(no subject)

[skygiants]

My roommates and I were discussing good and bad choices in Irene Adler Fiction recently, which led directly to my notalgia-purchase of Good Night, Mr. Holmes, the first in a series of Irene Adler Mystery Novels that I devoured as a preteen.

The most charming thing that this book does is give Irene Adler her very own Watson: Nell Huxleigh, a Respectable Parson's Daughter whom Irene discovers in danger of living on the streets in the first chapter and immediately carries off and deposits in her apartment to live there forever and narrate all her adventures.

Nell is a great narrator for multiple reasons: a.) she's a fantastic embodiment of the trope 'primly respectable woman consistently surprises and scandalizes own self with capacity for Adventure'; b.) she's extremely judgy about everything and it's very funny c.) she doesn't care at ALL about Sherlock Holmes, which means that the books also care relatively little about Sherlock Holmes, which makes for a really refreshing change from the vast majority of Irene Adler Appearances in media!

Also Nell/Irene/Geoffrey Norton is a great OT3; Irene and Geoffrey get off on the wrong foot while Irene is investigating his missing family Marie Antoinette diamonds and Nell spends the entire rest of the novel attempting to convince her two crushes that they really would like each other, she promises, if they just gave it a chance, maybe she should read more of their letters out loud to each other to convince them?

Relatedly: this is very much the kind of book that's like 'how did Irene and her canon husband meet? OBVIOUSLY she was hired by TIFFANY to investigate his MISSING FAMILY MARIE ANTOINETTE DIAMONDS!' It fully luxuriates in gratuitous references, unnecessary historical cameos, and hilariously dramatic additions to canon events; it's completely cheesy and I kind of love it. Moments that made me laugh the hardest:

- Irene and Nell encounter the murderer from A Study in Scarlet in a taxi, who immediately recaps the entire story for them, bleeds on them dramatically, hands them some Significant Jewelry and wanders away
- Irene and Nell Solve the Mystery of Who Poisoned Irene's Boyfriend's Father (The King of Bohemia)
- Irene and Nell dig up buried treasure in Oscar Wilde's backyard (and do not give any of it to Oscar Wilde, who could probably use it)

...ok I have to talk a little more about the gratuitous Oscar Wilde cameos because there are so many of them and I'm really not sure that Carole Nelson Douglas fully understands that Oscar Wilde was either a.) a satirist or b.) gay? But she definitely understands that he was Aesthetic!

Anyway, stay tuned for future adventures, including Irene Adler And Her Husband And Their Spinster Watson Meet Nellie Bly, Irene Adler And Her Husband And Their Spinster Watson Hang Out With Sarah Bernhardt, and Irene Adler And Her Husband And Their Spinster Watson Fight The Golem of Prague.

Comments

[brownbetty]

Very curious how you deal with Oscar Wilde purely as A Look, but I guess that is how children's media often handles The Gay?

[krait]

I remember Good Night, Mr Holmes! I loved Nell and her Horrors over her own adventurousness and her complete disinterest in Holmes.

I don't think I ever managed to get my hands on the rest of the series - unless I might have made it to the second book? I have vague memories - but once the local library is open again... (I seem to be saying this a lot, lately.)

[kore]

And it's three bucks on Kindle! SOLD!

....I was trying Lawrence Wright's new up-to-the-nanosecond fictional plague thriller, which is being praised to the skies, and oh dear God it's so bad. I was somewhat disappointed by Going Clear (Janet Reitman's book is much better) but this is something else. Spinster Watson sounds like a good remedy!

[sanguinity]

I love Nell so much, and I'm glad you do, too. :-) They are totes TOTES an OT3, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it.

[aurumcalendula]

It's such a fun book! I adore the Nell/Irene/Geoffrey OT3. *reminds self to look into the rest of the series*

[ceitfianna]

This sounds like so much fun.

[oracne]

I read that first one! Wow, memories. Maybe I should go back to this series.

[cahn]

Ohhhhh, I remember these! I am sure I read them way too young to appreciate the cheesiness; I should totally reread! I think I even have this one around here somewhere... *rummages*

[rachelindeed]

I should totally go back to this series! I was charmed by it as a teenager, too, but I went quite against the spirit of the thing by always skipping to the few Holmes and Watson cameos! For this reason, the book I remember the most is the one later in the series where Nell's Sort Of Boyfriend Turns Out To Have Encountered Watson In The War and His Mysterious Traveling War Wounds Are Explained Dramatically.

But I do remember liking Nell very much and also being delighted at a series that actually let Irene be in love with her husband for once! :)

[skygiants]

I genuinely can't tell if Carole Nelson Douglas does not actually know that Oscar Wilde was gay (HOW), or just assumes Nell would not know that he's gay ... either way! A choice! She definitely wants to make sure we all know about Florence Balcombe though.

