Movie: Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey, Jr.

Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes

On Christmas day, the latest of many movie versions of the adventures of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes debuts. The new Sherlock Holmes stars Robert Downey Jr. as the brooding, sexy, young sleuth with a 21st century 3-day growth of facial hair.

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes

In the preview, Holmes becomes an action figure– the Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwartenegger hero rather than the brainiac of old. The real mysterys: What would Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have thought of this new version? and will Robert Downey replace Basil Rathbone as our image of the tweedy detective that spawned a genre?

Visit Britain, the tourism agency, has cooked up an entire campaign to direct tourists to scope out the Britain of Sherlock. The map of locations in and outside of London and suggested itineraries to help you travel can be found on line. It seems that peripatetic Holmes visited as much of England as Bill Bryson.

Since 2010 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the very least you can do is visit 221B Baker Street Museum. (Ironically, the museum opens every day except Christmas, so on Christmas day you are free to go see the film.)

Visit Britain’s press release says,  “Sherlock Holmes was filmed on location in London, Liverpool and Manchester with scenes shot at St Paul’s Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament, Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, Manchester Town Hall, Liverpool Docks and at Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent.” Movies for A Traveler’s Library don’t get much better than that!

Let’s hope for a sequel to this movie when Sherlock travels to his final destination in Switzerland.

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Pickwick Papers Inn

Destination: Dicken’s London

Movie: Christmas Carol, Novel by Charles Dickens, Movie Disney Studios

As the new movie of a Disney version of Dickens Christmas Carol, kicked off the Holiday season this weekend, London offered Dickens deals.

When I saw the the title come up for the preview of Disney’s Christmas Carol, I must admit that I groaned, “Not another Christmas Carol.” I’m not sure whether more male actors have aspired to Hamlet or to Scrooge–not to mention Mickey Mouse’s Christmas Carol, starring Donald Duck. But the preview of this new effort did its job and I was fascinated by the sheer beauty of the presentation.

Second admission: I have not seen the movie yet. Took a little time off this past weekend, so I missed the opening, so I cannot tell you for sure that the movie does justice to Dickens, but despite widly disparate reviews, I am going to go see it and am actually looking forward to it.

The movie is directed by Director Robert Zemeckis, who also oversaw, Polar Express, and uses the same kind of motion-capture technique. In a novel move, the director uses star Jim Carey to play not only Scrooge, but also the Ghosts of Times Past, Present, and Yet to Come. That makes philosophical sense, as aren’t we always the bringers of truth to ourselves, and don’t we create our own dreams and nightmares?

Philosophy aside, I’m betting that you have seen a movie, play, or musical version of Christmas Carol or Scrooge since you last read Dickens’ own version, and I recommend that we all grab a Dickens’ book and read the Christmas Carol. It is one of the shortest of his works, and a good start for people who have not been introduced to one of my favorite authors.

Our own two short travel stopovers in London did not allow for as much poking around in the Old City of London  to seek out Dickens locales as we would have liked, but I recently read a about a hotel deal that I would grab if I were traveling to London over the holidays. Timed to coincide with the opening of the Disney film,  Threadneedles, a London boutique hotel,offers a Christmas Carol package with a free copy of the Dickens novel and a walking tour guide of local Dickensian landmarks. The hotel is located next door to the Counting House, one of the scenes for the Dickens novel and in the midst of the Old City of London, with plenty of Dickensian scenery around. (And by the way, if you are not staying at the hotel, don’t worry, there are many, many Dickens walking tours on offer–just Google.)

And for those who cringe at the Disneyfying of literature (I still am not quite over Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear), keep in mind that Dickens always had the bottom line in mind.  He wrote his novels in bite sized morsels that could be sold to the local newspapers before he made them into books.  Sorta like a blogger, huh?

Photograph: Okay, it is not Christmas Carol, and it is not London, but it IS Charles Dickens, and it is such a cool picture. For the whole story, click on the picture and go to the site of photographer Tim Norris.

Have you toured the Dickens sites in London? Have you seen the movie? Fill in what I left out in this post. We’re waiting to hear from you. And my subscription forms up there at the top of the blog are waiting for you, too. Sign up so you’ll never miss another book or movie.

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Destinations: Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the British Museum in London, Metropolitan Museum in NYC, the Louvre in Paris, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles

Part of the Parthenon Freize in British Museum

Welcome to my traveler’s library.

Have you ever wondered how the lovely antiquities from some long-gone civilization arrived at a major museum? Looters have dug up treasures as long as people have been burying them. But when Napoleon set out to Egypt, he took an army of scholars with him and in recording and taking treasures, they started a trend.

Nineteenth century collectors took it for granted that the more advanced countries had a right to collect “because they alone know how to appreciate them,” as the author of an 1835 book, Voyage de Luxor said. Some people still argue that point of view. Others have become bothered by the lack of provenance on many objects in museums. Both factions will be enthralled by Sharon Waxman’s book, Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World.

I got hooked on the debate over the morality of collecting antiquities when I first visited the Acropolis in Athens thirty years ago and saw the blank spaces where Lord Elgin relieved the Greeks of pieces of magnificent carving. He wanted them because at the end of the nineteenth century it was all the rage to decorate ones’ estate with statuary from Greece and Rome. Eventually, he wound up broke and sold his treasures to the British Museum.

In 2008 I traveled to London and visited the enthralling British Museum. Of course I toured its most popular space, the display of the Parthenon marbles. Forty-eight hours later, I was in Athens, visiting the Parthenon for the fifth time, on a scorching hot day. I also got a sneak-preview of the soaring spaces of the New Acropolis Museum and the space the Greek government has prepared for the return of the Parthenon marbles from England.

Opinionated as I am about the Parthenon marbles (which I will never call the Elgin marbles) Sharon Waxman made me question my stance on the rightful role of museums with her well-researched look at the needs of countries like Egypt, Turkey and Greece and the rationale of world class museums. Since the New Acropolis Museum has been completed, the argument has become more public. For a frequently updated overview of the looting of antiquities worldwide, see this blog .

While Loot certainly will not be found in the travel section of your bookstore, it nevertheless belongs on the travel library shelves. It helps readers understand the cultures of Egypt, Turkey and Greece and the long-gone civilizations that inhabited the land the modern countries now occupy. It also adds understanding of a culture the traveler may never have thought about—that of museums.

Where do you stand on the debate about ancient artifacts? Are their limits to what foreign countries should be able to keep from the source country?

NEW: Sign a petition to join my favorite cause, return the Parthenon Marbles taken to England by Lord Elgin.

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