Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years

Rating:
Summary: Not All Beer and Skittles
Review: "Sherlock Holmes - The Missing Years" was originally published under the title "The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes" in India, where it enjoyed considerable success. Amazon.com actually still lists the book under that title as well as the new one. This is not a translation, English is a popular publication language in India, especially when international distribution is planned.

The writer, Jamyang Norbu is an exiled Tibetan who is active in the Tibetan independence movement based at the enclave at Dharamsala. Along with being one of Tibet's best known modern writers he is noted for his outspoken criticism of Chinese actions in Tibet and his discussions of Tibetan realities.

I am telling you all this to prepare you for what is a most unusual book. Ostensibly, "The Missing Years" is a perfect example of the modern Holmesian canon. The author, tracking down the sparse record of Holmes hegira to India and Tibet after the death of Moriarty, discovers a link between Holmes and Hurree Chandar Mookerjee. Mookerjee was a Bengali spy who appears in Rudyard Kipling's "Kim." He, in turn, was based on a real life Indian spy. Norbu makes contact with Mookerjee's heir, but is unable to find and material. When an earthquake shatters a wall on the estate the inevitable tin box is found. The remainder of the story is Mookerjee's tale of Holmes' adventures in the Orient.

The plot starts with Holmes' arrival in Bombay, where in short order he befriends Mookerjee and is confronted by a man murdered in a mysterious method that caused him to bleed to death from every poor. In solving this brief puzzle Holmes comes to realize that Moriarty's old companions are hunting for him, intent on revenge. Holmes first flees to Simla, the summer capital, but becomes fascinated with the idea of making a pilgrimage to Lhasa to meet the Dalai Lama.

At that time the incursion of a non-Tibetan into Lhasa was strictly forbidden, but despite continuous protestations from his advisors and companions Holmes was determined and set off on his voyage, accompanied by Mookerjee. This voyage and its eventual end are the core tale of the book.

The first remarkably thing the reader will notice about this tale is that Norbu is a master of the English language. In the first 20 or so pages he manages to write well in modern English, Victorian English, the English of the Raj and in the peculiar English dialect which one might expect of an educated Bengali who is a dedicated servant of the British Imperium (Mookerjee). Indeed, Mookerjee, the babu who is the Watson of this piece keeps uttering lines like "By Jove, Mr. Holmes, you will appreciate the irrevocability of my position" and "Sir, a visit to Thibet is not all beer and skittles." I'm still trying to figure out if Norbu is serious, pulling my leg, or making some social commentary.

Holmes is portrayed perfectly, both in his character and his use of his deductive faculties. Norbu does not fail to take up several of Holmes' defects as well in particular his somewhat grating egotism and his drug use. Holmes proves a quick study, inhaling vast amounts of knowledge about Indian and Tibetan culture. One the lighter side, Holmes once again undertakes to decorate a wall with bullets, this time spelling the Indian mantra "OM."

As I mentioned, Norbu is deeply involved in the Tibetan Liberation. As such, it is no surprise to find the omens and portents of Tibet's troubles to come in the book at hand. Tibet in 1892 was an isolated country with few supporting friends. The Chinese wanted to take control of Tibet even then, and were very much the villains of the piece, deeply enmeshed in Tibetan politics. Without the 13th Dalai Lama, whose life it is Holmes' destiny to save, Tibet would have crumbled under imperial China's thumb. Seventy years later Tibet would fall finally to the Chines Communists and not are a minority in their own country. Tibetan society is now preserved outside of Tibet, in such places as Dharamsala.

The final factor in "The Missing Years" is the intermingling of Holmesian science and logic with Tibetan mysticism and magic. In modern days, additions to the canon have occasionally crossed the line into fantasy and horror, often with good effect. The shift from science to spirit occurs swiftly in this book and some old traditionalists may take exception.

I, for one, found the story quite entertaining. All the different levels work well together, producing a tale that sometimes feels as if it was co-written by Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and Sax Rohmer. The ending leaves plenty of space for continuation. Norbu is a master storyteller, and I hope he is moved by his success to carry on with Holmes' adventures in the Orient.

