Dear Fans of the new Sherlock Holmes movie:
Let me apologize on the behalf of older Sherlock Holmes fandom for the bits of it that have been generating get-off-my-lawn reboot wank, not five days after the release of the movie. The Sherlock Holmes fandom has thrived for over a hundred years and multiple generations, and every generation has its… special snowflakes.
But fortunately, every generation has also produced creative fandom work (though they may not see it that way), from the solidly analytical to the wondrously fanciful. I may not agree with all of them, or even remotely like some of them, but they all occupy a place in my heart, because there wouldn’t be a Sherlock Holmes fandom without constant re-interpretation of the works. Yes, even the fic pastiche where Moriarty is a vampire who falls madly in love with Holmes.1
I present to you the more amusing pieces of Holmesiana I’ve gathered throughout the years. I’ve strived for a varied collection here that is at the very least sometimes accessible, even if it knocks out some of my absolute favorites. Too much of the fandom is out of print; I hope that changes one day, so that reading all the ‘ship wank doesn’t cost £500.
Note: unlike a few older fans, I don’t think any of these—including the canon—are required reading or suchlike. They can all be enjoyed separately, although it’s really quite fun to overlay multiple interpretations.
“Non-fictional” Books and Essays About Holmes
Older parts of Holmes fandom tended more towards essays than fanfiction, but it kinda doesn’t stop a lot of the essays from being, essentially, one step away from fanfiction. And those are the sort I really quite like.
“A Matter of Attention: Holmes and ADD in The Sign of Four”
(Greg Stoddard)
A great essay that smoothes over some of Holmes’ more inconsistent characterization in the books by linking them all with a particular kind of ADD that occurs in some geniuses. This disappeared from the web along with the collapse of Geocities, unfortunately, but can still be found in the Internet Archive (which I’ve linked to above). Of course, not everyone agrees.
Ms. Holmes of Baker Street: The Truth About Sherlock
(C. Alan Bradley, William A. S. Sarjeant)
Stout did indeed write a short article on Watson being a woman, but Bradley and Sarjeant explore the opposite hypothesis, Holmes is a woman, in exquisite detail, with much citation. And of course there’s straight Hwatson ‘shipping. Also includes an anecdote about a Holmes fan who ran across one of the authors and assaulted them with an umbrella because their ideas were too outrageous. No, I don’t think it was Ms. Plunket.
Subcutaneously, My Dear Watson: Sherlock Holmes and the Cocaine Habit
(Jack Tracy, Jim Berkey)
The absolute, conclusive, most thorough (and yet still short) book about Holmes’ addiction to cocaine, doing quite a bit of debunking of some of fandom, and putting it all in a Victorian context . Some of it makes me sad, because I agree with the authors that there is a point where Watson stopped trying, but there is an uplifting ending. No, I don’t know if fandom got back at Tracy/Berkey with an umbrella.
Favorite Pastiches Fanfiction
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
(Nicholas Meyer)
Yes, that Nicholas Meyer. One of the first pastiches with major acclaim and its own official printing, it’s still in print today, which is a lot more than you can say for quite a lot of older Holmes fandom writings. Technically, cocaine addiction doesn’t work like that (it’s more the realm of opium addiction), but for fans of the deep, platonic friendship of Holmes and Watson, and fans of Hwatson, and fans of Watson/Mary2, the first half of this book is still a moving entry. Plus, Watson has to outsmart Holmes. Heh.
The second half has a plot in the style of the Guy Ritchie movie, complete with antique saber duel on the roof of a runaway train in the mountains. The second half also has a moving anti-climax, and it’s probably the only place you’ll get to see one of the more sensational theories about Holmes’ childhood from the rare, and now very expensive, Sherlock Holmes: Ten Literary Studies.
Seven-Per-Cent was also made into a movie, but good luck trying to get the DVD at a price below £100.
