A MAN WHOM I SHOULD BE PROUD TO DO BUSINESS WITH

An impression like a fine bundle of telegraph wires ran down the centre of it.

"A criminal who was capable of such a thought is a man whom I should be proud to do business with. We will leave this question undecided and hark back to our morass again, for we have left a good deal unexplored." --Sherlock Holmes, "The Adventure of the Priory School"

The end of this month marks a year I've been immersed in the life and works of Arthur Conan Doyle. In that time, I feel like I've read, studied and learned so much but I know I've hardly scratched the surface of Doyle's work. I'm not sure I've even scratched the surface of understanding the man himself. He was capable of so much and, like Holmes and his theoretical tire-switching criminal, I find myself thinking Doyle is a man whom "...I should be proud to do business with."

In my year of study, I've read at least 4,000 book pages by or about Doyle. I know there are more but those are only the ones I can easily count. The count doesn't include rereading or one-off, stand-alone articles or essays. In the same period, I've written eight Doyle-inspired short stories. I plan to write five more, hopefully at a little faster rate than last year. I reread often as I worry about not retaining enough of what I've read. I need the retention in order to do the work well. 

This week I finally finished a short story that I've agonized over for about twelve weeks.  "The Perishable Hours" is a gothic story inspired by Doyle's  "Round the Fire. I. - The Story of the Beetle Hunter" with a bit of a character backstory from The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter. As I read through my story text for the billionth time this week, I saw that it had inspiration from more than the two most-obvious and intended Doyle stories. 

After a hard look, I realized additional influences for the story included:

The Stark Munro Letters

"After Cormorants With a Camera"

"The Adventure of the Speckled Band"

"The Story of the Brazilian Cat"

A Study in Scarlet

The Hound of the Baskervilles

"The Adventure of the Empty House"

"The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet"

"The Story of the Latin Tutor"

"The Terror of Blue John Gap"

"The Perishable Hours" is not a Sherlock Holmes story but there is no getting away from the influence of the Sherlockian Canon on my work and I think I'm okay with that. The Canon has been a part of daily life for almost twenty years. Canon may be better classified as second-nature rather than influence by this point.  I believe the influence of The Stark Munro Letters will eventually become second-nature as well. The book is teaching me who Arthur Conan Doyle was as a young adult. I like that young adult very much. I like that book very much. I keep returning to it.

Other influences on my story included a portion of Wordsworth's Prelude and a portion of Longfellow's "Haunted Houses." I think Doyle would approve. The influences of his poetry reading run like telegraph wires down the center of his work. [Full disclosure: I find reading Doyle's poetry a tough go for the most part. I've not read too much of it.]

Actually when considering the total of Doyle's writing output, the truth is I've not read too much of it at all. There is so much of it and I've only so many reading hours left to me. I doubt I will stray much from my rounds of Holmes, Stark Munro, and the stories collected in the Oxford World's Classics Arthur Conan Doyle Gothic Tales. It is an entertaining combination. 

I'm not a Doylean scholar. I think of myself as more of an admiring co-worker. Time to get back to business.

 

 

 

"Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it."

 

"I even embodied it in a small brochure, with the somewhat fantastic title of A Study in Scarlet."'
He shook his head sadly.
"I glanced over it,' said he. 'Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it." 

--Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson, The Sign of Four

As someone trying to find their way to good writing and then, hopefully, to a few appreciative readers, I can imagine Watson's chagrin at Holmes's inability to congratulate him for A Study in Scarlet. I suppose it does help lessen the blow when Holmes goes on to complain about romance being part of the story rather than Watson's writing ability but it had to sting a little.  A kind word from a reader raises a writer's spirits, especially, perhaps, for a writer just beginning to put their work out into the public.

The Arthur Conan Doyle Society certainly lifted my spirits on January 5 when I received Doylean Honors for Excellence in Fiction and Poetry at the society's 2023 awards ceremony. I'm grateful to the society for the recognition. I feel encouraged to continue my work on the Doyle-inspired gothic tales. I work so very slowly it can be easy to lose momentum. This praise for my first gothic tale, "Whitney's Reflection," is wonderful validation that I'm on the right track, even if that track is painfully slow moving.