Rating:
Summary: SMASHING GOOD ADVENTURE ALA SAX ROHMER
Review: A WELL WRITTEN PASTICHE THAT COVERS A SUBJECT LONG NEGLECTED,THOSE FABLED MISSING YEARS.I SAY ALA SAX ROHMER BECAUSE OF THE ATTEMPT ON HOLMES WITH A POISINOUS LEECH.(THE KISS OF ZYAT ON SIR DENNIS NAYLAND SMITH)AND MEMBERS OF THE MANCHU CLAN POLICING TIBET. VERY MUCH ENJOYED THIS ONE,DON'T PASS IY BY. RICHARD S. DAVIS

Rating:
Summary: absurd and dull - stay away!
Review: I read several reviews praising this book, but realized too late that I did not agree. It has a promising start, but later becomes absurd and tries to convince the reader that Moriarty not only survived The Final Problem, but now has supernatural powers, and is trying to kill the Dalai Lama, while Holmes is really a reincarnated Lama who Moriarty killed in a past life, and the book ends with a tedious and laughable magical dual between Holmes and Moriarty. Stay away at all costs!

Rating:
Summary: You see but you do not observe
Review: If one takes the time to read the back of the paperback edition of The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, you will not help but notice the lines "Published as Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years in hardcover." What often happens is that the book is released under one title in Britian and Europe and another in the USA. A previous example was "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice from the Crypt" and "Sherlock Holmes and the Running Noose" which I unfortunately fell for like a brick. Take heed, Sherlockians! There's a GAME afoot!

Rating:
Summary: You see but you do not observe
Review: If one takes the time to read the back of the paperback edition of The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, you will not help but notice the lines "Published as Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years in hardcover." What often happens is that the book is released under one title in Britian and Europe and another in the USA. A previous example was "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice from the Crypt" and "Sherlock Holmes and the Running Noose" which I unfortunately fell for like a brick. Take heed, Sherlockians! There's a GAME afoot!

Rating:
Summary: A Winning Effort Stumbles at the End
Review: Most people who know a little about Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series know that at one point Doyle got sick of the detective series and killed off his star character, only to be forced into "resurrecting" him after a two year absence. Here, in one of the many, many, many, modern takes on the Holmes series, eminent Tibetan author Norbu details Holmes adventures incognito in India and Tibet during those two years. The role of Dr. Watson (both as bumbling sidekick and chronicler) is here assumed by Hurree Chandar Mookerjee, a Bengali spy lifted from yet another work of fiction, Rudyard Kipling's "Kim" (and just to be totally clear, he was based on a real Indian who spied for the British!). The adventures initially consist of a plot by the henchmen of Holmes' now-dead nemesis, Moriarity, to avenge their leader's death. Holmes ends up hiding out and getting the notion to make a pilgrimage to Lhasa to meet the Dalai Lama'something strictly forbidden for Westerners. This leads to the second main adventure, which involves helping the young 13th Dalai Lama (a man critical to real-life modern Tibetan history) evade the deadly machinations of the powerful Manchu Imperial agents in Lhasa.

Norbu should first and foremost be commended for being able to almost perfectly capture the correct period speech for each character (there is a lengthy glossary at the back for all the Hinustani phrases and period slang). I say" almost" because I found Hurree's speech to be just a little too over the top, even for the type of educated servant of the Empire he is'it's just a shade too forced at times. Norbu has also captured the period perfectly and manages to seamlessly insert his own agenda by portraying early Chinese imperialism in Tibet. The portrayal of Holmes is excellent (enthusiastic, abrasive, arrogant, drug abuser) up to a point. That point is the final quarter of the book which starts melding the Holmesian world of deduction and reason with the Tibetan world of mysticism and occult powers. Up until then, I had been having great fun, but once people started throwing around hellfire and erecting mental shields and whatnot, I lost faith and interest in the whole exercise. It's not that I'm prejudiced against such things (I've played sword and sorcery role-playing games for 15 years), I just don't think they belong in the hyper-deductive world of Sherlock Holmes. It's well known that Conan Doyle had a strong belief in the occult and was fascinated with the spirit world, but to mix that in with Holmes just rubs me wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Alas! Sherlock Holmes is still missing!
Review: On the last page of this novel's Epilogue, an egregious editorial error occurs: "When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however impossible, must be the truth." The correct version is: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, must be the truth."

Even when cited correctly, the quotation is philosophically erroneous. When one eliminates the impossible, what remains is the possible, but NOT NECESSARILY the truth. The possible is potentially true, but is not always actualized.

