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Loading... A Slight Trick of the Mindby Mitch Cullin
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. A novel based on Sherlock Holmes in his 90s. Very well written. AnneliM | Jan 16, 2009 |   Finished this on December 3, 2007. It took a long time for me to read, mainly because it was one of five or so books on my bedside table, and also had to compete with O and Cooking Light. I did like the book. It was a little obtuse at times, but I need to get over needing everything whacked over my head. It was a different perspective on Holmes, Holmes The Aged. (  )ssperson | Dec 6, 2007 | This is, in a way, a homage to the Sherlock Holmes books the way Tilting at Windmills was an homage to Don Quixote. But this one goes further beyond the character's original portrayal while still remaining recognizably the same one. Holmes is, in 1947, 92 years old, caring for his bees, as he is cared for by his housekeeper & admired by her son, who has, almost against Holmes's will, become something of a beekeeping apprentice for whom Holmes has come to care deeply. Holmes has also recently returned from a visit to a correspondent in Japan and sees there the devastation caused by the war. He is repeatedly asked to answer why deeply troubling things happen & to come to grips with the reealization that the meaning of human tragedy is much more elusive, much more difficult to solve than the mystery solving that made him famous. I'm sure this book was asking me as a reader to make far more connections than I was able to make, but I never felt that it was pretentious or that my failure as a reader diminished by appreciation for the author's ability to plumb the depths of a human soul who by his nature tended to resist such probing questions. (  )mbergman | Feb 18, 2007 | It is 1947, and the long-retired Holmes, now 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse, where his memories and intellect begin to go adrift. He lives with a housekeeper and her young son, Roger, whose patient, respectful demeanor stirs paternal affection in Holmes. Holmes has settled into the routine of tending his apiary, writing in journals, and grappling with the diminishing powers of his razor-sharp mind, when Roger comes upon a case hitherto unknown. It is that of a Mrs. Keller, the long-ago object of Holmes’s deep—and never acknowledged—infatuation. As Mitch Cullin weaves together Holmes’s hidden past, his poignant struggle to retain mental acuity, and his unlikely relationship with Roger, Holmes is transformed from the machine-like, mythic figure into an ordinary man, confronting and acquiescing to emotions he has resisted his entire life. This subtle and wise work is more than just a reimagining of a classic character. It is a profound meditation on faultiness of memory and how, as we grow older, the way we see the world is inevitably altered. [from Prepolec's website: bakerstreetdozen] mmckay | Apr 11, 2006 | 0.100 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0385513283, Hardcover)Long after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle allowed him to retire to Sussex to take up beekeeping, there seems to be no end of enthusiasm for imagined versions of the life of Sherlock Holmes. There was Michael Chabon's The Final Solution in which "the old man," an 89-year-old beekeeper in Sussex is undoubtedly Holmes. Laurie King, a fine mystery writer, has appropriated Holmes and created a romance between him and young Mary Russell which has lasted through several enjoyable books. And now, nonagenarian Holmes reappears, most appealingly, in Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind. He is frail and forgetful but still observant and capable of shining the bright light of his insight and brilliance on events both past and present.Cullin has carefully woven three stories together and managed it so neatly that no threads show--worthy of Holmes himself. The first is the story of Holmes's recent return from a trip to Japan, ostensibly in search of prickly ash, a bush that he believes contributes to healthy longevity, as does his beloved and trusted royal jelly. While there, he is met by his correspondent, Mr. Umezaki, who isn't as interested in prickly ash as in gleaning information from Holmes about his long-gone father. Supposedly, they met many years before, in London, and Holmes advised him not to return home. Of course, Holmes has no recollection of the meeting but finesses it nicely. It is 1947 when they visit Hiroshima, post-atomic bomb, and Holmes marvels at what he sees. He compares it, most poignantly, to the loss of the queen in a hive, "when no resources were available to raise a new one. Yet how could he explain the deeper illness of unexpressed desolation, that imprecise pall harbored en masse by ordinary Japanese?" That is what he tells Roger, the 14-year-old son of his housekeeper. Roger is the second thread of the novel. Holmes is introducing him to beekeeping and Roger proves an apt student. His hero-worship of Holmes and his need for a father form an integral part of Cullin's intention of "humanizing" the great Sherlock Holmes. The final thread is revealed in a journal that Holmes kept, in which he entered an encounter with a married woman, many years ago. He is infatuated with her, and hardly knows what to call it or what to make of his feelings. This is unfamiliar territory for the man who is rational above all else. The man we know at the end of the book makes the reader want another installment, showing a new Sherlock with a heart as well as a brain. --Valerie Ryan (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:56 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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