A LACK OF ORIGINALITY: A COMPLAINT

"Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality..."

I planned to write today about the lack of originality in many Sherlock Holmes pastiches and about my own struggles to find the balance between the well-loved tropes and the odds of being boring. I decided instead to post a bit of satire I wrote on this subject for However Improbable: Being a Scrapbook of Strange Holmesiana, a fun collection from Doyle's Rotary Coffin in 2020.  Yes, the irony of it: I'm repeating myself. 

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Speaking of incidents in the life of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur recalled Mr Gillette's preparation for the presentation of the famous detective on the stage. 'Mr Gillette,' he said, 'wired to me from America asking if he might marry Sherlock Holmes in the play. I replied at once, "Marry him, kill him, or do what you like with him!"-- Daily Mail (8 October 1904, p. 3)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Incorporeal Spirit, Location Unknown
American Exchange, Strand — to be left till called for

My dear Sir,

It is with perhaps a touch of hubris that I attempt to speak to you at this late date, but I’m afraid I must do so, as the situation is becoming an impossible one. The flood-gate you opened with your rashly given permission to Mr. Gillette, and thereafter appropriated by thousands upon thousands, concerning Holmes — ‘Marry him, kill him, or do what you like with him!’ — has left me seriously inconvenienced by you. How is a faithful reader to remain above water in such a deluge? And further, how does one create his own unique contribution to such a collection? Surely almost any effort will lack distinction, as a drop of water must inevitably become indistinguishable from any other drop in an Atlantic or a Niagara. I confess the situation leaves an unpleasant effect upon my mind.

As you yourself noted as long ago as 1926, ‘the public has lost the sense of novelty with Holmes and his methods. This has been helped by the repeated Parodies.’ Indeed. I must note that your permissive attitude towards adaptation certainly has not helped the situation. I grant that this permissiveness with the Holmes stories is not so surprising considering your admission, ‘I have never taken them seriously myself.’ Perhaps you should have taken the adaptation matter more seriously.

Let us consider the first part of your flippant direction, ‘Marry him.’ Here, you give permission to degrade a series of logic-driven adventures into a course of tales forever tinged with romanticism. Well, Sir, I should not offend your intelligence by explaining what is obvious, but you allowed for a man who ‘never loved’ to be contorted into every possible type of romantic entanglement. Actually a few of them may only be possible on the written page, as some laws of physics do matter.

I will omit the onerous details, but even with all my omissions there is enough to startle and amaze. No doubt there exists a tale of romance between Holmes and an injured lady, a black cannibal, a wooden-legged ruffian, a conventional dragon, a wicked earl, and any other horror the human mind can imagine. The desire to combine Holmes and romance stimulates the imagination. As you may remember: where there is no imagination there is no horror. Could you possibly have foreseen the horrific results of this part of your response to Mr. Gillette? Unfortunately, that ’ship has sailed, leaving the faithful reader and aspiring contributor further incommoded.

The unhealthy excitement continues with the second part of your directive: ‘kill him.’ Apparently there is still nothing new under the sun. Your original work included a death for Holmes, and yet you gave permission for it to be done again. And it has been done, and done, and done until your faithful reader despairs of any hope of originality or mystery. Occasionally an author has surrounded the death with outre and sensational accompaniments, but it is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. No new or special features can be drawn from what is now a commonplace little murder, and I find myself absolutely hampered in my plans.

When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals, and you, Sir, despite your nerve and knowledge, went terribly wrong with the final part of your instruction to Mr. Gillette: ‘do what you like with him!’ Could you not anticipate and prevent the inevitable torrent of public participation? What do the public, the great unobservant public, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction?

Instead one is subjected to every imaginable contortion of Holmes and his world. An enormous multitude of individuals took it upon themselves to create their own alternative — each grotesquely improbable, no doubt, but still just conceivable. Were you perhaps encouraged by the judicious stimulation of large cheques sent to you by devious methods?  You might be startled to learn that the Holmes world has become so twisted as to have Dr. Watson competently solving cases. Yes, Watson! And this despite your own insistence that ‘Watson never for one instant as chorus and chronicler transcends his own limitations.’ Not limiting itself to twisting Watson, this public also has Lestrade competently solving cases, as well as the housekeeper, the other Holmes brother, various previous clients, and assorted street urchins. I have never read such rubbish in my life. 

The enthusiasm for creating such ineffable twaddle continues unabated. Any attempt at critical review of this inundation is bound to be lost in the tremendous abyss. So much public attention has now been drawn to the subject of Sherlock Holmes that no good purpose can be served by affecting to disregard what is a common subject for conversation. Therefore now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position through your careless persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my liberty to create original extensions or critical exegeses.

Oh, it drives me half mad to think of, and I cannot sleep a wink at night.  I often resort to a large correspondence, twenty or thirty a day, 280 characters at a time, to discuss the matter with others, although no two of them write exactly alike. The correspondents often have a way of wandering into unlikely positions (there are always some lunatics about — it would be a dull world without them), and then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and immaterial?

What then is left? I see no possible solution beyond the laying aside any creative aspirations, and returning to simply rereading the sixty-some oddly original tales you created. I don't think anyone could make much of this choice, but if they should, I will tell them: ‘You work your own method, and I shall work mine.’

Perhaps you see nothing remarkable in my decision to limit myself to only reading your original Sherlock Holmes work on account of your permissive liberality.  But wait a moment! Was this a subtle trap, a clever forecast of coming events? (You have all the cleverness which makes a successful man.) Were you looking far into the future? This is a trick that you are playing upon me. He! he! You are a funny one. Never mind me. I shall stand behind a holly bush and see what I can see.

Pray give my greetings to Mrs Doyle, and believe me to be, my dear fellow,

Very sincerely yours,
A. Prolix Riposte