By the by, The Canary Trainer is another pastiche by the same author, and is probably some of the best reading for someone with a Hadler addiction, although most of the plot is again in the Ritchie style, and involves the Phantom of the Opera. Actually… it somewhat approaches Van Helsing (the movie) levels of ridiculousness. Er. Just read it for the Hadler bits, okay?
My Dearest Holmes
(Rohase Piercy)
I know that there are quite a few essays and fanfiction out there involving Hwatson, but this is the best and most convincing of them. It’s also one of the few longer pastiches that nails the Watson voice correctly. The approach is an unusual one, as far as Hwatson portrayals are usually concerned. Usually people like the reverse, but this works so very well, and even addresses how the laws that made male homosexual activity a crime in late 19th century Britain would affect a gay Holmes/Watson relationship.
Of just about any pastiche I ever read, it can almost be dropped into the canon as is, and have the result still make cohesive logical sense. My Dearest Holmes is probably why I think Hwatson is the strongest ‘ship, tied with asexual Holmes.
Sub Rosa: A Correspondence by Wire
(prof_pangea)
If you’ve ever looked at the Griffin and Sabina series, you know that it takes the art of storytelling via correspondence to an unusual level, presenting actual visual artifacts rather than just text. Sub Rosa is the same way, and also available online. Whatever ‘ship you ‘ship, this is a wonderful take on events after “The Final Problem”, and even has enough context within so that fans who’ve never read that story still understand what’s going on.
Favorite telegram (well, at least my favorite that can be taken out of context, almost):
RE Doctor: Tell him nothing
RE Belongings: I do not care
Favorite Adaptations
Holmes & Watson: A Play by Lee Shackleford
(Lee Shackleford)
In the canon, Watson never talks much about any anger he had with respect to Holmes letting him grieve over his supposed death for three years. Either Watson is the doormat of the universe (a view that Doyle arguably had); or, if you’re thinking “in-world” (in other words, in terms of “The Game”), Watson simply didn’t talk about it, because it’d make story sales go down.
A lot of fanfiction does center around this rip in the otherwise continuous relationship between Holmes and Watson, because it’s such a glaring defect, and fans just can’t help themselves. This is probably the best adaptation regarding the reconciliation of Holmes and Watson, for both straight and gay Holmes/Watson fans.
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Granada Television Series (DVD)
(Granada; starring Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, David Burke and Edward Hardwicke as younger and older John H. Watson)
For the previous generation (that is, the generation before The New Movie), Jeremy Brett’s portrayal is the definitive Holmes: not the cool, calculating machine of previous portrayals, but a lively and neurotic genius. Holmes always considered himself an artist (canon, too), and to me, Brett’s nervous energy is the most fitting.
But if you say that, you’ll run into flamewars with some of the Basil Rathbone generation, still kicking around. Generally I just give up at that point. Like the Circle of Life, every generation has its reboot wank.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Radio Collection) (Audio CD)
(BBC; starring Clive Merrison as Sherlock Holmes and Michael Williams as John H. Watson)
This is the only adaptation series that managed to cover every single canon story. Often Bert Coules and his writing team have a relatively free hand in their adaptations, but this tends to improve the narrative, not degrade it. Even really awful stories in the canon become decent, even great, which is really quite hard to do. (“The Lion’s Mane” is probably the best demonstration of this.) Like the story team behind House, the writers behind this particular BBC series seem to like yanking the chain of Hwatson fans from time to time (“The Devil’s Foot” is one of the best in this regard).
Amazon.co.uk delivers to the US (and probably other countries) if you’ve got an Amazon.com account, by the way. It’s not bad shipping, considering VAT and all that.
By the way, Bert Coules’ site has information about the cast, writers, directors, production assistants and more for each episode.
Favorite Canon Annotation and Tools
If you’re going to start reading the canon, pull from canon for more history to add to your fanfiction, or maybe engage in flamewars heated discussions with more experienced fans, here are some useful tools.