I was surprised to see that each of the three works acknowledged in the 2022 Fiction and Poetry awards appears in the newly-published Steel True, Blade Straight from Belanger Books. I haven't had a chance to read the book as yet but I have read the other two pieces honored: "The Ascent" by Paul Hiscock and "The Unintended Offenses" by David Marcum. Unlike Holmes, I can certainly congratulate the two gentlemen upon their writings.

"The Ascent", a lovely poetic work, concerns a subject that I've thought about often: the relationship between Arthur Conan Doyle and his first wife, Touie. I think Touie is often forgotten about entirely, or relegated to footnote status. I sometimes feel as if Doyle relegated her to footnote status, especially after meeting Jean Leckie,  but then I remember how much he cared for her in many ways over the course of her long illness and how much he grieved in the months following her death. 

 

Hiscock's touching work in Touie's voice gently examines this unevenness in their relationship. I found this part particularly moving:

...I assumed the ascent./We finished together,/Not quite hand in hand./He climbed quietly beside me,/Never leaving my side...

Not quite hand in hand. Brilliant, that.  

Marcum's piece, part Sherlockian pastiche and part what I would deem a Doyle confession of sorts is an interesting bit of fiction.  His imagining of the personal relationships between Doyle, Holmes and Watson shows us one way Doyle might have come to be the literary agent and the ways he might have failed Watson over their long collaboration. The uneasiness between Doyle and Holmes within the story seems to capture the spirit of the real life uneasiness Doyle felt about his most famous creation. 

I found the ending memorable as Doyle struggles with his shame over the way he treated Watson and as he longs for a sign of forgiveness from his deceased friend:

I prayed that he would hear my apology but no sign was forthcoming. He didn't let me know that he understood. There were no whispered words of comfort—simply the eternal wind sighing through the weary trees.

These words seem right as coming from the man who told us "What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instinct of beasts.”

Such good work, all round. I am inspired by their work and grateful to be among them.

Tomorrow I return to the story writing, buoyed by the time I spent in New York with the Arthur Conan Doyle Society and the many Sherlockian writers I was lucky enough to speak with over the course of the BSI weekend. I wish I could personally congratulate each one.

 

 

 

 MY HOUSE IS  LONELY

 

"It occurred after my withdrawal to my little Sussex home, when I had given myself up entirely to that soothing life of Nature for which I had so often yearned during the long years spent amid the gloom of London. At this period of my life the good Watson had passed almost beyond my ken. An occasional week-end visit was the most I ever saw of him...My house is lonely. I, my old housekeeper, and my bees have the estate all to ourselves. Half a mile off, however, is Harold Stackhurst's well-known coaching establishment ... He and I were always friendly from the day I came to the coast, and he was the one man who was on such terms with me that we could drop in on each other in the evenings without an invitation."--Sherlock Holmes, "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane"

I thought about this part of LION today as I saw several reminders on Twitter that the full Sherlock Holmes Canon comes out of copyright protection this weekend. I was reminded of the recent claims by a certain body that the portrayal of Holmes as emotional or involved with people was a late feature of his nature.

I could imagine someone using this part of LION to back up that argument. "See here," that someone might say, "Holmes is lonely without Watson. And, look,  he has a friend he drops in on, and welcomes the friend into his own home unannounced. He was not like this before."

Well, baloney. I never read the part about Stackhurst without thinking of this:

'You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?' he asked. 'He was the only friend I made during the two years that I was at college. I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull-terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.
'It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective. I was laid by the heels for ten days, and Trevor used to come in to inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirit and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we found we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I learned that he was as friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of the long vacation.'

