A study in (The name of the) rose.

[Janyss]

I don't know if there is another thread related to characters and stories inspired by Sherlock Holmes.

Ranking first among them to my mind, comes the novel by Umberto Eco, The name of the rose (yeah, I assimilated the colour and the flower for my title, as we do in French. Sorry for this calculated mistake). I'll go through a few common points, and hope you'll give others.

Well, the story takes place in the Middle Ages, in Italy, Inside a community of monks in which many murders happen. A monk from abroad, as a guest in the community, is asked to investigate...The hero's name is William of Baskerville, and the story is told by Adso, a young man very close to William, once he became old. William finds clues, deduces, solves the cases...but annoys everybody because he trusts his observations and not only God or traditional beliefs. In the end, the last case goes wrong and the very bad guy escapes because William is very arrogant (somewhat like with Vivienne Norbury)...In Jean-Jacques Annaud (yes, French!)'s adaptation, Sean Connery portrays William in a very sherlockian way.

Reading the book or watching Annaud's movie will allow you to go through a very good story and many allusions to our favourite consulting detective. Some are obvious, some may be from your own interprétations (I'd draw a parallel between the burning of the library and the one in Musgrave). hope the next adaptation as a series, planned for 2019, will follow this reference and will play very nicely with it as well.

 

[Hikari]

Janyss, thanks for contributing this.  Christian Slater was so young here . . I think actually he was only 17 years old.  Adso looked more like 13 or 14 at some times.  This was the epitome of the 'Rugged Sexy Sean' era.

I have watched the film at least two or three times; I have tried (and failed) more times than that to get very far into the novel.  I know it is a worthy pursuit, but it hurts my head.  It is many people's favorite book, I understand.

I do not have attributions to include with this statement but it's my understanding that author Eco is a dedicated Sherlockian who purposely modeled his medieval hero detective on Sherlock Holmes.  Young Adso, the novice detective-in-training is a nod to John Watson.  W-A-T-S-O-N also contains an A, S and O.  Though the only anagram I could make for Adso was 'Sado'.  Like Watson, Adso is a later-born son in his family who has gone into an institutional career.  The Church for Adso and the Army for Dr. Watson.

[Arcadia]

I somehow managed to lumber my way through the novel, but I can't truly say I enjoyed the experience. (And then for some reason I went and read Foucault's Pendulum too, which was even more impenetrable! Had more time back then, I guess.) I had no inkling it (Rose) was a bit of a tribute to Holmes; that's actually kind of cool.

[Janyss]

I must admit I began with the movie -which really caught me, and that I regularly rewatch, at least a few scènes- and that it was quite difficult to deal with the book! A whole summer leave, pieces by pieces! I didn't succeed for Foucault's pendulum, anyway...later, I discovered a kind of "post-Name of the Rose" by Eco (I don't know the title in English), in which he explains how he created the characters and the story. He goes into details about how he created a detective who could look like both a medieval monk and a kind of Sherlock Holmes.

And certainly the name "Adso" is aimed at ringing to us as "Watson". Never thouhgt of it, that's the point of discussing your favourite movies and books!

[Hikari]

6 hours ago, Janyss said:

I must admit I began with the movie -which really caught me, and that I regularly rewatch, at least a few scènes- and that it was quite difficult to deal with the book! A whole summer leave, pieces by pieces! I didn't succeed for Foucault's pendulum, anyway...later, I discovered a kind of "post-Name of the Rose" by Eco (I don't know the title in English), in which he explains how he created the characters and the story. He goes into details about how he created a detective who could look like both a medieval monk and a kind of Sherlock Holmes.

And certainly the name "Adso" is aimed at ringing to us as "Watson". Never thouhgt of it, that's the point of discussing your favourite movies and books!

Well, and of course, Sherlock's full name is "William Sherlock Scott Holmes" = William of Baskerville

Sean was a very winning William; I don't know if he would have been Eco's conception of his monk detective, particularly seeing as Sir Sean's Scots accent is impervious to being altered, and  he really is better off not trying modify it.  (cf. disastrous 'Untouchables' attempt).  But having seen Sean in the part, I can never unsee him and replace him with another type of face.  Works for me.

[J.P.]

That William thing - is it from the canon or just Sherlock?

And yes you are right in all points. Shean, Christian, sexy William and Sherlock allusions.

Aaaand, I visited the monastery where the interiors were filmed, included the famous scriptorium.

[Carol the Dabbler]

As I understand it, SH's full name is one of Baring-Gould's "discoveries."  So it predates BBC Sherlock by many years.  Sort of an early fanfic kinda thing.

[Janyss]

15 hours ago, J.P. said:

That William thing - is it from the canon or just Sherlock?

And yes you are right in all points. Shean, Christian, sexy William and Sherlock allusions.

Aaaand, I visited the monastery where the interiors were filmed, included the famous scriptorium.

Oh J.P.! Great!  My own association: the "book burning" in the movie...

...and a kind of -as for me- in Sherlock:

[Arcadia]

That ....

Okay, I have decided I would appreciate TFP a lot more if I understood all the references .... At least I've seen (and read) Name of the Rose. But does this mean I have to watch Shutter Island?

[Janyss]

I don't know if that was really a reference Moftiss thought about...A bit unconscious in the maximum...That's something very personal as I assimilate Euros with the darkness of ignorance and totalitarian ideologies, and the character of Sherlock Holmes with some kind of enlightenment, trust in progress and scientific knowledge...

However, I'm not really familiar -to say the least- to many references that were quoted, about TFP, by Moftiss themselves or by other fans. I've seen some James Bond, but I didn't think very much about them when watching, I've just heard a few things about Shutter Island and Saw...and I like TFP a lot anyway...Sign of a good job somewhere, everyone can bring in they own représentations of the world...

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Okay, I have decided I would appreciate TFP a lot more if I understood all the references .... At least I've seen (and read) Name of the Rose. But does this mean I have to watch Shutter Island?

I think the burning house (which was named after the house in uhh, one of ACD's stories) is meant as a reference to the burning house in (I'm *really* not functional this morning!) another ACD story.  So I'm reasonably certain it's just two Canon references.

[J.P.]

Shutter Island it quite good. At least to me.

[Hikari]

39 minutes ago, J.P. said:

Shutter Island it quite good. At least to me.

Shutter Island is a pretty good film. But it never pretended to be an update of Sherlock Holmes.  Mofftiss must have really liked it to the point of being either consciously or unconsciously influenced by it in their story development for HLV.

[J.P.]

No, not Sherlock Holmes! But the Sherrinford storyline.

Spoiler

And also how the story's logic falls apart if you look closer.

 

[Arcadia]

4 hours ago, J.P. said:

Shutter Island it quite good. At least to me.

Is it gory? I can't watch gory. Psychological horror is okay, but no blood and guts stuff.

I (surprisingly) rather enjoyed The Mist, although it was on TV and maybe any gore was edited out. Depressing as heck, but held my interest.

[Hikari]

2 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Is it gory? I can't watch gory. Psychological horror is okay, but no blood and guts stuff.

I (surprisingly) rather enjoyed The Mist, although it was on TV and maybe any gore was edited out. Depressing as heck, but held my interest.

No, it's not gory.  It's a psychological thriller in the guise of a detective procedural.  It's based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, and that man writes some good &*%#.  I thought it was one of Leo's better performances.

[Arcadia]

Watched the trailer. Good cast. Some sunny afternoon ...