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (The Novels and The Complete Short Stories)
(Leslie S. Klinger, John Lecarre)
Bar none, the best annotations for the canon EVER. And I do mean EVER. Every public domain illustration, all the text, many annotations and references to the many theories that have passed through the years. And they’re probably the best representation of books that need to be print books, because of their layout. (I say this as a solid fan of ebooks, who otherwise isn’t overly fond of print books.)
If you want just one great copy of the canon, this is the one to get. (I tend to supplement with ebook versions of the canon, which have no annotations, but on the other hand are free and searchable.)
“Problems with the Final Problem”
(James Chase)
What in “The Final Problem” makes so little sense? Here’s the definitive answer.
Also used to be a Geocities site, and is now only available through the Internet Archive. Ah… you probably want to readjust the font size and/or kill the background for this one.
Searching for Sherlock
(http://mrmoon.com/)
On the other hand, this is rather better than most searches on ebook readers. I use this one all the time when writing longer Holmes articles, and it even allows you to search within search results. Absolutely a great tool for any Sherlockian or Holmesian.
Next Time…
Tor.com willing, I’ll list some of the more accessible and fun canon stories. Because, despite Neil Gaiman’s riff, “A Study in Emerald”, A Study in Scarlet is not the best place to begin in the Holmes canon.
But really… you don’t need the original canon to be a Holmes fan.
Sincerely,
A Most Improper and Blasphemous Sherlockian
Notes:
1. I don’t like Moriarty and I generally hate vampires. But on the other hand, plenty of people like Moriarty and vampires. Too bad I can’t find the fic; it’s an old one, and committed to paper, not to an online fanfiction archive, more’s the pity.
2. Wary?
Arachne Jericho writes about science fiction and fantasy, and other topics determined by 1d20, at Spontaneous ∂erivation. She also thinks waaay too much about Sherlock Holmes. She reviews at Tor.com on a semi-biweekly basis, and enjoys the bitter, bitter tears of Fanatical Canon Purists.
For the previous generation (that is, the generation before The New Movie)
Y’know, I really have a hard time taking a statement like this seriously. Do you really think that somehow this bit of fluff is going to be influential in the interpretation of Holmes in anything like the same way as Brett or Rathbone?
Really?
I mean, Rathbone did The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1939 — 70 years ago, and his iconic version is still remembered and acknowledged by anyone who pays any attention to Holmes in film. 70 years from now, in 2080, will people even remember who Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr. were, much less that they put together this film?
As for Brett, I have a feeling his interpretation will last just as long as Rathbone’s; it’s near perfect. And I also have a hard time believing too many Rathbone fans have a big problem with Brett’s version.
But, then, maybe I just want the kids off my lawn.
And, for what it’s worth, I thought The Seven Per-Cent Solution was pretty good. I think I might have a copy of The West-End Horror, also by Meyer, lying about, but I’m not sure.
Oh, and, by the way, that £ goes before the price, not after.
NomadUK,
70 years from now, in 2080, will people even remember who Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr. were, much less that they put together this film?
Well, it’s pulling in a lot of money now, and a lot of people seem to be enjoying it. From that, I judge there’s a high probability.
As for Brett, I have a feeling his interpretation will last just as long as Rathbone’s; it’s near perfect. And I also have a hard time believing too many Rathbone fans have a big problem with Brett’s version.
Yes, plenty of people do have problems with Jeremy Brett’s portrayal. It’s kind of depressing, because I agree he does get it perfect, but then again, supposedly we’re of “that neurotic generation that takes medication and goes to see touchy-feely psychologists” so of course we’d see an unhealthy Holmes, how dare we apply wishy-washy “oh my childhood was awful” modern psychoanalysis to Victorian age pieces!
It was then that I concluded that wank exists in every generation. And because I got burned that way a long time ago, I try to look at various portrayals with an open mind.
In a way, the New Movie is a child of its time—just as the Granada series is a child of its time, and the older Rathbone series a child of their time.
And, for what it’s worth, I thought The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was pretty good.
I liked it too, but there are people who are disgusted by that portrayal of Holmes. They tend to be very Rathbone fans.
