate their own emotions, feelings, and experiences in their own poems. She is an encourager, not just a teacher.
“A poet’s interest in craft never fades, of course. This book is not meant to be more than a beginning – but it is meant to be a good beginning… It is written to empower the beginning writer who stands between two marvelous and complex things – an experience (or an idea or a feeling), and the urge to tell about it in the best possible conjunction of words.”
Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, 1994
I wish I could have taken writing classes from Mary Oliver. I feel like I would have learned so much. Maybe I would have started writing publicly when I was much younger. Anyway, the past cannot be undone, but the future has yet to unfold. I plan on reading and rereading this book while I practice Oliver’s teachings. Maybe one day, I can be a poet too.
I think I have mentioned before that the Sherlock Holmes volume I am reading includes 4 novels and 44 short stories and is called The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. So, as soon as I finished The Valley of Fear, I began reading the final collection of short stories, His Last Bow. This collection, originally printed together in 1917, includes:
“Wisteria Lodge”
“The Cardboard Box”
“The Red Circle”
“The Bruce-Partington Plans”
“The Dying Detective”
“The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax”
“The Devil’s Foot”
“His Last Bow”
Although I recognize the name Lady Frances Carfax, I don’t remember if I know any of these stories. I am looking forward to reading them. Each story and novel has been a delight, and I think I’m a greater Holmes fan than I was before. I fully intend, once I finish these, to find the twelve which were not included in my volume.
Now, I’ve got my coffee and my book, and it’s a lovely, rainy afternoon. I’m going to finish reading “Wisteria Lodge”.
Here is a simple little paperback that packs a great punch for any poet, student, or teacher… Really, it’s for anyone who likes poetry (even just a little). The subtitle of A Poetry Handbook says, “A prose guide to understanding and writing poetry.” I bought my copy from Barnes and Noble. It’s a very small book, only 130 pages, including the index and permissions granted sections. It is easy to read with great tips for writing and reading poetry. I am really glad I picked it up.
I came across this phrase in The Valley of Fear, one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. However, the reason it caught my attention is because I believe the phrase is used in a song in Les Miserables. I think I’ve been singing it wrong for a very long time! It makes a lot more sense now.
Boon – jolly, jovial, convivial; something to be thankful for
Therefore, a Boon Companion is a fun person to be around, someone you would be lucky to know. And that is what people thought of John McMurdo in The Valley of Fear.
Usage: “He was a born boon companion, with a magnetism which drew good humour from all around him.”
I years had been from home,
And now, before the door,
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before
Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business, - just a life I left,
Was such still swelling there?
I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.
I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.
I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.
I moved my fingers off
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.
(from Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)
I had a similar experience a few years ago when I travelled back to the home of my youth. Our little house still lay down a long, dirt drive. It was surrounded by trees – a woods that I used explore almost daily. But I couldn’t bring myself to drive all the way up to the house, so I turned around and left, with only a glimpse of the past. I think that we connect such good memories with the homes we lived in as children that we always want to go back. But is the house that we want to return to? Or could it be that we want to return to the youthful innocence and happiness that we knew there? I think Emily Dickinson expressed this desire when she said, “My business, – just a life I left, Was such still swelling there?”
This is a word that I like to say, but I didn’t know the exact definition ’til I looked it up for this post. I found it in one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It is used in the beginning of Part Two, where Dr Watson reveals the history of the events that lead to a murder almost twenty years later. The murder which Sherlock Holmes investigates, and Dr Watson titles The Valley of Fear.
Gregarious – fond of the company of others
Usage: “Anyone could pick him at once as gregarious in his habits and communicative in his nature, with a quick wit and a ready smile.”
I finished The Valley of Fear this week. This was the final, full-length Sherlock Holmes novel that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote. It was published in 1914, but it is set around 1895. Doyle followed the same plot pattern that he did for his first novel, A Study in Scarlet: there are two parts and a kind of epilogue at the end.
The Valley of Fear begins with Holmes and Watson investigating the brutal and senseless murder of a country squire, Mr Douglas. The man had an Irish upbringing, but he’d lived for many years in America. Fives years before the murder, Mr Douglas moved to England, married, and settled into a quiet country house called Birlstone Manor.
