For avid readers, finishing one book is often just the beginning of a journey into a new subject or author. A great book has a way of piquing your curiosity and leaving you hungry to learn more. You find yourself wanting to dive deeper into the world or ideas the book exposed you to.
This was the case for me recently after reading Michael Dirda’s On Conan Doyle, Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling. Dirda’s passionate celebration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a master storyteller cast new light on the Sherlock Holmes tales I had read years ago. His analysis made me want to revisit the classic detective stories with a fresh perspective.
In his book, Dirda explores how Conan Doyle’s own fascinating life experiences allowed him to inject realism and detail into his fiction writing. He quotes extensively from Conan Doyle’s works, breaking down the author’s techniques for building suspense, vividly depicting London at that time, and bringing the charismatic characters of Holmes and Watson to life.
After being reminded by Dirda of the sheer genius of Conan Doyle’s storytelling powers, I couldn’t resist pulling my old collection of the complete Sherlock Holmes canon off the shelf to re-read the stories and novels. This time, armed with Dirda’s insights, I found myself newly appreciating Conan Doyle’s intricate plotting, clever foreshadowing, and rich descriptions that allowed the late 1800s-era London to jump off the page.
I also discovered background information I hadn’t known before, like how Conan Doyle had modeled the brilliant but eccentric Holmes on one of his former university professors. And his time studying at a medical school gave him knowledge about forensics and analytical skills that informed how he wrote Holmes’ deductive reasoning process.
From there, my curiosity propelled me to explore literary biographies about Conan Doyle’s life, writings by Sherlock Holmes experts dissecting the stories, books analyzing Conan Doyle’s lasting influence on the mystery genre, and more.
One book had opened up an entire new area of interest to dive into.
This is the power and delight of being a lifelong reader – books become portals to universes of knowledge, allowing you to find new areas to explore in depth simply by following your curiosity from one page to the next. A single book can act as a key that unlocks fascinating connections, insights, and paths of discovery you may never have anticipated.
Though Sherlock Holmes is widely recognizable, few could craft as lively and personal an account of the detective’s creator’s life and lesser-known works as Michael Dirda does in On Conan Doyle, Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling.
A passionate lifelong fan of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Michael Dirda is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars – the most famous and romantic of all Sherlockian groups. Combining memoir and appreciation, On Conan Doyle is a highly engaging personal introduction to Holmes’s creator, as well as a rare insider’s account of the curiously delightful activities and playful scholarship of The Baker Street Irregulars.
Dirda interweaves his own childhood discovery of Holmes and Watson with details about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s life and writing career. While casual readers associate Conan Doyle solely with the Holmes stories, Dirda makes a strong case for exploring the author’s extensive bibliography across multiple genres like adventure, historical fiction, supernatural tales, and writings on spiritualism. However, Holmes remains the main draw, and the fascinating culture of the Irregulars society is as rich as any of Conan Doyle’s fictions.
Dirda provides a personal journey exploring the creator of Sherlock Holmes and his prodigious output across various genres beyond the famous detective stories. Most know Conan Doyle tried to kill off his iconic character, which he cared little for compared to works like The Lost World. However, Dirda still centers much of his discussion on Holmes while striving to highlight Doyle’s other writings too – his horror, fantasy, non-fiction essays, letters, and his favorite creation Professor Challenger. Recounting his own boyhood introduction to Doyle’s books, Dirda reminisces about joining the Baker Street Irregulars society devoted to Holmes and includes an abridged pastiche of his own Sherlock-inspired fiction.
Dirda particularly excels at appreciating Conan Doyle’s direct yet versatile literary style spanning genres, and examining the values of civic duty the author aimed to impart through his writing (values he felt the Holmes tales lacked).
On Conan Doyle is a much-needed celebration of Arthur Conan Doyle’s genius for every kind of storytelling.
It is also an excellent launching pad for further investigations into Conan Doyle’s other works!
Part of a regular series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader.
During my elementary school years one of the things I looked forward to the most was the delivery of “My Weekly Reader,” a weekly educational magazine designed for children and containing news-based current events.
It became a regular part of my love for reading, and helped develop my curiosity about the world around us.
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