Holmes was not apparently interested in cultivating a lot of friends at once, but he was willing to have a friend and to enjoy the friendship.  Canon places the Trevor friendship during the 1st month of a long vacation twenty years on from James Armitage's voyage of 1855, 1875-ish.  More than thirty years  before the stated time frame of LION, "towards the end of July 1907." He had Trevor, Watson, and Stackhurst  and those are just the ones we know something about.

I think I will always feel a twinge of sadness when I read "At this period of my life the good Watson had passed almost beyond my ken. An occasional week-end visit was the most I ever saw of him." But I won't think of Holmes as necessarily lonely, even if he missed Watson's companionship. 

His house may have been lonely  in that it was a half mile from his neighbors, and it might have been quiet with only two people in the household, but he was not necessarily lonely. My two person very quiet household has had visitors in it only four times this year but we are not necessarily lonely here. 

Holmes had his friendship with his neighbor, he had his work, he had his books, he had his old housekeeper to possibly annoy him. He also had Sussex and his villa "...situated upon the southern slope of the Downs, commanding a great view of the Channel." The ocean is a grand companion, always.

As for the occasional week-end visit, it can be very good indeed even when accompanied with a twinge of regret that it does not happen more often. The upcoming birthday celebration weekend is perhaps a perfect example. 

No, I don't believe Holmes was lonely in Sussex. I believe he was content. We should all be so lucky.

HAVE A LOOK AT THESE SCATTERED OBJECTS

'It is glue, Watson,' said he.

Sherlock Holmes had been bending for a long time over a low-power microscope. Now he straightened himself up and looked round at me in triumph. 'It is glue, Watson,' said he. 'Unquestionably it is glue. Have a look at these scattered objects in the field!' I stooped to the eyepiece and focused for my vision.--"The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place"

The Sound of the Baskervilles had their second in person meeting this past Sunday since pre-pandemic early winter 2020. It was my first in person official Sherlockian meeting since 2020. Other than an out-door picnic last summer, I had not ventured past Zoom for Sherlockian activities. I wondered if I would be comfortable there; the world has changed in many ways in the last three years.  Like the fragments viewed in Holmes's microscope, the SOBs (all Sherlockians, really) are scattered objects in the field of everyday life, objects sometimes held together by the glue of an abiding interest in Sherlock Holmes and, in the case of the SOBs, decades-long kind and dependable group leadership.

The nature of Sherlockian 'glue' has been on my mind lately as I prepare to venture to New York for the upcoming weekend activities. I wonder if I will be comfortable there? I've only gone once before, way back in 2007 or 2008. I knew no one and no one knew me. I went to the Mysterious Bookstore and I went to the first Gaslight Gala. People were kind but I was a stranger in a strange land.  Of course, much has changed in the ensuing years thanks to the proliferation of social media and my willingness to volunteer for things. In the midst of all this thinking, an odd scattered object turned up on Twitter, posted by The London Sherlock Holmes Meetup Group:

I have no idea if this is a factual thing, supposedly it is from the late 1940s. (Hey, its on the internet, it must be true, right?) It seems odd to think someone would go to the trouble to invent it. For the moment, then, I've decided to treat it as real. It is very difficult for me to understand why a group would want a very subjective (and in my mind, ridiculous) qualification test.

The last condition caught my eye, especially the need to spend a certain amount of money in the name of Sherlock Holmes. If spending money is an absolute requirement, I'm lucky to not have found Sherlockiana until my middle age because I certainly could not have afforded to give Sherlock Holmes a dime before then.  Prior to, I would have been a faithful soldier for any group but as one armed only with a library card. The 1948 group might not have been too impressed with me. I might not have been too impressed with them if handed that questionnaire.

One can spend a lot of money on Sherlockian things (true of most hobbies, I think) but I don't see it as absolutely necessary, depending on what route one chooses to take. I'm grateful that I don't need a lot of money to participate on a regular basis in the SOBs, or amongst like-minded friends on the internet. The trip to New York is a treat this year but I'm grateful that I can be a Sherlockian, no matter if I ever go to New York on birthday weekend, or ever pass some arbitrary questionnaire. If that is a true relic of the Sherlockian past, I hope it stays firmly there.