(I admit, as the older generation retires from fandom, there are fewer and fewer of the fanatics around.)
The West-End Horror I’ve read, too, but I never liked it very much (not in comparison to Seven-Per-Cent). Too much name-dropping.
Oh, and, by the way, that £ goes before the price, not after.
Curse my American confusion re: currency symbols that are not the good honest $.
I’m a bit surprised The Beekeeper’s Apprentice isn’t listed here.
As Holmes/Phantom stories go, The Canary Trainer is well done in the style of Conan Doyle; I do strongly recommend, though can only wish you joy of finding, Sam Siciliano’s Angel of the Opera if you fancy a Holmes/Phantom story in more of a Leroux direction.
M. Ellis,
I wanted to do three from each category, ’cause otherwise this would have gone on… and on… and on… so it was a difficult decision.
I really wish I could’ve gotten A Slight Trick of the Mind on. Literary Holmes fanfic is hard to come by.
EmmetAOBrien,
I’ll be on the lookout for that, as much as I can, and probably as soon as I can. The prices only go up on these things (until reprint, which isn’t likely in most cases), though not too rapidly so.
Edit: Ah, not too hard right now. Some folks are selling them for around $20 (and… going up) on Amazon.com.
I totally just bought Subcutaneously, and I wish BetterWorldBooks had My Dearest Holmes! You’ll beggar me yet, Arachne. :-) I loved The Seven Per Cent Solution, too (and am dying to see the movie!) but my roommate, not so much; she wanted Holmes to have been right about Moriarty all along because she couldn’t stand to see him humbled. I, on the other hand, kind of get off on it. :-P
And, um, surely you mean “The Final Problem”….
thumbelinablues,
For whatever reason, I liked seeing Holmes humbled, too. Perhaps because it makes him more human.
You’ll also probably like My Dearest Holmes then, too. :)
And, uh, yes, I did indeed mean “The Final Problem”. Um, big, big, big FAIL on my part there. Fixed now.
I’m on the “see Holmes fail” side too. I enjoyed the new movie, but I wanted him to do the mental math before one of his fights and have to recalculate when he got something wrong.
Or, better yet, have Watson save his sorry ass.
willshetterly,
I think the next time I see the movie, I’m going to be listening to Downey’s voice saying, “Recalculating… recalculating… make a RIGHT *punch* LEFT *punch*… KEEK….”
Watson saving Holmes is memorable when it occurs in the canon. Holmes has usually done something a little stupid at that point. “The Reigate Squires” is a great example. “I know, I won’t tell anyone much less Watson what’s really going on, and shall leave them all to fool with oranges while leaving my back completely exposed to two murderers.” Brilliant.
And, of course, there’s that scene in “The Devil’s Foot” where Watson drags Holmes out of a room due to self-poisoning. (For, I guess, technically science.)
I adore The Angel of the Opera, a Holmes/Phantom crossover that *works*.
Tor willing, could we have a “Study in Emerald”-type look at some of the more sci-fi, horror, and fantasy oriented pastiches? They don’t always “work” in Canon, but they certainly are fun!
And the fic, I mean Serious Sherlockian Scholarship, with Moriarty as a lovesick vampire was in the Baker Street Journal back in the ’60s or ’70s. It was an essay called “Finding the Better Half.”
(I kind of adore the idea that Sherlock Holmes’s greatest enemy was an evil mathematician who only appeared in two stories. Yeah…)
If there’s one thing the good doctor wouldn’t abide, it would a lot of twats carrying on about what is or isn’t canon. Makes you almost wish Watson would make an appearance and tell’m to sod off, angrily waving his trusty service revolver in their sad and disgruntled faces.
No mention of Billy Wilder’s excellent Private Life of Sherlock Holmes? Apparently a couple of subplots were cut before it was released, but it is still a very enjoyable addition to the gentre.
