So
why Sherlock Holmes?
True story: in 7th grade, I wrote a screenplay entilted "
A Study Hall In Scarlet."
Yes, it was terrible. No, you will never see a single word of it. Yes, I did write it entirely in study hall.
Which just shows that, at a relatively young age, I was smitten with the guy.
And who amongst us wasn't? Who hasn't at one point picked up a pen and tried to write a story where
Lestrade comes too 221B looking for help on a case, but Holmes is away on some secretive mission, and the Inspector convinces
Watson to come help because surely Watson knows Holmes' method by now, and Watson goes and makes a complete muck of things, yet picks the right culprit for completely the wrong reasons, and it turns out that Holmes was there in disguise as one of the suspects all along and had been nudging Watson in the right direction, and...shut up. We shall never speak of that again.
Sherlock Holmes, of course, is one of the most famous fictional
characters in history. Regularly, you see worldwide polls naming
Sherlock as one of the most recognizable characters on the planet, along with the
likes of
Tarzan and
Superman. Yet somehow, Sherlock seems to be the most popular of all (and not just because of public domain issues). What TV show or cartoon, stuck for a cliche, hasn't resorted to one of their characters playing Sherlock Holmes, in "
reality" or a dream sequence or on a holodeck? Why have we seen so many iterations of the character, whether "Young Sherlock" or "Sherlock in modern day" or "Sherlock in the future" or "a robot version of Sherlock" or...? Who can't watch one of the infinite
CSI or
NCIS or even
Law & Order clones and see the groundwork laid by Sherlock?
The enduring popularity of Sherlock Holmes says something, I believe, about our admiration for for deep-seated admiration for the powers of the mind. Yes, plenty of us out there want to mock the nerds and brainiacs, even the shows that purport to champion them (yes, I'm looking at you,
Big Bang Theory). We love
Spock, we love
Gorem on
L&O:CI, we can support two separate but equally enchanting modern spins on Holmes at the same time...as a society we may not admit it, but we love to watch clever people, people who are smarter than us (but not so much smarter that we can't convince ourselves that we could accomplish the same intellectual feats these guys do, if only we had more free time and a good wifi connection available).
Yet, sometimes, I think, amidst all the pastiches and tributes and updatings and modern versions and fan-fiction and apocrypha, we lose track of the
originals, the canon, the 56 short stories and 4 novels about Sherlock Holmes by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Even those who play "
The Grand Game," the lovely fantasy where we pretend the canon is actually true historical fact, can end up obscuring the literary merit of Doyle's output. Don't get me wrong--I love to play The Game as much as any, I own both versions of the
Annotated Sherlock Holmes, and I'll argue and quibble over minutiae with anyone.
But sometimes we need to throw off the games and homages, and go back to the source, so we can fully appreciate what Doyle gave us, and fully grok the genius of the original works that inspired the games and pastiches.
So as I recently felt the recurring tug to work my way through the canon again, I decided to share that all with you.
This isn't going to be a deep literary analysis, by any means. No, this will be a more personal take on the originals, as I tackle the stories, roughly one a week, usually on a Sunday (but don't hold be to that). I'll be
observing the trifles, the things that make each tale memorable for me, and what I think makes it work (or not). Sometimes serious, sometimes silly, usually forgettable. But you're all welcome to come along for the ride.
I'll also look, where relevant or interesting, at TV or film adaptations of the stories, where available. It will be mostly from the
Granada series, because a) they did more of the stories than anyone, b) I own them all, and c) Hey,
Jeremy Brett, right? But there will be other series looked at, too. Because maybe looking at how a story is adapted can tell us something about it's strengths (or weaknesses).
Oh, yeah, and there
might be a comic book or two showing up.
So come on back tomorrow, when we'll kick off with
A Study In Scarlet, and the very odd first reading experience I had with Sherlock Holmes.
