Category Archives: SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE

“I address this letter of introduction to the following monograph, written by my own hand. I have undertaken to commit this autobiographical revelation of the factual events of my life to writing, at the suggestion and encouragement of my best friend in the world, my brother Mycroft Holmes. The written record of my adventures as conveyed by Dr. John Hamish Watson, rather than myself, as you will read herein, are a fallacious perversion of the reality of my own identity and activities. – Sherlock Sherrinford Holmes”

A biography of Sherlock Holmes.

...and other stuff, FREE ADVICE, INSIDE THE BOOK, LIVES, READING MATTER, SHERLOCK HOLMES, SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, SOUNDS, UNIVERSES

WE’RE ALL MAD HERE

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

CHESHIRE CAT

“I suppose you are right Mr. Holmes. It is difficult, if not impossible, to stay apace of your ability to remain logical in the face of a situation which is so absurdly enigmatic. You are proposing that the philosophical paradigm of reality should be considered of equal importance with fiction. How can you ever solve a criminal case, your occupation, if every piece of hard evidence could be a contrivance of imagination on the part of the investigator or of the criminal?”, said Mr. Dodgson.

“Quite the contrary”, I said. “But rather than keeping to my methods alone, let me ask you what meaning you attribute to the following passage in your book”, I said, turning to the page which described in the encounter between Alice and the Cheshire Cat.

“Let me read your own words to you.”

“…she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she

thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she

felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know

whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.

‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you

tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where–‘ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long

enough.’

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question.

‘What sort of people live about here?’

Sherlock Holmes Audio on AUDIBLE.COM and iTUNES‘In THAT direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives

a Hatter: and in THAT direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March

Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad.

You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on ‘And how

do you know that you’re mad?'”

“So, Mr. Dodgson, let me pose the same question to you that young Alice asked of the chimerical cat in your own story: how do you know whether you are mad or not mad? How would you satisfy yourself that I am not mad? How do we know that everyone is mad or not mad?”, I said, rising from my chair to place the manuscript upon the sideboard. 

I refilled my pipe once again, in anticipation of the protracted debate that was sure to follow on the heels of these profoundly, absurd, yet existential queries and arguments.

Mr. Dodgson did not seem the least bit nonplussed by my insinuation  regarding his sanity, or the sanity of all. Rather, he thanked us very cordially for our hospitality, rose from his chair and reached the door to exit the apartment. As he reached the door he turned back to me. 

“Mr. Holmes, I will leave the resolution of this mystery entirely in your very capable hands. If anyone were able to solve the questions you pose to me, I assure you that I am not that man. Neither are any of the mentors whom I have studied, including Sir Isaac himself. I trust that you will be kind enough to inform me of your eventual success, if such is possible. Good day to you, gentlemen”.”

Excerpted from the book SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, by Lawrence R. Spencer

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

...and other stuff, ART, READING MATTER, SHERLOCK HOLMES, SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, UNIVERSES

THE ULTIMATE SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

“My dear fellows! How delightful to see you both again. It has been several months since our most recent adventure together, so I surmise, Sherlock, that some new investigation in pressing upon you? Otherwise, I am sure that you would not bother yourself to venture to visit me personally at the club. Any matter of less urgency would certainly be addressed to me by letter, or telegram. Am I not correct?”, said Mycroft, grasping both of our hands in turn with cordiality.

“As always, your observation and supposition are accurate”, I said, confirming what was already obvious to my brother. “However, I assure you than the game that is afoot contains none of the gravity that others I have undertaken”. At this, Mycroft’s expression changed from one of concern to mild interest.

“Please take a seat and explain the particulars to me, if this room is suitable for discussion of details”, he said, waving his hand toward several richly upholstered leather chairs.

Mycroft is heavily built and massive, there was a suggestion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame there is  perched a head so masterful in its brow, so alert in its steel-gray, deep-set eyes, so firm in its lips, and so subtle in its play of expression, that after the first glance one forgot the gross body and remembered only the dominant mind.

“I cannot think of a more suitable environment in which to discuss the nature of this case than that of a club founded on the philosophical principles of Cynicism”, I told him in a bland matter-of-fact tone.

“Let us fill our pipes”, I said reaching into my pocket for a tobacco poach and briar pipe, “as an explanation of the matter at hand will easily consume our meal time, as well as a portion of the evening.  Can a meal be served to us here, if it is not too great an imposition upon your generosity?”, I said as I sat down, ready to share as much information with my esteemed brother as would be necessary to facilitate his analysis of the matter.