I’m pretty much a neutral party, I think. I read the Holmes stories as a kid, and liked them, but they weren’t something I thought much aobut afterwards. I did like the Jeremy Brett Holmes and the Edward Hardwicke Watson a lot, since they seemed to make so much sense of the characters. You could see Holmes’ vulnerabilities as well as his strengths — he was neurotic, difficult, and a bit Asperger’s, and most people couldn’t have gotten along with him, but Watson, a good deal more “normal,” valued him for who he was. Sort of a nerd-jock friendship. Going beyond that would seem too much like painting legs on a snake, as the Chinese expression goes.
As for the movie, well, I’d always liked the bits in the Holmes stories where Holmes was physical — where he used barijitsu, bent a poker, or whatever. The trailer looked interesting, and, since Holmes doesn’t occupy a very central position in my life, I was looking forward to someone doing something interesting with the character, even if it wasn’t going to have much to do with Conan Doyle. As far as I was concerned, Brett had nailed it, and there was no point in rehashing old ideas. And Robert Downey Jr. can be brilliant, so I was looking forward to seeing what he did with the role.
And then, well, nothing. Lots of bangs and crashes, and nothing to engage you, nothing that gave you much sense that Holmes ever sat down and thought about anything, nothing that let the movie breathe so the action meant anything. Just a couple of hours of Guy Ritchie doing whatever Guy Ritchie does, while Holmes just happened to be around. I wasn’t outraged by it, or even disappointed, just left flat.
Teka Lynn,
I’ll definitely have to check it out. The Canary Trainer may be in Doyle’s style, but it left me facepalming most of the time.
(In comparison, when watching the New Movie, I was too busy internally laughing, in a good way, at all the canon nods and the interaction between Downey and Law for the nonsense plot to get me down all that much. Rather like my reaction to the Star Trek reboot, in that regard, and a lot of the better Holmes stories.)
musichistorygeek,
Re: fantasy and SF and Holmes – We’ll see. I want to write up something about mixing Holmes and vampires, which is so tempting to so many people due to the fact that Bram Stoker’s Dracula also came out during the late 19th century.
Re: “Finding the Better Half”… LOL. I think there are old gatherings of the essays somewhere accessible to used booksellers online.
Re: evil mathematician… yes, I think that’s why I liked Seven-Per-Cent so much. Moriarty there is hilarious. (Most other fics take Moriarty very seriously.)
Keggersly,
He is possibly more likely to pistol-whip them, because he can get closer and it’s more reliable.
(I think one of the few instances of the Watson pistol-whip was one of the only two bits of “The Empty House” that I liked, apart from all the… interesting… Holmes quotables. Holmes is far more likely to pistol-whip than Watson, I think, which has caused some of fandom to wonder if Holmes was a bad shot after all, despite Hound of the Baskervilles.)
I have learned to smile and say, “Fandom! Never fail me,” and also to be amused at it all. Being amused beats being outraged every single time.
AlyxL,
There are a couple “biography” books I wanted to get on the list, but I also wanted to keep the list trimmed down. It was already over 1500 words at some point.
Also there was a nice book I got somewhere with another and shorter “Holmes was a woman” essay, with more sex in it.
Also, I have a copy around somewhere of the play that Brett and Hardwicke were involved in, which is surreal. Sooooo surreal.
Brian3,
I think it’s like the Doctors in Doctor Who. You always have your first Doctor, even if you’re a casual viewer. All others pale in comparison. They may not be bad, particularly, but they are meh. I think there’s old vintage Doctor Who wank somewhere, and probably not that old Doctor Who wank elsewheres over David Tennant.
I find myself curious whether the Arsène Lupin stories that featured Sherlock Holmes (concealed beneath a veneer of consonant-swapping after Conan Doyle complained) will see mention in any of these posts.
They should be issued to Holmes fans along with blood pressure medication, as Maurice Leblanc had no interest whatsoever in portraying Holmes faithfully. Instead, the appearances were what TVTropes refers to as a “Take That”, setting up a singularly inept Holmes and Watson duo as straw men for the French characters to run rings around. (In particular, “Dr. Wilson” got severely injured every time he appeared “on screen”.)
