Another cracking Sherlock Holmes Adventure in which orange pips feature, along with Holmes, Watson and some Americans. This is from the Conan Doyle collection entitled The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
"... I leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy." This is probably my favorite line from Sherlock Holmes's stories. So ominous and full of intrigue!
@@sherlock_holmes_magpie_audio Toonbat? Please don't resort to purile name calling. I know you're trying to be "trendy" and "cool", but you run the risk of not being understood. Which, of course, may be your aim.
Aww I felt for Sherlock Holmes in this one 😢. That line “that he should come to me for help, & that I should send him away to his death...” got me. One of the things I love so dearly is Holmes’s sense of vindication & honor in avenging someone
AnnaElisavetta Vonnedozza The description immediately following was kept in every detail by actor Jeremy Brett, the only true Sherlock Holmes on the screen, big or small. I say true because he obviously read every tale in which he incarnated the great fictive detective, climbing into his very skin!
I hope everyone will "like" this comment so that it is both "top" and "newest" for others. This isn't for ego, but instead because many comments contain a spoiler I hope others won't see before first hearing the story. To make the comment big enough for that purpose I'll add here, again, that Greg's reading and acting of these ACD stories is unparalleled and brings them to life in the freshest and most marvelous way. Hoorah! All the best to Greg and all.
The true art of writing, is the picture it paints in your head. And with lines like "the storm whined and throbbed like a child in the chimney ". Just absolute genius.
I read that during Victorian times, poor children were "employed" by chimney sweeps to get up in the chimneys to do cleaning that no adult could do. As they were extremely thin from basically starvation the could do this-kind of. But as you might imagine, children sometimes got stuck and even died. Utterly horrible. I wonder if this is where Doyle got this metaphorical line.
Suffering chronic illness as I do these stories are a godsend - I can't really read them. Thank you. Can't believe 124 quarter-wits actually downvoted this excellent rendition
I imagine that other US readers like myself suspected right away that "KKK" in this story was that infamous KKK of USA that has brought so much shame to our nation, but many british readers probably did not. Maybe the only major plot point in any Sherlock Holmes story I figured out before Holmes did
@@vidhantsharma2092 The KKK (Klu Klux Klan, how stupid is that name) is a white supremacist group which was formed during the American civil war. It is an extremist group which, up until the mid 70's, actively harassed, murdered mostly by lynching, burned crosses in black ppl's front yards and otherwise spewed their vile hate for black people all the while spewing lies of why white ppl are superior. While they have, for the most part, become a paper tiger now; there have been many sick groups like this spring up. I have lived in the deep south all my life and I remember when I was a little girl and you drove thru a shit hole town in the middle of the country, the klan would be in full regalia collecting money at the one stop light.
@@vidhantsharma2092 The Klu Klux Klan, a hyper-nationalistic hate group that targets those they see as not "real" Americans. They sprung out of the American South after the US civil war and used both the threat of violence via lynching mobs and their political influence via their ties to the Democrat Party (which they no longer have) and their White Citizens Coucils/ Kountry Klub Klans to target said individuals. They typically targeted black people and non-protesants.
Masterfully read (as usuall) and the joke was on me...After all this time I never realized the FIVE ORANGE PIPS original plot was FAR different from the Universal movie adaptation...Be that as it may always a pleasure to be read to by a master of storytelling-even if the stories were created by someone else... Eagerly awaiting your rendition of GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Why did it have to end like that? Abrupt disappointment. Holmes’ plan to avenge them would have done perfectly well. We wouldn’t have even had to hear about it being carried out. Conan dropped the ball on this one.
Interesting read for a Canadian such as I in 2021! Orange pips: It took me a while to understand what these were. Would call them pits here. KKK: I was surprised Watson did not know about this terrible gang. But then I realized that it was a North American horror and that news would not have reached Britain of their behaviour.
The 19th century German writer Karl May wrote about KKK before sir Arthur Conan Doyle did. He described their masks and how dangerous they were. So if he, as a German who seldom travelled, knew of KKK, some people in Britain must have known about them, too. I think KKK was not unknown in Europe in those days, but it wasn´t a household name and most people didn´t know what exactly their practices were. I imagine for a lot of readers, this story meant getting more information on the name they vaguely remembered seeing in the newspaper once.
