WILL UNWOUND #271: “Will’s Mystery Project – ‘A Study in Scarlet’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”
November 6, 2010Sherlock Holmes. Sooner or later you knew his name was going to come up in this mystery project of mine.
I’ve been putting Sherlock Holmes off because really what can you say about Sherlock that everyone doesn’t already know?
It’s ironic that I’m doing Sherlock today because he is the literary character that everyone knows.
Yesterday I wrote about a vignette in which a bright young college graduate didn’t have a clue about who Gulliver was. From that I jumped to the conclusion that civilization is going to hell in a hand basket.
But I bet she knows who Sherlock is. So maybe civilization isn’t so bad off.
How does a literary character rise above the growing ignorance of literature?
There are a couple of others in Sherlock’s league. How about Frankenstein and Dracula? Everyone knows who they are.
So….based on general name recognition in a post literary culture, how did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle manage to create a character who has survived the Twitter generation?
Well, now that I’ve read A Study in Scarlet, I’ll try to answer that question.
Sherlock is smart, cunning, manic depressive, edgy, arrogant, inventive, honest, and unrelenting. For an 19th century guy he’s pretty modern. Okay, that’s not good enough. There are plenty of literary characters who share those qualities.
How about this…Sherlock had some really good illustrators who put him in that inimitable sleuth hat?
No, that doesn’t really cut it either. The hat is very dated.
Okay, I’m scratching my head. To be honest with you A Study in Scarlet was okay but not great. I mean I’ve probably read 500 books that I’ve liked better than A Study in Scarlet.
So, what’s the secret?
It’s elementary, my dear Watson.
Sherlock has become a synonym for sleuth. In that sense he’s like Xerox and Kleenex. Don’t know about you, but more often than not I call a photocopy machine a Xerox machine, and I call disposable tissues Kleenex.
Ever hear the term…”Hey, Sherlock, when did you get your first clue?” That’s what I’m talking about.
So how did Sherlock become a synonym for sleuth? Beats me.
Hey, Sherlock, if you’ve got any clues, let me know.
Pop culture is just not my thing. Classical literature is.
So….how did the two fuse together with Sherlock?
That’s the real mystery.
A Study in Scarlet merits 2 stars.
“A Study in Scarlet” is definitely not the best of the Holmes stories (although I think the Holmes-and-Watson-meeting stuff is great; the part about the Mormons just drags interminably). I can see how you’d question his popularity if that’s the only one you read.
If your mystery project will only include novel-length works, I suggest “The Sign of Four” or “The Hound of the Baskervilles” for a better Holmes experience.
If short stories are eligible… ooh, it would be hard to pick. Speckled Band? Dancing Men? Silver Blaze? Hmmm…
I agree. None of the novels are in a class with the short stories. Doyle was much better at developing short puzzles. The character development is fairly minimal (hence the acceptance of Nigel Bruce’s rather doltish Watson in the films — Watson is, rather, a very intelligent layman,the reader’s surrogate). I think the best way to read Holmes is in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes The Holmesians are more fun than Doyle because they (we?) can take the Master seriously. The Executor never could.
Reading something like a pseudo-scholarly article by Dorothy Sayers on why Dr. James H. Watson’s middle name was James is a true pleasure.
Jane…I agree completely with your assessment of “A Study in Scarlet.”
Just like Jane and Bill say — read the short stories. I love them. Lots of people love them (witness how many people have loved them enough to imitate them, translate them to stage, screen and other transmogrifications)
Very true. When riding the tram and subway in (then) Leningrad in 1972, at least once or twice I noticed my neighbors reading Holmes in translation. (And Mark Twain.)
I would have to question whether “everyone” knows who Frankenstein is. Most believe him to be the “monster” and not the creator.
100% accurate.
Indeed!!
Will,
If you ever make it to Connecticut, you must visit Gillette Castle, home of actor and playwright William Gillette, who immortalized the image of Sherlock Holmes as a result of his 1,300 appearances starring in the play authored by himself, Sherlock Holmes.