But here’s another bit of non-fiction Holmesiana of the brilliant sort. Victoriana expert Jess Nevins looks at what would become a major literary device of the late 19th and 20th centuries: the crossover. And Holmes, with his immense fandom, was a major part of that.
Robotech_Master,
I hadn’t heard about the Lupin stories in much detail, but my gods, the wank that would produce. It would be so beautiful. *tear*
But on the other hand, there are some hives even I won’t stick my hand into.
Jess Nevins? I love his annotations for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen! I have both of his books, in fact. Apparently Alan Moore tried to stump Nevins several times, but never managed to do so, even in the appendices for the second volume of League, and those are super-obscure in places.
Nevins is a legend, man, and completely awesome in my book. Doesn’t surprise me at all, his brilliance at looking at ye olde crossovers!
ArachneJericho @@@@@ 7 – Well, you *could* have been talking about the Michael Chabon pastiche! :-P (Definitely not one for this list, though. Very poorly-constructed mystery.)
thumbelinablues @20 –
Yes, it was crossing my mind at that point, and my over-associative mind just went with the flow.
It was indeed a bad mystery, but as a character piece otherwise it was profoundly, powerfully sad.
@Ava Jarvis, 19: It gets even better than that, really. Arsène Lupin was a Sherlock Holmes copycat from the very beginning: a French magazine was aping the format of The Strand, and they got Leblanc to create a character after the mold of Sherlock Holmes for it.
I’m also fond of comparing Arsène Lupin to the British gentleman-thief of the same era, Raffles (by E.W. Hornung, Conan Doyle’s brother in law!). Raffles was always so, “Oh, woe is me, I am so evil but I can’t help myself” gloomy (the Victorian sensibility in action, I guess), whereas Lupin was much more happy and cheerful.
Robotech_Master @22 –
Ha!
And Holmes himself was based on Edgar Allen Poe’s Auguste Dupin; far more than most people realize, I think, up to and including the random weird knowledge, the depression, and a housemate biographer—though in the Dupin stories he remains unnamed.
(Doyle thought Dupin the supreme fictional detective, without exception, not even for Holmes.)
Lupin sounds more like Solar Pons, actually, whom one can think of as Holmes on good medication. (Actually, pretty much so.)
arachnejericho @23
Holmes himself, however, is scathing of Dupin when Watson mentions him in A Study in Scarlet.
tanaudel,
True. Whatever incarnation of Holmes we talk about, modesty is not his watchword.
Lupin was named in homage to Dupin, too.
I’ve done a couple of podcasts where I take the Audible public-domain audiobook recording of a Lupin story and book-end it with commentary about the stuff featured in it over on The Biblio File. I got out of the habit because I couldn’t think of enough interesting stuff to talk about for one of the stories. :P
Some really neat stuff, too: Maurice Leblanc was very much the Tom Clancy of his day. He wrote technothrillers. The mcguffin of the first Lupin story, for instance, was that the newfangled wireless telegraph cut out in the middle of a transmission explaining who Lupin had disguised himself as. Other Lupin stories involved fast cars (very new tech), aeroplanes (even newer), and cinema. (My favorite example is one of the stories from The Eight Strokes of the Clock in which Lupin watches a silent film and is able to tell from the smouldering looks a minor character gives the leading lady that the actor actually has a violent crush on her. Nowadays we’d just call that “overacting”. :)
And also he takes note of the jiujitsu fad that was sweeping Europe (and especially France, where gangs of armed thugs preyed upon the unarmed middle class) at the time by explaining that the first jiujitsu instructor in Paris was actually Arsène Lupin in disguise.
Interestingly, Maurice Leblanc also wrote a number of science-fictional stories (including one where an earthquake raises a landbridge between England and France), and sometimes science-fictional (or more fantastic) elements found their way into Lupin tales. One of them even involves someone being killed by a micrometeorite strike to the forehead.
