At some point when I was growing up, my mother bought a big red volume of the collected Sherlock Holmes stories, with original illustrations from the Strand magazine. I think this was after my introduction to Holmes at school. We read “The Speckled Band” written as a play. For the rest of the year, my earlier night-time fears of giant rats (a result of reading The Tale of Samuel Whiskers Tom Kitten, by Beatrix Potter) were replaced by the worry that a poisonous snake might somehow find its way into my bedroom.
That didn’t stop me from reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes Treasury. I would guess that I read most of the stories at one point or another, including “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.”
Obviously I’m not the only person to be fascinated by a sleuth who can deduce from a man’s hands and sleeves his work history and worries. Sherlock Holmes is familiar even to people who haven’t read the stories, and many movies have been made based on the stories, set in different time periods. (Rather like Shakespeare’s plays.) There is even a mouse version of Sherlock, complete with deerstalker cap.
My favorite is probably BBC’s “Sherlock”, a modern-day version that is funny and clever and makes interesting use of, and reference to, the original stories without adhering to any of them. Holmes’ deductions concerning a pocket-watch become deductions based on a cell phone. Instead of the street urchins known as the Baker Street Irregulars, there is a network of homeless people to pass him information.
The Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downy, Jr. are also good. These use the original time period, rather than modern times. While BBC’s Sherlock makes much use of deduction and Holmes’ boredom-related drug habits, the Robert Downy version adds a bit more of Holmes’ strength in fighting and skill at disguise.
Recently I’ve been enjoying the old movies with Basil Rathbone, which I hadn’t seen before. The time periods vary. Some seem to be set in the London of hansom cabs, while others are set in a World War II period and have cars. At least one tries to follow one of the original stories—“The Hound of the Baskervilles.” In these, as in the others, I love hearing familiar lines crop up. (“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”)
These earlier movies did draw my attention to the fact that the Sherlock Holmes of later versions is much more of a “wounded hero” as compared to the Basil Rathbone version or, in fact, the original Sherlock. Rathbone’s Sherlock is perfectly capable of social courtesy, even if he is not much interested in it, and even urbane at times. The original Sherlock, though he is described as scorning emotions as an intrusion on reason, behaves with courtesy and even kindness toward his clients (especially women). The later Sherlocks seem more controlled by their emotions–or the absence thereof—and warped by them. It makes them very interesting, but there is still something to be said for a more heroic version of Sherlock.
The original Sherlock Holmes stories do betray their age at times with old stereotypes and prejudices, and they should be read with this in mind. But it’s worth going back to the source–the stories of this sleuth for whom the most obscure deductions are “elementary”—and it makes the subsequent versions feel that much richer when you catch the allusions to the original.
Till next post.
“Look at the thousands of scratches all round the hole—marks where the key has slipped. What sober man’s key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a drunkard’s watch without them.”
—The Sign of Four
“’Quite so, madam,” said Holmes, in his soothing way. ‘I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.’”
–“The Adventure of the Cardboard Box”
“Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.”
–“A Scandal in Bohemia”
Ravens and Pears 