Reviews with content warning for Racism - The Sign of Four

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

68 reviews

spoko's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

Right up front: There are some definite racist elements here, and that certainly diminished my ability to enjoy the book. But even without those, it was disappointing.

I like reading Holmes & Watson as characters, but the other characters weren’t interesting at all, and the mystery itself wasn’t much to chew on. Mostly it seemed like Doyle imagined this tale of the purloined loot itself, and the whole book was a lead-up to the retelling of that tale. But it would have been better as a standalone story, really, and even then I don’t think I’d have loved it.

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christygsp's review against another edition

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3.0

Meh.
First was better and hopefully others will be too.
Written in another time but racism was there.
Mystery was only okay.

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orchidlilly's review

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adventurous mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Ok, wow, mixed bag on this one. On one hand, the mystery its self is very fun; locked room, treasure, a mysterious calling card, its all cool. On the other hand, good God is this one racist. Most of the ACD Sherlock stories I've read keep that good ole' English racism to a minimum, but The Sign of Four seems to have dialed it up to ten to make up for that. I don't think you can go two pages here without reading multiple paragraphs of Watson or some other character just using the rudest, most vile descriptions possible for Indian people. I can't say I didn't expect it, because I know just how horribly the English viewed Indian people at the time, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant to read. I'm not kidding, though, the racism in this one is really really bad, especially because we don't get the usual Holmes thing of having the story at least somewhat go 'um, actually, the people society hates are actually just people and it is in fact the rich bastards who suck'. Just yikes.

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theresacharlotte's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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brutusbloch's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

2.5

A little boring. Listening to it as an audiobook def. didn't help, because at some point I didn't actively listen any more. What I did hear was a lot of talking.

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