Amusingly, later in life Leblanc was heard to complain that Lupin had ruined him, because every time he started to write a story about someone else, the character invariably turned into Lupin in disguise partway through it. :)
Leblanc can join the “extremely successful character has ruined the rest of my future writing career forever” club with Doyle (who couldn’t get away from Holmes even if he tried, although that was more for the sake of making money) and even Dorothy L. Sayers (although I don’t think she considered it too too bad… she had enough money by that point).
Incidentally, I’m hoping to strike up a re-reading/re-watching/re-listening series on my Holmes blog for the canon, the Granada series, and the most recent BBC radio show. I think I’ll find enough interesting things to say, although in harder cases I think it’ll be the result of the contrast between the three (or two; the Granada series didn’t make it through all of the canon). Annotations are, unfortunately, not really my style.
However, that’s neither here nor there for this thread.
dreamwolf,
Please remove the link in your comment. I’m pretty sure Tor.com’s servers are hosted in the US or other Berne convention country, so this is probably not a wise thing to have done.
If people want to find it, they can do it themselves.
Comment #28 zapped. Sorry, dreamwolf.
The most marvelous article I remember reading was the “proof” (all with appropriate citations form the canon) that Holmes WAS Dr. Moriarty. The true reason Holmes faked his own death was he had Dr. Moriarty business to take care of and he couldn’t have that nosey parker Watson looking over his shoulder all the time. The article concluded with the author getting drumed out of the Baker Street Irregulars.
CraigVal,
Oh, the “Final Problem” theories. They are boundless and infinite. But they drummed the author out for that? Seriously?
The “Moriarty is Holmes” theory has been played with before, in multiple incarnations and twists, and in fact was touched upon in that play written for Brett and Hardwicke.
The play itself was like a HULK SMASH of the high points of the canon, with a Moriarty/Holmes theory twist stuck on.
And then it gets weird, but in a charming way.
I enjoyed the Brett adaptations but I wouldn’t go overboard about their fidelity. They always made Holmes a sympathetic character, and the plain fact is that Doyle’s Holmes is not always a nice person: too interested in puzzle solving and intellectual duelling, not interested enough in justice and frequently lacking in sympathy for the victims of crime. (“Yeah, OK, you lost a thumb, but you got a great story….” Or his coldness in the Greek Interpreter matter. Or his obvious contempt for Miss Sutherland in “A Case of Identity”.)
Some of the later adaptations do go overboard about Holmes the dope addict. In the Canon this never gets in the way of a case, but is a reaction to a dearth of interesting puzzles to occupy Holmes’s restless intellect.
Charles R.L. Power,
Well, Brett’s Holmes was kinda sorta sympathetic, but you still got things like, say, the ending of the adaptation of “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” and the inconsiderate highness in the adaptation of “The Musgrave Ritual”, and the argument between him and Watson about the stories, which was fairly cruel on his part; and so on and so forth. It wasn’t all teddy bears and rainbows.
In the canon, there’s a strong implication that cocaine did indeed get in the way at least once (the beginning of “Adventure of the Devil’s Foot”), but you could also interpret it as simply the result of a high-strung nature in one of its rare but impressive collapses. But just the once.
Anyways, whether adaptations do go overboard with the cocaine or not is a matter of opinion, not of fact, because the canon is that loose, and not just in matters involving ‘shipping. Some people think they do, some don’t, people also don’t agree on which exceed and which don’t (and hell, there are adaptations that ignored the whole thing).
Interestingly, cocaine usage in the canon is also a topic that can become a flamewar on the right Sherlock Holmes mailing lists. I don’t want a flamewar here, as remote as the possibility may be. :)
Is the Moriarty vampire story Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula?
TXHermes,
Nah, it’s some ancient thingy way back in the history of Sherlock Holmes fandom wank, a few decades back. Maybe 20+ years before the 1990 novel you’re thinking of.
We’re a very old fandom.
Thanks. If anybody dug the story up, I’d appreciate any further info about it.
TXHermes,
See musichistorygeek’s comment at #12.