WS 2011/2012                       exam translation (advanced)      (Staatsexamen Herbst 2005)            text #7

Ever since the first piece of Sherlockian scholarship was published by Father Ronald Knox in 1911, a small army of narrative sleuths has been sifting through the canon, the latest of whom is Leslie S. Klinger. His New Annotated Sherlock Holmes* is a handsome reprint of the 56 short stories as they first appeared in the Strand Magazine* between 1891 and 1927, complete with Sidney Paget’s original illustrations, as well as a mock-academic treasure trove, filled with copious notes on every deduction dreamed up by Sherlockian obsessives to date.
Klinger’s two tomes run to almost 2,000 pages and come replete with facts aimed at the reader for whom no nugget of Sherlockian minutiae can be minute enough. [...] Of course no reputable editor relies on his theories and researches alone, and Klinger makes ample space to summarise the contributions of others. The weirdest theories revolve around what really happened at the Reichenbach Falls; no Sherlockian scholar worth his salt accepts the explanation that Conan Doyle was simply sick of devising plots for the detective by 1891, and so contrived to have him tumble to his death locked in combat with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty.
When Holmes miraculously reappeared in the pages of the Strand Magazine* after a three-year absence, he explained the hiatus as a necessary period of lying low to avoid reprisals from Moriarty's gang, and claimed to have spent the time travelling through Tibet disguised as a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson. Most Sherlock scholars will have none of this, however. T. Frederick Foss posits that Holmes was actually on secret secondment to the British government, collecting information on Russian intrigues in India. Harry Halen thinks he underwent a “tantric1 materialisation ritual” while in Tibet, and travelled to Russia in the guise of a tobacco merchant at the invitation of Anton Chekhov.[...]  

As a single reference work The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes* seems unlikely to be superseded for some time. There is no more comprehensive repository of arcane Sherlockiana to be found in one place. Yet the curious situation remains that the more information one stores up about the detective, the less one actually seems to know. No amount of erudite commentary can alter the fact that Holmes remains an unfathomable enigma, as much a product of the information Conan Doyle withheld as the tenuous2 clues to his character he actually put down.

From: A four-pipe poseur. Alfred Hickling on The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, edited by Leslie S. Klinger, l,878pp, Norton. In: The Guardian, December 4, 2004, and The Guardian Weekly, December 17-23, 2004. (Abridged and adapted)

* Der Titel ist nicht zu übersetzen!

1 tantric (adj.): < tantra (n.) = a) a Hindu or Buddhist mystical or magical text, dating from the 7th century or earlier;
                      b) adherence to the principles of the tantras, involving mantras, meditation, yoga and ritual. (dt.: tantrisch)

2 tenuous (adj.): thin; subtle; insubstantial  

CARTOONS: Crime & Crime Again

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
#192) detective joke (1), Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes: video links
"Wiki" on The Final Problem and The Reichenbach Falls:
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Problem          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichenbach_Falls

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