Holmesian Derivations

I started writing fiction again because I wanted to save Sherlock Holmes.

It turned out that he was the one who saved me.

For the better part of a decade, I stopped writing fiction. I had never really wrote it to begin with anyways; just a couple of stories. Since then I wrote non-fiction for hobbies and technical specifications for work, and that was about it.

Then one day, I came across in my local video store the Granada adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories, with Jeremy Brett. I smiled, because I remembered watching a couple episodes of the show back in my childhood, when escapes were hard to come by. I rented some of the DVDs.

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What you need to know to enjoy Professor Pangaea’s Sub Rosa: A Correspondence by Wire:

a) “The Final Solution” by Sir A.C. Doyle, which turned out to not be so final. This is where Holmes kills (if you follow the “faithful” line) Moriarty in Switzerland and is thought to have died in the struggle, both of them falling to their deaths in the Reichenbach Falls.

b) “The Empty House” by Sir A.C. Doyle, where Sherlock Holmes is found to be alive and has apparently spent his hiatus of a few years doing all sorts of things across the world, sort of the ultimate holiday for someone addicted to thrill and danger, and which apparently also involved lamas, and, arguably, llamas.

c) Mycroft Holmes (“The Greek Interpreter”, “The Bruce-Partington Plans”) is Sherlock Holmes’s smarter and fatter elder brother, who occupies a clandestine and powerful role in the British government somewhere, usually equated to the “M” of modern-day MI5 and MI6.

d) Holmes prefers to communicate by telegraph. And very curtly, too.

e) Presumably you know about Dr. John H. Watson, Holmes’ biographer. Medical doctor. Once you’ve met him, you’ve met all Holmes’ friend.

And now for an oldie but goodie: Sub Rosa: A Correspondence by Wire. Image-laden, but well worth it. Think Griffin & Sabine….

You cannot play him cool and calculating and remote. It would be easier if you could pretend there was nothing there but a machine.

But you can’t.

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Amazon.co.uk: The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Radio Collection)
Original text by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
radio dramatizations by Bert Coules

All. Eighteen. Volumes. Covering. All. The. Short. Stories. In. The. Canon.

Omigod. Omigod. Omigod. Clive Merrison is like the Jeremy Brett of radio!

Bert Coules totally understands Sherlock Holmes…

But what brings them together and what keeps them together is that Watson would love to be Holmes, and Holmes needs to be Watson. Together they make a whole functioning individual. Without Watson, Holmes would probably kill himself, deliberately or otherwise. And without Holmes, Watson would probably die of boredom.

… as well as the fiction around him, and the difference between Holmes and, say, Agatha “Mystery Queen” Christie’s Hercule Poirot:

It doesn’t need to be a good detective story, but it does have to be a very good story about a detective.

Interview with Mr. Coules here.

And he adds wonderful touches like this one here, transcribed by Prof. Pangea.

If I could only get this! I would be in heaven. I’d have to spend a long time ripping, but I would still be in heaven. Thankfully, I can. But… stupid US dollar.

Action Sherlock Brain Theater: A Higher Calling

Okay, so don’t join the ranks of classic literature. Have another pop culture revival. See if I care.