Since I can’t stay away from anything sherlockian, you all know that I would eventually end up at the Sherlock Holmes Exhibition at the Minnesota Historical Society.
There are four parts of the exhibit. The first section is more or less straight up museum. Photos, documents and memorabilia. The doctor that inspired Doyle to write his stories, medical instruments from the time, London – even handwritten pages of Doyle’s work (there were several hundred of these initially offered for sale during his lifetime).
The second section was several kiosks discussing different areas of interest of the time: botany, printing, telegraphy and a few others. Most of the kiosks had an interactive feature – my friend Sara sent me a telegraph saying she was enjoying the afternoon with me. I enjoyed doing a rubbing of a newspaper article and finding the hidden message.
The third section was a re-creation of 221B Baker Street. You had to walk through and then there was a list of items that hopefully you had noticed. I had noticed 12 out of 16… took a bit to find to find the last four. Sara and I “helped” each other finish here.
The last section was a crime scene that we needed to solve. This was the hard part of the exhibit – ballistics trajectory, chemistry on a seed pod found at the scene, blood splatter evidence, drag marks in the sand… it was fun but even if you figured out every part of the crime scene correctly, there was no way you were going to solve it as it was presented at the end.
The exit of the exhibit was filled with photos and memorabilia from television and movies – I had to admit to Sara how many of the various films I had actually seen – including the 1922 John Barrymore version.
So I’m highly recommending the exhibit if you’re in the Twin Cities. (Although there is a lot of interactive pieces, if you’re taking a kid, you won’t be able to step back and leave them alone – it’s more on the level of a locked room mystery game if you’ve ever been in one of those.)
Do you have a favorite fictional character?
Trail Baboon 
George Santos, Representative of New York Congressional District 3. Not a favorite but recent.
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LOL!
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Snort!
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Very Cleaver and apt Wes.
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Armand Gamache comes to mind, in the Three Pines mysteries we’ve talk about here before.
I also really like Mary Russell, eventually Sherlock’s wife, in the Laurie B. King series.
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Holmes, Jack Reacher, Harry Bosch (he grows on you), Kya from Where the Crawdads Sing,” Cork O’Connor, Bubba Rogowski (from Dennis Lehane’s Kenzie & Gennaro series), . . .
I could go on but don’t want to bore anyone. I could probably name another twenty pretty quickly.
Chris in Owatonna
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
I have been spending the morning gathering my list. At the very top would be the very politically incorrect Huckleberry Finn and Jim who were stereotypes of the time. Tom Sawyer is a favorite as well. I also love Jean Louise Finch (Scout) from To Kill a Mockingbird because she is so non-judge mentally open and observant of the community around her, yet she questions.
More modern characters:
MMA Precious Ramotswe, MMA Grace Makutsi, and Isabel Dalhause from Alexander McCall Smith. And especially, Bertie, that poor tortured child who has been set free— AMC brings us from Edinburgh.
Lucas Davenport and that F—ingVirgil Flowers—John Sanford
Cork O’Connor — Kent Kruger
Lizzy Lacey, Verna and the entire small town of Darling, Alabama — Susan Wittig Albert
I loved Tony Hillerman’s detectives Jim Leaphorn and Joe Chee.
There are more, I know. Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes is someone I have never resonated with at all.
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I haven’t read them for years now, but Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen in Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy series. And Maisie Dobbs in Jacqueline Winspear’s series.
Although not fictional, I love the “voice” presented by Victoria Sweet in her memoirs “God’s Hotel” and “Slow Medicine”.
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Peter Wimsey, for one. There are others I need to think on.
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Saw this on Facebook, VS – have you seen it?
https://www.facebook.com/dearholmes/
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Yes, but I haven’t joined the group (yet). There’s a lot of groups out there that I’ve looked at and haven’t joined because … well because it’s Facebook.
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And from way back to my youth:
Sister Luke in The Nun’s Story.
And Jane Eyre.
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Oh. Loved The Nun’s Story!
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I named my first cat after Franny Glass. Haven’t read that in many years – I should dig it out again.
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Franny & Zooey?
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Yes.
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There must be someone… but I can’t get anything to come to mind at this time of the night.
Work work is interfering with my blog attendance.
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kilgore trout
vonnegut
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