Review:Is Heathcliff a Murderer?/Barbara Roden
This review of the book "Is Heathcliff a Murderer? Puzzles in 19th-Century Fiction", by John Sutherland was written by Barbara Roden and published in the The Parish Magazine (No. 14, september 1996).
This review presents John Sutherland's book as an ingenious and readable collection of literary puzzles about nineteenth-century fiction, with one chapter devoted to Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "The Speckled Band." It appreciates the book's wit and accessibility, but criticizes parts of the Sherlock Holmes chapter as over-interpreted, factually shaky, and built at times on what is simply textual error.
Review
- Is Heathcliff a Murderer? Puzzles in 19th-Century Fiction
- by John Sutherland
- Oxford University Press, 1996; x + 258pp; £3.99; ISBN: 0-19-282516-X
Reviewed by Barbara Roden
This collection of thirty-four short essays about Victorian fiction is based on an ingenious idea: that of trying to answer various conundrums posed in the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Austen, the Brontës, Hardy, Trollope, Stevenson and others. John Sutherland points out that he is not trying to 'trip up' unsuspecting authors, or catch them out; he is trying to show that underneath what might seem to be errors or anomalies there is often sound good sense. Thus it is that he asks why Count Dracula comes to England, and not neighbouring Germany, what it is that Edward Hyde really looks like; what happened to the missing fortnight in The Woman in White; and what exactly is it that Arabella Donn throws at Jude in Jude the Obscure.
Of particular interest is the chapter 'Mysteries of the Speckled Band', which looks at various questions to do with the Holmes tale. Much of the chapter is given up to recounting details of the story, which becomes rather tedious: I suppose the few souls out there not acquainted with the tale might appreciate it, although one wonders if anyone picking up a book of essays about 19th century fiction will not be sufficiently familiar with the story as to need the summary. At any rate, Sutherland puts a foot wrong in the third line, when he claims that the story, which happened in 1883, is recounted by Watson 'much later in life' (the story was published in 1892, which is not my idea of 'much later').
Sutherland wonders why Julia Stoner, as someone who has lived in India and is presumably familiar with snakes, does not tell her sister, just before she dies, that she saw a swamp adder, or snake, rather than crying out about a 'speckled band'. A fair enough point, although if she had mentioned a snake at that point then there would have been no mystery and no story to tell. He also brings up the relevant, but surely nit-picking, point that when Julia dies she is clutching a match in one hand and a matchbox in the other, so how could she have groped for help in the corridor or pointed towards the doctor's room? Well, I have never found that holding something in my hand and pointing were mutually exclusive activities; a more sensible question might have been how did she get the door to her room unlocked and opened with both hands full?
There is no mention made of the fact that snakes do not drink milk, nor that they do not have ears as such and therefore could not have been recalled by a whistle, or any of those other ophidian problems that have so exercised the little grey cells of Sherlockians over the years. Instead, he goes on to make the point that (heavens!) Helen and Julia may have been physically and/or sexually abused by their stepfather. This is hardly a startling claim, as it has been put forth by Sherlockians and Doyleans over the years as an interpretation of the story. There is a fair bit of evidence in the tale to support such a reading, and Sutherland duly puts forth arguments in favour of this viewpoint; including the fact that Holmes refers to his client (who has been introduced as Miss Stoner) as Miss Roylott when he says, 'You have been screening your stepfather':
- Why, in saying this, does Holmes, who has the best brain in England, miscall Miss Stoner 'Miss Roylott' — is he hinting at a closer relationship than that of stepfather and stepdaughter? Has the unspeakable Dr Roylott somehow mixed his identity with that of the young woman? Helen Stoner, we note, does not correct Holmes when he calls her 'Miss Roylott'-is he not subtly probing for evidence of incest, and has he not found it?
Well, no at least, not in this case. I think what we have here is a clear case of mistaken identity. The notes to 'The Speckled Band' in the World's Classics edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes state that in the manuscript, the sisters were Helen and Julia Roylott, not Stoner, and so it would appear that a use of the old name crept into the final copy, and was not caught by ACD or a proofreader at The Strand, Sutherland, in a footnote, remarks that this error has 'unfortunately' been corrected in the World's Classics edition, and goes on to say of the error, 'I would prefer to see it as a subtlety deliberately introduced by the author'. Of course he would; and so would anyone whose carefully constructed theory turned out to be based on a typo. Unfortunately for those who like to read something into nothing, errors sometimes are just that: errors.
I'd recommend Is Heathcliff a Murderer? to anyone interested in 19th century literature: there are a number of interesting points raised, and Sutherland's prose style is refreshingly free from the worst excesses of academic jargon. Just make sure you have some salt in the house before you start to read.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
