David Linzee's Blog - Posts Tagged "sherlock-holmes"
Sherlock's snarky side
SPOILER Alert! If you haven't read these classic stories, depart this blog now and do so.
I first read Adventures of Sherlock Holmes when I was 12, the perfect age to be introduced to Holmes. I've always felt that this story collection represents the best of Holmes. Conan Doyle never matched the freshness, ingenuity, and subversive wit of these early stories. (Nor did his imitators.)
Subversive wit? Yes. It's a sign of how well the stories work is that we readers tend to identify the real author with the fictitious narrator, Conan Doyle with solid, square Dr. Watson. But the author had a more complicated view of society. His detective stories, in surprising the reader, reveal a fondness for satirical inversion. The high and mighty are brought low, while the lowly get a boost.
Take the first story in the Adventures, "A Scandal in Bohemia." Conan Doyle was quick to pick up on what would become a troublesome issue for the private eye genre. The police are at least supposed to be serving the cause of justice. But the private detective does a job for a client. Society being what it is, he's likely to end up serving the rich, against the poor.
Holmes' client is a king, no less. The target is a woman with whom the king had an affair. Having had sex outside of marriage, she is, by the standards of the time, an "adventuress," whose motives are assumed to be mercenary, even malicious. She is in fact a heroine to match Holmes' mettle, and the steps by which he changes sides, ending up pleased that he has been defeated by her and failed his client, show Conan Doyle's artistry. Few detective stories are so full of twists and so emotionally satisfying at the end.
"The Man with the Twisted Lip" is a story about the city and the suburbs. Its rhythm is that of the commuter: starting at Watson's home in western London, travelling to the East End, then going out to a suburban villa, finally returning to the city. At the start, Watson is enjoying the coziness of his hearthside, but at his wife's behest reluctantly undertakes an errand to a den of iniquity. There he is lucky enough to meet Holmes, and happily defers a return to wife and home in favor of an adventure.
Conan Doyle is here subverting the suburban myth, which was still decades from its high point in '50s America: wife and kids enjoy the safe and healthy countryside, while the noble husband journeys into the ugly and wicked city to earn the family's bread. It's a self-serving male myth, and Conan Doyle suggests that the truth is, the man can't wait to get into the city, because that's where the action and opportunities are to be found. Watson's adventure serves as the overture, and the main plot--about a respectable commuter who turns out to be making a fortune as a repulsive beggar--drives the point home.
Not all of the Holmes stories are social satires--but the best of them, I think are both surprising and subversive.
I first read Adventures of Sherlock Holmes when I was 12, the perfect age to be introduced to Holmes. I've always felt that this story collection represents the best of Holmes. Conan Doyle never matched the freshness, ingenuity, and subversive wit of these early stories. (Nor did his imitators.)
Subversive wit? Yes. It's a sign of how well the stories work is that we readers tend to identify the real author with the fictitious narrator, Conan Doyle with solid, square Dr. Watson. But the author had a more complicated view of society. His detective stories, in surprising the reader, reveal a fondness for satirical inversion. The high and mighty are brought low, while the lowly get a boost.
Take the first story in the Adventures, "A Scandal in Bohemia." Conan Doyle was quick to pick up on what would become a troublesome issue for the private eye genre. The police are at least supposed to be serving the cause of justice. But the private detective does a job for a client. Society being what it is, he's likely to end up serving the rich, against the poor.
Holmes' client is a king, no less. The target is a woman with whom the king had an affair. Having had sex outside of marriage, she is, by the standards of the time, an "adventuress," whose motives are assumed to be mercenary, even malicious. She is in fact a heroine to match Holmes' mettle, and the steps by which he changes sides, ending up pleased that he has been defeated by her and failed his client, show Conan Doyle's artistry. Few detective stories are so full of twists and so emotionally satisfying at the end.
"The Man with the Twisted Lip" is a story about the city and the suburbs. Its rhythm is that of the commuter: starting at Watson's home in western London, travelling to the East End, then going out to a suburban villa, finally returning to the city. At the start, Watson is enjoying the coziness of his hearthside, but at his wife's behest reluctantly undertakes an errand to a den of iniquity. There he is lucky enough to meet Holmes, and happily defers a return to wife and home in favor of an adventure.
Conan Doyle is here subverting the suburban myth, which was still decades from its high point in '50s America: wife and kids enjoy the safe and healthy countryside, while the noble husband journeys into the ugly and wicked city to earn the family's bread. It's a self-serving male myth, and Conan Doyle suggests that the truth is, the man can't wait to get into the city, because that's where the action and opportunities are to be found. Watson's adventure serves as the overture, and the main plot--about a respectable commuter who turns out to be making a fortune as a repulsive beggar--drives the point home.
Not all of the Holmes stories are social satires--but the best of them, I think are both surprising and subversive.
Snarky Sherlock, Part 2
SPOILER ALERT! Read no further if you haven't read "The Adventure of the Second Stain" in The Return of Sherlock Holmes
A couple of people have questioned (FTF, not online) an assertion I made in an earlier post about Sherlock Holmes. It's that while Watson is a bluff, four-square patriot, his creator Arthur Conan Doyle is a slyly humorous social critic, who expresses his snarky views through Holmes.
Here's some more evidence. In "The Second Stain," Watson is like, I now go down upon my knees to relate Holmes's greatest case, when he was privileged to be of service to the most exalted personages in the realm.
Holmes, meanwhile, quickly perceives that these exalted personages have behaved childishly, and they're at his mercy. While solving the case, he enjoys humiliating them. He blows off the Prime Minister, literally forces Lady Hilda to her knees, and makes the Foreign Secretary look like he couldn't find his nose using both hands.
I make these points mostly as a way of calling attention to a highly enjoyable story, well worth revisiting.
A couple of people have questioned (FTF, not online) an assertion I made in an earlier post about Sherlock Holmes. It's that while Watson is a bluff, four-square patriot, his creator Arthur Conan Doyle is a slyly humorous social critic, who expresses his snarky views through Holmes.
Here's some more evidence. In "The Second Stain," Watson is like, I now go down upon my knees to relate Holmes's greatest case, when he was privileged to be of service to the most exalted personages in the realm.
Holmes, meanwhile, quickly perceives that these exalted personages have behaved childishly, and they're at his mercy. While solving the case, he enjoys humiliating them. He blows off the Prime Minister, literally forces Lady Hilda to her knees, and makes the Foreign Secretary look like he couldn't find his nose using both hands.
I make these points mostly as a way of calling attention to a highly enjoyable story, well worth revisiting.
