Conan Doyle's Magic Door: great minds think alike!

This article might never have existed if I hadn't decided at the last minute to 'pull' the article about books, reading and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in favour of one about Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. books, which was next in the queue and all ready to go.

The Conan Doyle article was originally scheduled to be published on April 7th, but I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable because two of the quotations in it had no source. They are widely attributed to Conan Doyle, but without any indication of where they originally came from.

I had a strong feeling that I should dig deeper to find the origin of these quotations: it just didn't seem right to release the article before I had done all that I could to find the sources.

I guessed that they might have come from Conan Doyle's letters, but eventually found them in Through the Magic Door (1907), a collection of essays about books, writers and reading. 

I thought that this title was a good coincidence: the Magic Door leads to a world of books, and I had said in the Conan Doyle books and reading article that my first books had magical titles and opened a door to new worlds.

I took a very quick look at Through the Magic Door; I saw immediately that it contained enough coincidences, references to familiar topics and other relevant material to inspire at least one article. Some of the content would have been suitable for the books and reading article, but I decided to publish this in its original form after just adding the quotations' source and to forget the Magic Door until I had finished some work in progress.

Ever since I read that dropping existing activities when something new and exciting comes along is a sign of emotional immaturity, I have been trying not to do this!

I wanted to give Through the Magic Door my undivided attention, which meant first getting some outstanding work out of the way. I returned to the book after completing a few half-finished articles; this post is the result of giving it a much closer look.

Something about Through the Magic Door
The Magic Door is a portal to another world, one that is entered by reading. Conan Doyle gives a tour of his library to an imaginary visitor; he introduces his favourite books and authors and gives his views on many of them. Some of his comments and references stand out because they are similar to material in various articles on here, including the Conan Doyle books and reading one.  

This is quite a coincidence considering that not only had I not read Through the Magic Door until after I had posted the material that we have in common, I had never even heard of it!

Something about being interrupted while reading

While looking for more information about Frances Hodgson Burnett, I came across a previously overlooked short paragraph in her classic children's novel The Little Princess that resonates very strongly:

“Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett was writing about her young heroine Sara Crewe here, but she was surely speaking for herself – and for many other avid readers, including me, who hate being interrupted while engrossed in a book. Some people do indeed react with annoyance when abruptly dragged out of a book they were immersed in: being brought back to reality in this way is often very jarring and disorienting. 

This extract has inspired some thoughts on the subject of being interrupted while reading. This article includes extracts from another classic children's book and has something to say about the motives of the interrupters.

Reading 'is not an occupation'
Some people devalue reading; it is not seen a worthwhile activity. They equate reading books with idling, with doing nothing useful, so they interrupt because they want to see the reader doing something else.

This scene from Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes is a good example of this attitude:

“...Petrova was sitting on the table in the window reading a book...

The bell rang again.

“Ought to be answered.’’ Cook spoke firmly, partly because her word was law in the kitchen, and partly because whoever answered it, it would not be her. She looked round, but everybody seemed busy; then her eye fell on Petrova. Reading was not an occupation. It came in her view under the heading of “Satan finds....”

“Petrova dear,” she said, “we’re all busy; you run up and see who it is.””

Angels and demons in Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood books

This is the final article in the series inspired by Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. books. 

Unlike Anthony Horowitz's little Diamond Brothers stories, which may have inspired a few scenes in Jonathan Stroud's books, the Lockwood books can be extensively quoted from and commented on without much of the main action in the stories being revealed. This means that associated topics such as temptation and glamour can be discussed in detail without spoiling the books' accounts of the young psychical detection agents' exciting adventures and dangerous assignments and the variety of characters they encounter along the way.

I found more commentary-inspiring material in the Lockwood books than I originally expected. Most of it has been covered in previous articles, but there is still a little more to say about falling under the spell of a glamorous image and bright angels who are really dark demons.

Predatory ghosts, cult leaders, glamour, temptations and threats have been featured in separate articles; this article about Penelope Fittes and the 'master' she worships includes all these elements. 

The dark secrets of Penelope Fittes
Towards the end of The Empty Grave, it is revealed that the glamorous Penelope Fittes, who as previously described tempts Anthony Lockwood and his colleagues and shows her true, and very unpleasant, colours when thwarted and rejected, maintains her young and attractive appearance by very sinister means and is herself in thrall to someone with a glamorous image, someone who has all along been in the background helping her with her unsavoury activities. 

Ezekiel the supernatural entity
Penelope Fittes is under the spell of a golden ghost or Visitor called Ezekiel.  

Needless to say, Ezekiel's glittering image conceals an inner self that is the exact opposite of what he appears to be, and he too shows his real, and very unpleasant, self when threatened and defied.