I like to visit a nearby thrift store every time I walkby. They have a small but densely packet book section. They even have a couple shelves dedicated to books in English, which is great and not a given even here in Paris
Recently, I found these two illustrated Sherlock Holmes volumes. Each book is supposed to offer a facsimile of the original stories as they were published with their illustrations. Sherlock Holmes was mostly published as a series in The Strand between the late XIX and early XX centuriers, I have no idea it that’s what they looked like back then but, those are nice and frankly I don’t care much, I was just happy to get my hands on the books, for cheap. They were priced at 5€ each and it took barely any persuasion to get them both for 5€ total.
That was a no-brainer as for quite some time now I had this vague idea of rereading Sherlock Holmes so I could… compare how much I enjoy it with — here, I probably need to beg pardon from all holmesians fans out there because, if I thoroughly enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes stories when I read them back in my 20s or so, it was never as much as how much I enjoyed reading, as a kid, the adventures of that other Conan Doyle’s character — the professor Challenger.
I was just a boy when I read Challenger’s adventures in The Lost World. It was an absolute blast. I was in awe. It’s that book that decided me to finally read my first Jules Verne, whose red and gold books had been sitting in my father’s library, untouched — not very far from his rather poorly hidden stash of Playboy magazines but even though those two were also an exciting read to young me I still much preferred dinosaurs to chicks :p
And then because of Challenger I opened a few Verne. I enjoyed reading his Voyage au centre de la terre a lot, I liked the engravings on the tick paper so much, it was exciting and precious and rare. Or it felt like it. After that, I enjoyed reading most of Verne’s books. Like, really enjoyed. The one exception was his Michel Strogoff. That book, I did not merely enjoyed reading it, I was in love with it.
Page after page, I rooted for Strogoff, feared for him, rejoiced with him. I was Michel Strogoff. Every single time I’ve read it.
Not long after I first read the book, I watched the Frenco-German TV series adaptation and since that time, no matter what, I could never imagine Strogoff not looking like Raimund Harmstorf. Smiling like he was.
Yeah, I know, he is not smiling in that image but you wouldn’t either as you’ve just been captured by your mortal enemies and you know real, real bad things are going to happen to you soon.
My true childhood hero was not a mutant superhero. He was not Harlock the space pirate (or Albator as he is called in French), this could have been real close, though, or maybe it was Captain Futur (aka Capitaine Flam in French). No, my true childhood hero was Raimund Harmstorf playing Michel Strogoff.
The original sound track was made by Vladimir Cosma and helped a lot making me fall in love with the series — the opening title was a huge hit on kid-me, as was Nadia’s theme.
And, yep, decades later I purchased the DVD. The day it was released. It’s a rather poorly made DVD alas, but I still play it from time to time. And I ripped it too, so I can quickly play an episode on my computer. To be honest, I seldom do it nowadays but even though I’m no kid anymore and have learned a little more about the art of making movies, I’m still moved every time I follow them in their adventures. No shame at all in admitting that.
Thinking about it, I realize I’m now older, much older, than Michel Strogoff was. Ouch. Um… What was I talking about already?
Oh yeah, that Challenger guy and the Lost world and Sherlock Holmes. Most probably, it being my favorite was only a question of luck: it was the first of its kind I had read, and the first of Doyle’s novels too. So, it was only natural the other books had to be compared to it. Or maybe it was just really that good? I can’t recall.
And that’s the whole idea I had. I wanted to meet Challenger and Sherlock Holmes one more time, and then see if my opinion of them had changed. This now got me thinking I should also reread Jules Verne’s Voyage au centre de la terre… and Michel Strogoff, most obviously 8)
Published: 2024/08/26