Over the past weeks and months, I’ve been reading the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, thanks to a $3 purchase for my Kindle (more about Kindles in a moment).

I have finally reached the third and final end of the series. The first ending of the series, Holmes was supposed to have gone over Reichenbach Falls, taking the evil Professor Moriarty with him. The public cried foul and, against his own wishes, Conan Doyle turned out a few more, noting “… but fortunately no coroner had pronounced upon [Holmes'] remains, and so, after a long interval, it was not difficult for me to respond to the flattering demand and to explain my rash act away.”

At the end of the first encore, Holmes reappears after a lengthy absence to capture a German agent, this in the years immediately leading up to “The Great War” as it would be called for a mere generation. At the close of that story, he and Watson are standing on a cliff, contemplating what they’d just learned and its implications.

“There’s an east wind coming, Watson.”

“I think not, Holmes. It is very warm.”

“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us will wither before its blast.”

I found myself inexplicably sad as I read this. But two recent events have helped frame it for me. In the first, a dinner with a man of the cloth who was musing on how the liberal church could create a compelling message for the faithful and the would-be faithful. “I notice my 15-year-old son,” he said. “He is absorbed by the worlds of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. We need a story like that which people can become part of and make their own.”

The second event was courtesy of Dr. Ed Whitman, a friend and correspondent of over a decade, who sends out a “Quote of the Day” every weekday morning to faithful readers all over the world. This morning’s QOTD noted the birthday of Erich Maria Remarque, the author of the groundbreaking anti-war book, All Quiet on the Western Front. That book, of course, was written about the trenches of the war which Holmes sensed coming.

Then I understood my sadness. While making my way through the 56 stories about the adventures of Watson and Holmes, I was absorbed in their world – and what a wonderful place to be. I simply sat quietly there at 212B Baker Street (where I have stopped by and briefly genuflected when I was in the Westminster district of London) and, along with Holmes and Watson, awaited the next adventure. We were on the side of right, every time, occasionally ignoring custom and law in its aid. Money didn’t matter – there always seemed to be enough for our minimal needs. There was high adventure and occasionally serious harm or even near-death. But if death came, so be it – there was no doubt that Holmes would have preferred an adventurous death to a mundane life.

And I, the faithful reader, was in the thick of it all. I got a few nice meals at Simpsons and a lot of great music at Covent Garden to boot. Then we’d go home and hope some telegram had come with another fantastic voyage contained within.

This is the compelling reader-absorbing world that my ecclesiastical friend was discussing. And Holmes’ reference to the east wind and Dr. Whitman’s reference to All Quiet on the Western Front yanked me back into the real world. England – and the whole western world – was about to go through an upheaval from which it would really never recover.

Conan Doyle finally put his foot down and explained that “This must cease and [Holmes] must go the way of all flesh, material or imaginary.” Fair enough, but don’t blame me for being sad that the adventure is over.

Postscript on Kindle

People often ask me about the Kindle and how it is compared to real books. While I enjoy the feel of paper and glue and ink as much as the next avid reader, I’m 100% sold on the format. Look, it’s really about being absorbed into the story, isn’t it? If I’m careening down Oxford Street in a horse-drawn carriage on the trail of a bad guy, I don’t really care how I got there. Whatever method gets me there quickest and most effectively, that’s the one for me. The words are the thing and with modern e-readers, they read just as well (to my eye) as a real book.

The obvious improvement is that you can take literally hundreds of books with you wherever you go. Those of you who have borne a satchel full of paperbacks or agonized whether to bring this or that one, take heart. The reader weighs about what one paperback does and holds more books than you’ll read in a lifetime.

A Kindle makes an extraordinary addition to an unaccompanied meal. Unlike a paperback, which springs closed at the first opportunity, the Kindle sits nicely against the menu holder, allowing you both hands to eat a proper meal while reading. When I’m on the road, it has turned many depressing one-person meals into extended (“Yes, another cup of coffee, please”) sessions in one escape or another.

It also has obvious “green” upsides – no trees torn down every time you purchase a book. And for those of us attempting to shed the “things” in our life, it’s a godsend: we get all the books we want without the burden of 25-30 boxes, each weighing 50 pounds, to schlep through our lives. Yes, it’s a wonderful thing to walk into a room and see the walls lined with books – my heart leaps at the sight too. But realistically, what is it that makes your heart leap? The books themselves or the idea of the stories – the worlds – that await within?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.