When in doubt…
Read.
I like reading. Anything from cheap detective novels(Hardy Boys??) to existentialist rants(When will I ever finish The Antichrist). It depends on my mood, and energy levels.
Lately, having had lots of work to do, I resorted to the simpler genre. I went through Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes cases, and Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. Although they hold no wealth of literary value, both were fun reads, and shed an interesting light on the views of their respective eras.
Funnily enough, one always hears of how Jane Eyre was a progressive novel. How this and that author was so avant-garde that their views, even today, are seen as too controversial (or liberal) for society. Well, Dumas and Doyle represent the other side of that spectrum. The decadence of the Musketeers, or the blatant arrogance of the English gentleman.
The musketeers all had mistresses. That was the norm. Loyalty, even love, were looked down on. Gambling was a good way to earn money, as was blackmail. Arrogance was en vogue. Honor. Honor meant that if someone rubbed you the wrong way, “off with his head!”.
Sherlock Holmes? There’s a bigoted, arrogant, sexist, racist. (Who is a closet homosexual, in my opinion). Women are inferior. Ornaments. Soit belle et t’es toi (shut up, and be pretty). The Darker the skin, the inferior the intelligence and the manners. Blacks are stupid beasts, basically. Filthy jews. Evil Germans. Thieving French. Disgusting, really.
Holmes is a snob. He looks down on EVERYONE. He believes that he has the right to decide who lives and who dies. He lets criminals off the hook at his own discretion. I honestly don’t know how Watson stood being around that guy all the time.
Holmes must have really made up for his character deficiencies in bed.