[skygiants]

I'm pretty sure I read all of them because I definitely very clearly remember the Nellie Bly one and that came quite late in the series ... however I do not remember much of what came in between! I had actually forgotten that the whole thing started so early with pre-canon adventures and didn't just kick off with Irene already married to Godfrey.

[skygiants]

I always meant to write up Going Clear, which I read for research purposes at one point, and never got around to it ... and now I can hardly remember anything about it, which probably says something. Anyway! Spinster Watson!

[skygiants]

I was so mad for the hot second when it seemed like Irene and Godfrey were going to leave Nell behind when they rushed off to get married! HOW DARE. Respect your third partner, she was dating both of you long before you were dating each other!

[skygiants]

It takes Nell a whole book to hook her two love interests up with each other, but by golly she is not going to give up!

[skygiants]

It was delightful brain candy, just nonsense Victorian hijinks all the way down.

[skygiants]

I was worried the Suck Fairy would have visited it and honestly, yes, there were definitely cringe moments, but on the whole it was far more fun than I expected!

[skygiants]

My library had ALL of them and I can very clearly remember where they lived on the shelf! Alas that I now own none, but I think I may well end up building up my ebook library instead ...

[skygiants]

I had totally forgotten that Nell's sort-of love interest ever turned up again, I'm excited for Irene and Godfrey to have some rivals for her attention! They deserve to feel threatened when at risk for taking her for granted. >.> But yes, it's very satisfying to read a genuinely charming and likeable Godfrey Norton (and I laughed really hard at the scathing postscript that's like 'BY THE WAY IRENE AND HOLMES NEVER HAD A LOVE CHILD? HOW DARE YOU BARING-GOULD? HEADCANON NOT ACCEPTED!')

[rachelindeed]

HEE HEE, CO-SIGNED LIKE WOAH. GO HOME, BARING-GOULD, YOU'RE DONE FOR TODAY.

[kore]

Going Clear to me was immensely disappointing because it was SO centered on the guy who made Crash (Not The Kinky One), and....apart from centering a whole narrative around The Guy Who Made Crash (Not The Kniky One)....it downplayed a lot of the stories of the people who went through actual horrendous shit, most of them women, and Reitman's book was about them. Her book was based on like five years plus of research and investigative reporting, and was the first big nonfiction history of Scientology, and it gets overshadowed by his, which is basically All About Haggis (based on his NYorker profile of the guy no less), and I just get really salty about it (no kidding).

SPINSTER WATSON. (Isn't there some running gag/fixit in the Holmes stories about Watson's wives?)

[lirazel]

I've never heard of these! But this caught my eye:

Nell Huxleigh, a Respectable Parson's Daughter whom Irene discovers in danger of living on the streets in the first chapter and immediately carries off and deposits in her apartment to live there forever and narrate all her adventures.

Wonderful!

...ok I have to talk a little more about the gratuitous Oscar Wilde cameos because there are so many of them

I'm dying! And totally going to see if I can hunt these down!

(You have a gift of finding delightful-sounding books, btw. Following this journal was one of my best moves!)

[whimsyful]

Don't forget Irene and Co hang out with Bram Stoker, Irene and Co take on Jack the Ripper, and Irene and Co visit America (and Irene might be the daughter of Lola Montez!)

I enjoyed these so much as a teen! I feel the urge for a reread now -- I still have the first two books, but they're at my parent's house in a different country atm. I didn't realize it at the time, but this series and the Granada adaptation were formative for how I viewed Irene Adler and her relationship with Holmes. Every adaptation afterwards that tried to pair them off romantically made me go >.<, even if they were relatively well done.

[starlady]

These do sound like a lot of fun! And I love Nellie Bly, so.

[sovay]

Irene Adler And Her Husband And Their Spinster Watson Fight The Golem of Prague.

Wait, seriously? Don't fight the Golem of Prague!

[edit] OH MY GOD CAROLE NELSON DOUGLAS SHE WROTE THE MIDNIGHT LOUIE SERIES I.E. HARDBOILED MYSTERIES STARRING A BLACK CAT WITH A CHANDLERESQUE INTERNAL NARRATIVE I READ SEVERAL OF THESE AS A CHILD BECAUSE HEY ANTHROPOMORPHIC FICTION THE WAY THIS AUTHOR THINKS IS A NATIONAL TREASURE

[landofnowhere]

This sounds super cute! I look forward to hearing about Irene Adler's further hijinks!

[skygiants]

IRENE: hey, you look hungry! You're coming home with me now and we shall be roommates.
NELL: Propriety says no ... but the heart says yes .....
IRENE: Here are six pastries I stole from lunch to feed us both.
NELL: Propriety says no more strongly >:( and yet, somehow, I'm still sitting here!

(Aw, thank you, I'm so glad!)

[skygiants]

ajsi;dfdjd I had vaguely remembered Jack the Ripper but COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN Lola Montez!

yeah, this series definitely prejudiced me against Irene/Holmes ... it's so much funnier when their relationship is just [side-eyeing warily each other from their respective completely independent careers]!