He introduced the deerstalker hat, the pipe, and the phrase, “This is elementary, my dear fellow.” And his looks pretty much set the standard for casting all subsequent Holmes.
Incidentally, he is also the playwright who asked Doyle, “May I marry Holmes?”, which prompted Doyle’s famous reply: “You may marry him or murder him or do what you like with him.”
Denise…okay…so that is the solution to the mystery. Thanks.
Sherlock is known the same way Dracula and Frankenstein are known, through films.
Not sure about that. I haven’t seen the films and only read the one book, but Sherlock sticks in my imagination.
I find the stories unreadable, but the BBC’s new series “Sherlock” is riveting. I’m watching the second episode as I type. Sooo good.
Jessa, I really like it too. Is the guy who plays Watson the same actor who played the “Jim” character in the British “The Office”? He is great! I like SH in all versions just about. I even liked the Robert Downey Jr. movie! Though I have purist-Holmes friends who hated it. We just do not discuss it.
Jessa and Wynette….thanks for the tip.
Yes, that’s him! He’s wonderful (Watson).
But I think to get the full enjoyment of the TV series, you need to know the stories. I *loved* the thing with the cellphone in the first episode.
Jane, I guess I hesitate to think of any TV series or movie as having one particular way in which it is fully enjoyed. I totally agree with you that viewers gain a level of understanding if they have read the texts behind the visual media, particularly in terms of understanding the choices that the writers and directors made. For example, as a diehard Harry Potter fan, I’ve read the books *cough* too many times, and I can dissect the directors’ choices until everyone around me is bored. But do I understand the movie “fully” compared to my friends, many of whom have not read the books? *shrugs* I’m sure we each catch some things and miss others.
Jessa, it’s more that there are in-jokes which you get if you know the stories.
I never much cared for the stories, but loved the Jeremy Brett Sherlock series that came out in the early eighties(?). Also loved the Robert Downey movie.
Also can’t bear to read Shakespeare or the LOTR series, but love the movies.
Does this mean I’m postliterate???
LOL, hardly. Everyone has their own taste in literature. I’m sure there are other things you read and enjoy; not liking 3 authors hardly qualifies you as “postliterate.” You’re fine!
Jessa, you took the words right out of my mouth.
The first SH stories were not well received as they were illustrated by ACD’s father who drew Holmes as a chubby. Later another illustrator gave him his tall and slender build and voila he was a success.
Then of course you know the reported remark from British royalty when Doyle killed him off hoping to end the series…”we are not amused”.
Wynette…that sort of validates one of my theories. Illustrations carry a lot of weight.
By becoming a movie?
But I haven’t seen any of the Sherlock movies, Carrie.
Because it’s so fun to say “No sh** Sherlock”?
No shit, Jane. I think this is it! Had forgotten about that expression. Yes, it has become part of our lingua franca.
My first introduction to Holmes was in school at age 11 when I read “The Speckled Band.” It might be an exciting one to start with.
One of the Holmes movies I love besides the traditional ones is “Without a Clue” starring Michael Caine. Owning a copy of that is on my wish list.
I first read the four novels and 56 adventures collection at 11 or 12 and loved them and have been intending a complete reread of absolutely everything. Will, since you weren’t entranced with “A Study in Scarlet” as others said you may want to try the stories next and by then I suspect you will have developed a love for them.
Brenda, I will try the stories, and by the way, you sound like you were a precocious child. I’m impressed.
I think 11 or 12 is probably the best age for them. That’s when my husband read them, and that’s when my boys are reading them now.
I never read them myself, but have known of Sherlock and Watson since childhood through the ether. (that’s my scientific/literary reference for the day)
And have thourgholy enjoyed the recent movie and current TV series.
I adored Jeremy Brett as Holmes in the British TV show. They are still shown on our PBS networks and I think he defined Sherlock for me. The stories were closely followed. Watson is also portrayed beautifully in the Brett series. The costumes and settings are wonderful also. I found the Nigel Bruce Watson insulting and the plots ridiculous. I was prepared to dislike the new PBS Holmes “in modern times”, but find it delightful. Both leads are terrific.