The glue held fast for the SOBs; the meeting was good. It was wonderful to present a silly play and discuss "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" for the gazillionth time. Nobody minded it was the gazillionth time.  The meeting had about twenty people which isn't too bad for a football Sunday the week before Christmas. That twenty included two new people, pleasant, knowledgeable, and engaging. One told us a fun story about his great-grandparent's marriage license listing his great-grandfather's occupation as "Commissionaire." The other had a lovely singing voice and an easy laugh. I hope our congenial welcome was strong enough to bring these two back. 

The two already had the sticky base: an abiding interest in Sherlock Holmes, the unifying thing among the random objects. Bob Katz surprised me at the October meeting of The Crew of the Barque Lone Star when he said this is one of his favorite lines from the Canon: '"There is only one man,' he cried.'" Bob is right, of course: there is only one man. The line is even better when coupled with the one that follows it:

  'There is only one man,' he cried.
'Exactly,' said Holmes.

Exactly. All will be well.  See you in New York.

 ---

 

My compliments of the season to all this post may reach.

 

"I HAD NO IDEA THAT YOU WOULD BE SO AFFECTED."

'My dear Watson,' said the well-remembered voice, 'I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected.'

I've often marveled at some of the words Arthur Conan Doyle put into Sherlock Holmes's mouth at the time of the revelation of Holmes being alive in "The Adventure of the Empty House", especially "I had no idea you would be so affected."

In the past, when rereading the story, I would generally shout at the book at that point. "What do you mean that you had no idea he would be so affected?" I would ask the unresponsive book. "Of course he is greatly affected. His best friend has returned from the dead, materializing right before his eyes. Come on, Doyle, get a grip. Yes, Sherlock Holmes owes Dr. Watson a thousand apologies, and so do you." Silly to talk to the book, or the long departed author, or myself, really, but I imagine serious readers understand the situation.

Now, many years on from those initial reads, I find new meaning in the upon-the-return-of-Sherlock-Holmes-words. I've come to believe Doyle was talking to his readers: "I had no idea you would be so affected." The well documented response of his readers to Holmes's "death" and "resurrection" made clear to Doyle what Holmes meant to them. I think Doyle's statement actually goes a little further. Perhaps Doyle was talking to himself. Maybe in his weariness with the public's clamor for more and more Holmes, he temporarily lost sight of what Holmes meant to him, how Holmes affected him. 

Certainly his statements about Holmes mellowed over the years, from the stark weariness to the quiet affection stated in Memories & Adventures, "I do not wish to be ungrateful to Holmes, who has been a good friend to me in many ways." The Holmes and Watson friendship of the canon, the heartbeat of the thing, makes it evident Doyle understood the value of true friendship.

Those of us who always find comfort in the Holmes and Watson friendship can imagine Watson's devastation, and feel it over and over when we read "The Final Problem." We value their friendship in ways that can be difficult to explain to other people—people who don't understand how a paper friendship can mean so much to us. I suppose it is one of those things that either you get it, or you don't. 

I hear time and time again that it is the Holmes and Watson friendship that brings people into the world of Sherlockiana and keeps them there. We are affected by it. We are also strongly affected by the friendships we form in real life as a result of Holmes and Watson.

I've felt the two sides of Sherlockian friendship this week: the joyful, planning for the camaraderie of the January birthday celebration, and the devastating, learning that one of my oldest and dearest Sherlockian friends is gravely ill. Diagnosis and prognosis are dire. My friend is a lot like Watson. They are kind, generous, loyal, intelligent, well-read, artistic and funny in a quiet way. 

A grand Sherlockian, they know London, always answering questions for me.We talk a lot about maps. We have so little time left. I can hear the roar of the abyss.

I understand Watson's feelings when that small square of paper fluttered to the ground. He deserved a thousand apologies for what was taken from him. So does my friend.