The first time I saw it, I approached the movie with caution, as it were. The trailer made it look like one of those re-tellings that throws the source material out of the window with total abandon and replaces story with action, explosions, etc.

Thus I went in with low expectations. It turns out I had theorized ahead of my data. I was pleasantly surprised. I remained pleasantly surprised on a second viewing. It wasn’t just my low expectations that made the movie seem good, it actually really was good.

While the action and explosions are definitely there (along with fistfights and some spectacular deaths) I was surprised at how true they stayed to the character of Sherlock Holmes and how much source material they actually used from the original stories to make this film.

There is a lot more action in the film than in the average story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which tend to be more about the mental feats than the physical. Doyle’s original Holmes was not averse to confronting the bad guys with his gun and his wits on occasion. Where the film portrayed Holmes as a far more physical being than he had been in the stories, it at least extrapolated his strong mental faculties and presented them as inexplicably intertwined with his physical prowess.

I don’t want to say too much else about the film, for fear of spoiling it for anyone, but I will say that the plot was engaging, the character interactions rang true to life and had plenty of humor and the depiction of turn-of-the-century industrial London was very effective.

By the way, if you, by chance, haven’t read the original Sherlock Holmes stories, I highly recommend it. There’s a reason that they’ve been adapted, parodied and re-envisioned in every medium available. The stories are available for free on Project Gutenberg, here. The stories are also out in very inexpensive editions, for those of us who can’t stand reading a whole book from a screen, and I guarantee they’re available at your local library.

The lens of history doesn’t leave the stories completely untouched. Women and romance are dealt with in a much less sophisticated manner in Doyle’s stories than they are in the recent movie and Watson gets a little breathless in his amazement, sometimes, but they’re still very engaging and Holmes is a Character in any decade. And, of course, the best part are the actual mysteries to solve.

I shall soon be leaving for Reykjavik. My romantic partner (MRP), Joev, and I will be spending eleven days there.

We have been doing a touch of nerdly research to prepare, of course, and have learned fascinating tidbits including:
- The entire population of Iceland (about 300,000 people) is half that of the population of Washington, DC.
- Iceland’s horses are available for export, but no horses may be imported.
- Approximately one percent of Iceland’s land mass is arable for food crops.
- The geyser after which all others are named is located in Iceland.

Of course, some of these factoids come from other people or from sources I can’t recall. Don’t cite me anywhere without looking it up in a reliable source, yourself.

I asked Joev what his favorite factoid about Iceland was to add to the above list. He said, “they smelt aluminum.” So there you go.

I’ve also been trying to learn a little Icelandic (very little – I doubt I will attempt to speak to anyone, but it might be useful for listening and reading). And I’ve been reading the Laxdaela Saga (translated into English).

One of the first people mentioned in this saga is a woman called Unn, the deep-minded. The saga is almost as full of women and their deeds as it is full of men and theirs. Household affairs factor into the story as well as fighting does. It is nicely readable for ancient prose, at least the translation by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson, which is the one I’m reading.

And apparently (one last factoid), the Icelandic language has scarcely changed since the sagas were written. The one I’m reading now is believed to have been written circa 1245. Modern day Icelanders can read this and other medival works without special education or translation. That would be like one of us trotting out and picking up a copy of Beowulf and just reading it. Pretty cool. Definitely interesting.

In any case, I would love to earn a sobriquet like Unn’s.