“By all means, my dear Sherlock.  By all means!”, he said in eager anticipation of a mystery that might divert his attention from an otherwise unfulfilling evening of silent reading at the Club before retiring to his quarters for an equally uneventful night of dreamless sleep.

After recounting the details of my visit with Charles Dodgson and my subsequent invitation to him to dine with us at Baker Street, I summarized the nature of the matter.  Mycroft listened attentively while tamping and relighting his pipe several times in order to sustain a satisfactory stream of air through the stem.  When I had concluded my account, he raised his eyes to me.

“Well then, let us hear your suspicions, and I will look after the proofs”, said Mycroft.

“In short, my dear Mycroft, it appears that Mr. Dodgson, in league with Mr. Arthur Doyle, are accusing me and therefore all of my associates, of impersonating fictional characters! The assertion is that the stories published by Doyle as magazine serials, or in books, are merely works of his imagination. Moreover, this cad claims that the chronicles of my investigations, which are written by Dr. Watson, are innovations of his own. Can you conceive such a blatantly fraudulent accusation?”, I asked him.

Mycroft stared at me for a moment, and then with a glare turned in his chair and addressed Dr. Watson in an icy tone.

“Dr. Watson”, he said, “it is most obvious that the motivation for this absurd intrigue must begin with you. How is it that Mr. Doyle has come into the possession of your written accounts of the detective cases of Sherlock Holmes, and subsequently published them in his own name?”

— Excerpt from SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE  by Lawrence R. Spencer

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, INSIDE THE BOOK, LIVES, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, SHERLOCK HOLMES, SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, THE BIG BLEEP

WORLD AS MYTH

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

World As Myth

The Number of The Beast, by Robert Heinlein is a series of diary entries by each of the four main characters who describe their travels through time and parallel universes to The Land of Oz, and to Barsoom, the fictional planet (Mars) created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  In the novel, the Biblical number of the beast turns out to be, not 666, but (6^6)^6, or 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056, which is the initial number of parallel universes accessible through the continua device. It is later theorized by the character Jacob that the number may be merely the instantly accessible universes from a given location, and there is a larger structure that implies an infinite number of universes.  As in many of his later works, Heinlein refers to the idea of solipsism, but in this book develops it into an idea he called “World as Myth” —the idea that universes are created by the act of imagining them, so that all fictional worlds are in fact real.

Sherlock Holmes: My Life, by Lawrence R. Spencer is based on the same concept.  In my book, Sherlock Holmes is a REAL person, who lived and breathed.  The stories of his real-life detective investigations were published, without his knowledge or permission, in a conspiracy to defraud and deface the greatest detective who ever lived!  With the very able assistance of his brother, Mycroft Holmes — the most powerful man in the British government — a conspiracy between Dr. Watson, the authors of Peter Pan, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and powerful financial interests, is discovered and foiled!

I wrote the book long before I read The Number of The Beast.  However, I am pleased to discover the “great minds” a like-minded!  Why can’t there be a nearly infinite number of parallel universes?  If one can imagine a universe, you have created it.  It exists, at least for you, subjectively.  Is it possible that Sherlock Holmes and Robert Heinlein could be enjoying an adventure together right in this moment, in a parallel universe of their own design?  Now, THAT would be a really interesting universe!

Another book, The Big Bleep: The Mystery of A Different Universe, by Lawrence R. Spencer explores a similar theme.  It is a universe concocted from the universes of hardboiled “film noir” crime novel by Raymond Chandler, a convention of plants who decide to collectively “hold their breath” to prevent new oxygen from being created in order kill off all the evil humans on Earth, and a conglomeration of pulp comic Superheroes, fighting to help the “heroes” of the story Peter, The Potted Plant (a stand-up comic) and a “Public Dick” named Sam Shovel, owner of the Unexistential Detective Agency of America, to solve the mystery of the murder of Carmel Underwood and rescue humankind from extinction!  Simply stated, The Big Bleep is sort of like a Pulp Fiction version of Columbo riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle through the movies The Maltese Falcon, Alice In Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, with a Elvis and bunch of comic book super heroes bouncing back and forth between an X-Rated Universal Studios Botanical Garden Theme Park and a convoluted Las Vegas strip mall in a 5th Dimensional time warp!

The idea that universes are created by the act of imagining them is not new. Every history book in every library on Earth is a fictional universe filled with imagined events created by the conquerors of vanquished nations and extinct species in an imaginary time-line of undocumented fantasy!