This is the problem with SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE MISSING YEARS. The author tries to convince us that the highly improbable--a bizarre descent into Oriental mysticism, superstition, and the occult--is "the truth." That cold, analytical, scientific genius known as Sherlock Holmes is transmogrified into a figure resembling an alien being from a sci-fi flick.

"The report of my death was an exaggeration," Mark Twain once remarked. Sherlock Holmes could have said the same. In 1891, fans were horrified to learn that Holmes, along with his arch-enemy Prof. James Moriarty, had perished at Switzerland's Reichenbach Falls. The outrage of Holmes' fans, however, caused Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to resurrect the world's greatest detective.

In "The Empty House" (see Doyle's collection, THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES), Holmes describes the so-called "missing years": "I travelled for two years in Tibet . . . and amused myself by visiting Lhasa and spending some days with the head Lama. You may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend."

In the present novel, Jamyang Norbu invents a narrator, Hurree Chunder Mookerjee (a "Sancho Panza" to Holmes' "Don Quixote"), s literary stand-in for the absent Dr. John Watson. Hurree tells how Holmes and his party travel from Bombay, India, to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and on to the snow-covered "roof of the world," where they meet the Dalai Lama, and then confront "The Dark One" in the Ice Temple of Shambala in the Trans-Himalayas.

My pen poised to give this novel a "five-star" (highest) rating, but the concluding chapters overstrained my credulity. Although a talented writer, Norbu turns Holmes into a shamanistic Oriental guru trading in superstitious gobbledygook.

In a revealing footnote (see chap. 14), Norbu has Hurree write: "It is remarkable that neither Watson nor the generations of Holmesian scholars should have noticed the clear spiritual bent in Holmes's character."

Norbu's version of Holmes is more than a "spiritual bent"; it is a total immersion in the irrational, the illogical, the mystical, and the occult. And, by the final page, Sherlock Holmes is no longer Sherlock Holmes!

In THE SIGN OF THE FOUR, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has Holmes say: "Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proclamation of Euclid."

Elementary, my dear Norbu!

Rating:
Summary: Fine addition to Holmes legend
Review: Surely something happened in the years when Sherlock Holmes travelled through India and Tibet. According to author Jamyang Norbu, what happened was a fabulous adventure that challenged Holmes to the full, gave him a new sidekick (an Indian spy out of Rudyard Kipling). Holmes comes to India fleeing Mortiarty's henchmen who seek revenge for their fallen master. Unfortunately, they arrive in India before him and his life is in constant danger. Holmes shows his traditional detective skills, solving an apparently impossible crime, but then develops a fascination for Tibet. Travelling to forbidden, mysterious, and beset Tibet, Holmes seeks to help the High Lama escape from the influence of Imperial China and a mysterious and arcane dark power. The battle becomes a bit more physical than usual in Holmes stories, but retains a true Holmes feel. I especially enjoyed Norbu's descriptions of British India, with both its positives and the incredible British arrogance both on full display. Norbu's political objective (the end to Chinese oppression in Tibet) is clear but does not overwhelm the novel. Whether Doyle would approve of this story is certainly open to question. Given that we know that Holmes travelled to Tibet and met with the High Lama, I think a more mystical approach to these years is certainly appropriate. Go ahead and enjoy this fine novel.

Rating:
Summary: A good read
Review: The earthquake in Darjeeling, did limited damage, but took out a wall in the home of Siddarth Mukherjic. However, instead of being upset, an elated Sid sends a telegram to his friend Jamyang Norbu with one word on it: "Eureka." He had found a rusty tin box that contain a 200-page manuscript written by Sid's great-grandfather Huree Chundler Mookerjee (of Kipling's KIM fame). In it Huree discusses working with the world's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes in 1891 in India and Llasa, Tibet.

The account centers on Holmes investigating a murder mystery that occurred at Bombay's Taj Mahal Hotel where the bloody corpse of a worker is found. Holmes feels he is personally the target of the killer and that the victim accidentally was in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the assistance of Huree, Holmes begins to solve the case by traversing all over the Himalayas.

Elementary, my dear reader, this Holmes entry is brilliant and perhaps the best of the newly "found" case files. Like many of the neo-Holmes tales, THE MISSING YEARS captures Holmes's essence to near perfection, but what refreshes the legend is that this story provides a rare historical perspective that sends the reader into a different world. Holmes and the investigation read delightfully like Doyle, but the look at late nineteenth century Llasa and India is enchantingly Jamyang Norbu.

Harriet Klausner