That said, I still go back to the stories every decade or so. Conan Doyle knew how to tell a story…even if he did try to kill off Holmes!
You’re right. Brett is the definitive Holmes.
Gotta see it, Alice.
Brett is the only Holmes I can sit through.
Jeremy brett is wonderful but Benedict Cumberbatch is over the top. I love “Sherlock”.
I think Sherlock Holmes is still around because he is one of those fascinating enigmatic characters that just keeps coming back in new forms.
My favorite Holmes is the older, retired, version that appears in Laurie R King’s Mary Russell series. teenage Mary meets a recently retired Holmes in the 1910′s and he teaches her all he knows, judging her an intellectual equal. Also they get married and solve crimes together, 10 books in the series so far, starting with Beekeepers Apprentic
Exellent point, Jessica. Sherlock Holmes keeps mutating.
Two quick suggestions:
– Holmes is not a character who develops much (though he does some; it’s instructive to compare his very first appearance, a young man who doesn’t know the Copernican model of the solar system and says, “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it,” with the more mature man who plays the violin and quotes the novelist Jean Paul [Richter]), but he is a vividly imagined and masterfully drawn character of striking eccentricity, remarkable abilities, and equally remarkable force of character. He is also morally admirable, a man of unimpeachable integrity and courage; dedicated, in his unsentimental way, to justice, even when justice demands sidestepping a fine point of the law.
– The stories also create a world that captures our imaginations and makes us want to live there, at least for a while. Think of the lamplit streets, the fog (actually more of a smog), the mysterious and sometimes menacing alleys, the odd byways where you can pawn a trinket or buy a goose for Christmas dinner, the innumerable minor characters whose oddities and quirks of dialect stud the stories like currants and cherries in a rum cake. So vividly and absorbingly did Conan Doyle recreate London for us that a century later, the London of our imagination is partly the city of Holmes and Watson.
The Holmes stories are, to me at least, more than just mysteries. They are among the few literary works I read again and again. Even though by now I know (within the limits of my memory — wait, what was I talking about again?) what the answers to the riddles will be, I still enjoy them.
Do try the short stories. I second “The Speckled Band,” which was one of the first I read (in fourth or fifth grade, I think), but any of the better-known shorter works will hook you, I think.
I will definitely try the stories, RA, because I desperately want to like Holmes.
Having grandchildren of that age I can tell you they still read “The Speckled Band” in 5th grade….as we did.
Will,
As others have indicated, A Study in Scarlet, while interesting enough for introducing Sherlock Holmes, does not really give the flavor that Holmes fans appreciate. Doyle introduced memorable characters (including Mycroft Holmes) and scenes in the further short novels and collections of stories. You would do better to read the stories collected under the titles of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Better still, read the Complete Sherlock Holmes, which I first did when I was in seventh grade. If that is too much for you, some of the best-known stories include Silver Blaze, the Greek Interpreter, and the Final Problem, but several of my favorites are the Red-Headed League, the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, the Crooked Man, the Adventure of the Empty House, and the Adventure of the Lion’s Mane.
The reason for the popularity of Sherlock Holmes is, I think, mostly because the originality of the concept at the time that Doyle was writing the stories. Detective stories were quite young as a genre, and Doyle’s concept of a private detective gifted with extraordinary powers of observation and reasoning was distinctive. The popularity of the printed works, the later reinforcement offered by the movies, the lack of an alternative figure for people to cite, and the comparative accessibility of the short stories to young readers all add up to Sherlock Holmes becoming a highly distinctive and familiar literary character and prototypical sleuth.
Now that you have encountered Holmes, I hope you will also read some of G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, of which the Blue Cross, the Queer Feet, the Sign of the Broken Sword, the Mirror of the Magistrate, and the Chief Mourner of Marne are the best.