[skygiants]

If I remember right, I think I first learned about Nellie Bly from these books and then fell down a research vortex about her when I was a teen ....

[skygiants]

Is that what those books are like?? I knew she wrote cat mysteries but I had no idea what kind of cat mysteries they were, I just assumed they were bog-standard cozies and so never looked into them!

[skygiants]

I also look forward to discovering what further Irene Adler Hijinks are in store for me!

[pedanther]

(Isn't there some running gag/fixit in the Holmes stories about Watson's wives?)

ACD wasn't great at keeping track of his timeline, so if you arrange the Holmes stories in the most plausible chronological order Watson starts out as Holmes's bachelor housemate, then gets married and moves out, then his wife dies and he moves back in, then after that point there's some more stories where Watson is married and living with his wife again without explanation.

A common patch in fandom is to assume that Watson married twice and ACD never got around to explaining who his second wife was and how they met, but I've also seen an essay arguing that his first wife never died (the story in question just says "a bereavement" and leaves the reader to assume who died from the fact that Watson is back living with Holmes, and the essay suggests that it was a temporary separation following the death of a child) -- and, on the other hand, there have been people who have amused themselves by going in the other direction and mining the stories for evidence of a third, fourth, etc. wife.

[kore]

I gotta admit, I love the idea of a much-married or at least uxurious Watson.

Becca -- I read the opening chapters of the spinster Watson book and it was great! But it's like 83 here (normal temp is....around 70?) and I got sandbagged by a nap. But it's really good so far!

[genarti]

I have to admit, I am FOREVER LAUGHING at the choice to include ACD's original story at the end of the book, but also... I sort of wish she hadn't... because it brought into sharp relief many of the book's weaker points, which I had been determinedly trying to ignore because it's frothy silliness aimed at kids... BUT IT WAS FUN SILLINESS ANYWAY

And I do very sincerely appreciate Carole Nelson Douglas's commitment to giving us an Irene Adler story that does not revolve, emotionally or plot-wise, around Sherlock Holmes! Much as I love Holmes, and I definitely do, part of the fundamental appeal and characterization is that she has her own goals and priorities and they have nothing to do with him.

[skygiants]

I'm laughing at how you keep describing it as 'aimed at kids' ... they ARE very frothy and silly, but I'm pretty sure these are adult novels! That's where I always found them in the library, anyway!

[sovay]

I knew she wrote cat mysteries but I had no idea what kind of cat mysteries they were, I just assumed they were bog-standard cozies and so never looked into them!

I believe his chapters alternate with the third-person perspective of his human whose life is observed in a totally normal mid-'90's mystery style, but Midnight Louie himself sounds like he just coughed up a hairball composed of equal parts Raymond Chandler and Damon Runyon and I can't remember a thing about any of the plots, but the pulp-narrating cat definitely stuck with me.

[genarti]

The back of the ebook had multiple pages of class discussion questions!! I STAND BY IT.

Although I think what mostly gave me that impression is the whole "her relationship with the Prince may have appeared like they were sleeping together but SHE DEFINITELY DIDN'T SLEEP WITH HIM THOUGH, GOOD EXAMPLES ALL AROUND" thing, and also the general prose tone. (I would blame Nell's biased POV, which is definitely and hilariously responsible for some things, but the interview with the author that immediately precedes the study questions is very clear that this is her firm belief and headcanon.) It's entirely possible they were aimed at adults, but this book at least very much had an Aimed At The Youth feel to me.

[chestnut_pod]

But WHY would you fight the Golem of Prague??? Am slightly concerned…

These otherwise sound like some truly excellent brain candy. Perhaps this will at last get me out of my fiction slump!

[skygiants]

Sometimes they are not class discussion questions but Here Is For Your Book Club discussion questions! Many marketed-adult books have those! Also it won several adult award things for romantic suspense etc and metadata firmly indicates mass market adult fiction, I truly think the SHE DEFINITELY DIDN'T SLEEP WITH HIM is a function of the era/genre/authorial headcanon rather than reading level.

[skygiants]

I'm guessing when they pull the mask off the Golem of Prague it's going to turn out to be an evil businessman who announces that he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids, but who knows! We will have to find out!!

[skygiants]

Oh I'm glad you're enjoying it! I hope you also enjoyed your nap. :D

[genarti]

Okay, I am convinced!

...But now I'm more irked by some failings of historical research/logic/parrot behavior that I was more willing to write off before. >.> Still a fun romp, though!

[pengwern]

this sounds AMAZING, wow. I need to find it immediately.

[landofnowhere]

Is Irene Adler Jewish in this series? (I hadn't considered it before, and don't know if Adler + from New Jersey would have signalled Jewish in Doyle's time, but it's an interesting possiblity!)