The Valley of Fear is a kind of locked-door mystery, because Birlston Manor is situated within a moat with a drawbridge. When the bridge is raised, no one can enter or leave the house. Or, that is what they thought until the murder.
Mr Douglas was found shot to death in his study by his friend and houseguest Mr Barker. Barker called for help, and Mrs Douglas and the butler came running from their rooms. Barker would not allow the lady to enter and sent the butler for the police. The room was not touched by anyone else. The police sent word to Scotland Yard to send a detective, who asked Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to join the investigation.
When Holmes arrived, he studied the room where the murder took place and questioned the people in the house. Though their stories seemed true and conclusive at the beginning, they were quickly disproved by Holmes. He was not sure at first what the answer to the mystery was, but he could tell at least that Mrs Douglas and Mr Barker were not telling the whole truth. According to Holmes, the case rested on the fact that there was only one dumb-bell in the room where the murder happened. Where was the other?
I was intrigued! I think I’ve seen this story on television, but I couldn’t remember what the final answer was. I tried to read as quickly as I could because I wanted to see how it ended. Just so you know, The Valley of Fear has a great plot twist at the end of the first part. And I’m going to do my best not to give it away.
In part two, Doyle, as Dr Watson, relays events that happened twenty years earlier – events which culminated in the murder at Birlstone Manor. The history follows a young man named Jack McMurdo who takes up residence in a coal mining town in Vermissa Valley. He joins the lodge in town and soon finds out that the members of the lodge are a hardened criminal gang who extend their hand of judgment and revenge on the people in the valley. The lodge would blackmail the local people and require coal companies to pay them large sums of money to keep them from destroying mines. Any time the law would come after them for a crime, the members of the lodge would band together to provide alibis and to intimidate judges and juries.
McMurdo proved himself to be as black-hearted as the rest of the gang, but he also fell in love with a lady named Ettie. He assured her that he would never hurt her or her family. There was no way McMurdo and Ettie could continue to live in that Valley of Fear, so he promised her that they would leave the valley before a year was over. Leaving the valley and the lodge could be dangerous, as the lodge would see it as desertion, so McMurdo told Ettie to be ready to drop everything and leave with him as soon as he gave the signal.
Soon, the lodge was disturbed by news that a Pinkerton detective was coming to the Valley to shut them down. They plotted to kill him, and McMurdo offered his rooms as the place where they could do it. Fortunately, the Pinkerton detective got away before he was harmed, but not before several of the lodge were arrested on charges that they could not fight in court. The detective travelled from Chicago to California, changed his name, married his sweetheart, but no matter where he was, he was never safe. The leaders of the lodge had sworn to have revenge on him. When his wife died, he left America for good. Changing his name to Douglas, he sailed across the ocean to England and then took up residence in Birlstone Manor.
I’m afraid my summary of The Valley of Fear doesn’t do the book justice, but I can’t say too much more or I’ll give the story away. I really don’t want to do that! Instead, I want to encourage you to find this novel and read it for yourself. I think you will enjoy it. Although it’s not as gripping as The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear has a great plot, a curious mystery, and as I mentioned before, several plot twists.
One final word: I wanted to share a chuckle that I got when I started the next short story in The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I was reading “Wisteria Lodge”, and Holmes said something about Dr Watson’s style of writing. It’s really amusing because “Wisteria Lodge” was written before The Valley of Fear. I wonder if Doyle was hinting at his next novel, or if he was remembering A Study in Scarlet.
“Come, come, sir,” said Holmes, laughing. “You are like my friend, Dr Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end foremost.”
Sherlock Holmes, “Wisteria Lodge”, The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, circa 1908
Here is a strange word that I have had trouble rolling over my tongue since the moment I saw it. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it before. I could guess the meaning by the context, however, but I wanted to share the word with you too, so I looked it up.
Ululation – to howl, hoot, or wail; to lament loudly and shrilly (for those who are curious, it is pronounced ul – ya – lay – shun)
Usage: “It was badly stage-managed, for even the rawest investigators must be struck by the absence of the usual feminine ululation.”