Ok, I had to listen to this as my homework(or a resume at least, but I found the wrong video and here I'am) and as someone who only ever saw the movies, I may pass arround here from time to time(at least it is less harsh of an experience as H.P lovecraft wich really tested my reading comprehension both with my native and english language knowledge and maked me fail miserably)
Pass around...I would say better English expression would be " pass by". Or better yet, "drop in," or "drop by". Also wich should be "which". Otherwise, excellent! Oh, and also, it's "made me fail", not "maked me fail".
Seems odd to my modern thinking... he's in dire danger, let's send off unguarded ... or alternatively I could call on some of the chaps I have employed before, and whom this gentleman can afford to pay handsomely, to protect him on his journey home.
No offense toward any with differing opinions, but despite the elements I liked in this story such as the orange pips and the early reference to the Klan, the plot itself just didn't amount to much for me. An intriguing beginning that then just never materialized.
I felt the same way when I read the story at the age of 15. But now I appreciate the horror of the ending and how realistic it is. It stresses how much Sherlock Holmes actually cares about his clients and how horribly powerless a person can be against a fanatic gang. It´s powerful and it resides in a different country, so even Sherlock Holmes can only battle it with the help of mail. Remember, these were the times when all the criminal organizations we know today were springing up and growing in power. I think that for sir ACD´s audience, there was so much horror in the mere existence of a gang like that, that they didn´t need an intriguing ending.
To be fair, it is apparent in these stories that the Scotland Yard of his London is hopelessly incompetent and corrupt. The sheer number of innocent deaths prevented by Holmes due to the apathy and lack of investment from their officers is staggering, even for policemen. Holmes has every right to take a dim view of the law enforcement branch in his city, but I must point out that he is always very careful to abide by the _judicial_ practices of his country. Civilian investigators are fairly common, and in some countries licensed private investigators can both make arrests and be considered an officer of the common law. That is not to say they are necessarily more competent or less corruptible, but I daresay in the canon of Holmes' stories, he has proven himself to be far less corrupt and arrogant than the police officers of his polity. In addition, policemen are themselves civilians and citizens. The only other thing they could be is soldiers, and they better not be.
I still remember the first time I heard this story from listening to another audiobook reading of it. Still remember feeling the chill of an evil presence when the KKK was mentioned - learned what it was that day because I was listening to it in the car with my parents. Still feel that chill whenever I read that story and reach the line 'Have you ever heard of 'Ku Klux Klan?' even though I now know that this story barely tipped the iceberg of their evilness.
Think this is my favourite because it’s the first one I recall reading on my own accord as A Child, even though it’s ending is some what anti-climatic, it’s just an enthralling tale along the way
That was probably good for your imagination and your vocabulary! I read Sherlock Holmes stories when I was young. Now I really enjoy listening to them on RU-vid (in an English accent)!
Right, as an American, pips were a puzzle, but not the KKK. Interestingly that group was not just a Southern thing. There were night riders in Vermont who burned crosses, etc., on Catholics, French, and or Indians (indigenous) properties.
It is a sort of coded threat. Not sure why orange pips were used in particular. It’s a bit like a white feather sent to u in the war meant you were a coward (and that someone might come for you)
@@rosehagood3146 When he receives their threat, he says "My sins have overtaken me!" That means he realized what KKK was doing was wrong - perhaps not the racism, but definitely the murders. He left them and kept incriminating documents with him. They murdered him because he didn't give them the documents, so that he wouldn't show them to the police and testify against them. (He wasn't planning to do that, but they didn't know.)
@@Coopbean Nope, they couldn't get the estate. It was the incriminating records of their past crimes they were after. Hence the instructions to John Openshaw to put them in the garden for KKK to find.
The member of KKK who managed to throw John Openshaw into the river Thames, making it look like an accident, was the captain of an American ship that sailed to a lot of places around the world. He'd always send a threatening letter (five orange pips) to a person from a port the ship was staying in, so that the letter would arrive ahead of him. And later, he arrived there when the place was on his ship's schedule, and murder that person. (That's what he did to John Openshaw, his father and his grandfather.) Holmes couldn't prove the murder of John Openshaw to him, so he decided to scare him by sending him the same threatening letter (five orange pips). So that the captain would think another member of the gang was after him. But the captain never received the letter because his ship sank and he died.