|
Literary Review
ENDPAPER
The Holmes mystique
By Pradeep Sebastian
I CAME late to Sherlock Holmes. The whirring whodunit mechanics of Agatha Christie and the flamboyant ingenuity of Hercule Poirot's grey cells acted as effective red herrings early in my mystery-reading life, leading me away from the two usual suspects — Conan Doyle and Holmes. I wanted plot and cleverness and Christie supplied that; Doyle and Holmes provided elegance, style and suspense, but I didn't see that until I discovered Jeremy Brett. Brett's wildly stylish and yet precise interpretation of Sherlock Holmes in the Granada television series (televised in the 1980s by Doordarshan on Sunday mornings and later on cable) was mesmerising, addictive fun. His intense, stylised performance that didn't shy away from the detective's drug dependency — and the meticulous, atmospheric production of the series — made Doyle's originality and intellect come alive. (My favourite Watson was the later one played by the gentle Edward Hardwicke.) And so it was Brett and the television series that led me finally to the Sherlock Holmes stories, and to the realisation that Doyle and Holmes were far superior company to Christie and Poirot.
A challenge
Since the time Doyle killed Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem and later resurrected him, contemporary mystery writers have been paying their own homage to Doyle and Holmes by featuring the great detective in original stories, novels and essays. These take the form of Holmes pastiches to imaginary versions of Sherlock Holmes' life after retirement to the long lost adventures of the detective. (The very best example — and very close to home — being Jamyang Norbu's The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, the detective's long lost adventure in Tibet). As one critic from Publisher's Weekly observed, "Writing a Sherlock Holmes tale is, for popular writers, equivalent to playing Hamlet for male actors: a challenge that few refuse and many regret." Nevertheless, the fantasy these pastiches fulfil are not just for Sherlockians (who very often scrutinise — more than read them — for mistakes; though the efforts of the newer pastiches should please them because they reflect a deep knowledge of "Holmesiana") but for all of us who yearn for more cases that break the canon by taking the great detective from Victorian London and placing him in the modern world with newer and more baffling problems to solve.
The earliest pastiche, of course, was Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Percent Solution — where Holmes is treated for his drug addiction by Freud! The latest entries in the Holmes mystique are The Final Solution by Pulitzer-winning novelist Michael Chabon, The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr (author of the celebrated thriller The Alienist) and Mitch Cullins' A Slight Trick of the Mind. In The Final Solution, Chabon never names Sherlock Holmes — throughout the novel he is simply referred to as "the old man". Chabon bases his story on something most fans know — that after retirement Holmes moved from London to Sussex, where he spent his days keeping bees. Holmes is now 89, and rooms with a Malayalee family! (Reverend and Mrs. Panicker, originally from Kerala.) When a mysterious mute boy visits him with a remarkable parrot that utters numbers in German, the detective is once again compelled to pick up his magnifying glass and go to work. In Carr's novel, Holmes pursues a case with supernatural overtones reminiscent of The Hound of Baskervilles and The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.
By far the best of them is Cullins' Sherlock Holmes, who is a frail, forgetful but brilliant 93 in A Slight Trick of the Mind, reminiscing about a recent trip to Japan! Both Watson and Mycroft are dead, and Holmes spends his time bee-keeping and writing letters. Laurie King's Mary Russell mystery series imagines a romance for Holmes. Mary meets Holmes in his bee-keeping days, becomes his apprentice, marries him and they travel the world together, embarking on new cases. The Game is set in India, while the latest, Locked Rooms, is set in San Francisco. Mark Frost, the co-creator of the cult TV series, "Twin Peaks", has a series ("The List of Seven", "The 6 Messiahs") where Arthur Conan Doyle himself is the detective! Not too long ago, the estate of Doyle authorised a new book of stories to "commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first appearance in print of Sherlock Holmes." Sixteen of the best contemporary mystery writers from around the world were commissioned to come up with new stories to fit a new canon. One of the best stories in this anthology, "The Doctor's Case", by Stephen King, has Dr.Watson solving the case!
Personal favourite
My own favourite reworking of Sherlockania is Stephen Kendrick's novel Nightwatch: A Long Lost Adventure in which Sherlock Holmes meets Father Brown. The mystery is set in 1902 but the plot couldn't be more relevant: Holmes, Mycroft and Watson are invited to the World's Parliament of Religions convention. Present are Roman Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu and Islamic scholars and clerics who have gathered to find a common ground. The host, an important clergyman, is murdered, and within the space of 24 hours not only do more deaths occur but by dawn Holmes has even solved the case. But, in a quiet epilogue, we learn that Holmes solved only part of the mystery: G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown, who was also invited to the convention, offers the real solution in his self-effacing, gentle manner. Kendrick, a Universalist cleric himself, knows his Church history and his Conan Doyle. His other Holmes book is unique in Holmesiana — Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes is a meditation on how the great detective's methods can throw light on spiritual mysteries. "After all, if the sleuth can discover the darkest and most guarded and protected stories within the human heart," writes Kendrick, "can that of God's inscrutable will be far behind?" pradeepsebastian@hotmail.com
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Literary Review
|
