{"id":10929,"date":"2024-04-29T08:02:27","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T12:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10929"},"modified":"2024-05-08T08:05:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T12:05:01","slug":"why-does-sherlock-holmes-endure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10929","title":{"rendered":"Why Does Sherlock Holmes Endure?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For the past few weeks, I\u2019ve reported here the thoughts of some of today\u2019s leading authors of Sherlock efforts to reproduce his world. These authors care passionately about the Holmes\/Watson legacy. They demonstrated this through their contributions to the anthology, Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885<\/em><\/a>, edited by Richard T. Ryan. It\u2019s one of a series filling in the years 1881-1886, when almost no Holmes cases were reported. Contemporary writers, not content to assume the duo temporarily retired during that period, have enthusiastically created adventures to fill in the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One last question I asked them was why Holmes and Watson have had such enduring reader appeal. (People who\u2019ve seen these posts in social media have also weighed in on this question!) Author DJ Tyrer says that, for him, the attraction lies in the rapport between Holmes and Watson. Shelby Phoenix terms it their \u201cgenuine fondness for each other.\u201d Tyrer says \u201cThere\u2019s a depth to their relationship, their friendship, and their investigative partnership that is more than the sum of its parts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Jacobs says that friendship helps anchor the sometimes aloof and calculating Holmes\u2014\u201cultimately unknowable\u201d says Katy Darby. Yet, Jacobs says, they\u2019re both very likeable heroes, with Watson \u201cthe classic everyman,\u201d so brave and loyal readers keep rooting for him, and with Holmes\u2019s strong sense of morality\u2014even when it contradicts that law or social convention. As Paul Hiscock points out, literature has many great detectives, but far fewer memorable sidekicks. \u201cReaders can respect Watson, just as Holmes does. His relatability allows Holmes to be exceptional without alienating the reader.\u201d (The duo of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock comes to mind.) Frequent Holmes\/Watson pasticher David Marcum finds the pairing an \u201camazing narrative device to show a brilliant person\u2014someone always two steps ahead of what\u2019s going on\u2014from the perspective of the everyman narrator.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add to all that the strength of Doyle\u2019s writing, especially his characterizations, says Hassan Akram: \u201cHis characters live and breathe.\u201d Also, Doyle focuses on the crime, Phoenix points out, not on tension and distrust between characters, as many writers do today. Darby points out that, because the stories \u201care easy and fun to read, they\u2019re often underestimated as the highly skilled work they are,\u201d in terms of plot, action, and character development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author George Gardner believes that our continued exposure to these personalities and their world has made the stories \u201creadily imaginable to the reader.\u201d We instantly recognize the names of Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and Baker Street, but they are remote enough in time to give \u201can air of the fantastic to the stories.\u201d Holmes is \u201cthe epitome of a detective\u201d for many, many people, says Gustavo Bondoni, and readers have found his fog-covered streets a most evocative time and place. Even people who read his adventures in the World War I trenches, like Kevin Thornton\u2019s grandfather, eagerly introduced them to later generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing and writing a story in the late-Victorian London setting, \u201cis even more immersive than reading one,\u201d says Akram. So, let\u2019s see how he did with his story, generously larded with wry wit, \u201cThe Return of the Buckinghamshire Baronet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here goes: A partially burned telegram is a clue to the distant town where Holmes believes a bank robber has hidden his loot. Holmes and Watson\u2019s old acquaintance, a Baronet, lives there and is about to be married. He appears at Baker Street with the astonishing proposal that Holmes perform his \u201cdeducing\u201d act at the wedding. (Holmes, not surprisingly, declines.) Still, the Baronet offers a week\u2019s invitation to stay at his manor house before the ceremony, and there, another species of financial pandemonium soon erupts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked Akram about his use of humor in this story, and he thinks \u201cit\u2019s more difficult to use humor to good effect when the characters are so familiar.\u201d Thus, most of his story\u2019s humor comes from their slightly dim friend and other minor characters. The personas of Holmes and Watson having reached \u201calmost mythical\u201d status, he says, requires that they be treated with complete respect. Doyle\u2019s own sense of the absurd \u201chas been underrated in the face of his more serious elements, though it\u2019s clearly visible in a story like \u2018The Red-Headed League,\u2019 when Holmes and Watson burst into laughter on hearing the client\u2019s story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The popularity of Holmes and Watson endures, regularly refreshed by the work of the authors mentioned above. Their stories in Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885<\/em><\/a> are:
D.J. Tyrer – \u201cThe Japanese Village Mystery\u201d
Shelby Phoenix \u2013 \u201cSherlock Holmes and the Six-Fingered Hand Print\u201d
George Jacobs – \u201cThe Mystery of the Cloven Cord\u201d
Katy Darby \u2013 \u201cThe Adventure of the Lock Hospital\u201d
Paul Hiscock – \u201cThe Light of Liberty\u201d
David Marcum – \u201cThe Faulty Gallows\u201d
George Gardner – \u201cThe Adventure of the Damaged Tomb\u201d
Gustavo Bondoni – \u201cThe Burning Mania\u201d
Kevin Thornton – \u201cTracks Across Canada\u201d and \u201cTracked Across America\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past few weeks, I\u2019ve reported here the thoughts of some of today\u2019s leading authors of Sherlock efforts to reproduce his world. These authors care passionately about the Holmes\/Watson legacy. They demonstrated this through their contributions to the anthology, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Fans cite many reasons for the continued popularity of Holmes and Watson. What's your opinion?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1335,61,174],"tags":[333,412,275,2165],"class_list":["post-10929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-character","category-first-draft-blog","tag-london","tag-mystery","tag-sherlock-holmes","tag-short-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Qh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10931,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10929\/revisions\/10931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}