Found world

The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was an odd guy. I first felt it reading A Study in Scarlet, which halfway through suddenly shifts into a narrative about the first Mormon settlers of Utah, which although interesting and related to the bulk of the novel's classic mystery plot, nevertheless has this unnatural, almost forced air about it.

Reading that, it made sense to me that Doyle felt trapped by the success of the Holmes stories, that he tried to end the series by killing off Holmes, only to be forced by public pressure to bring him back. He desperately, it seems to me, wanted to write about very different things than want he was knew he'd always be known for doing. In contemporary terms, it'd be like if Stephen Spielberg really wanted to devote himself to making Bollywood films.

I recently reread the collected works of Sherlock Holmes, and found myself disappointed with the mysteries themselves. It seems to me that Holmes solves most of them with information the reader isn't privy to, guided either by similar cases he's studied, or else the gleaning of data based on his arcane knowledge of things like cigarette ash.

And after a while the twists begin to feel formulaic--long-lost people mentioned up front usually make a reappearance, often committing murder most foul with knowledge and out of motives linked to their long stays abroad.

What's most interesting to me, actually, is the picture of the 19th-century British mentality that emerges from the stories. Everyone is can-do about everything; no dusty corner of the world or obscure branch of human knowledge is beyond reach, if one properly applies himself. It's definitely mind over matter, and mind over others as well.

Dr. Watson, it seems to me, in some ways is at the center of the novels, as we see everything through his eyes and Holmes' character seems bent around the facts of each case.

Oddly, though, Watson seems to grow not a whit over the course of the four novels and 56 short stories. His voice remains the same and he never fully emerges as a flesh and blood person in his own right, just like Holmes would wither away were it not for the 'mystery' that pulls each story through.

A contrast the greater when you read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books, themselves set in (early) 19th century England.

At any rate, here are some passages that stuck in my mind while reading some of Doyles' non-Holmes works online (he's out of copyright).

The Lost World, chapt. 15: At night we could hear from amid the trees the long-drawn cry, as some primitive Ezekiel mourned for fallen greatness and recalled the departed glories of Ape Town. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, such were they from now onwards.


The Poison Belt, Chapt. 4: The flippancy of the half-educated is more obstructive to science than the obtuseness of the ignorant," said he.

Chapt. 5: "What's the matter with the motor-car? Why should we not go in that?"

"I am not an expert," said Challenger, pulling at his beard reflectively. "At the same time, you are right in supposing that the human intellect in its higher manifestations should be sufficiently flexible to turn itself to anything. Your idea is an excellent one, Lord John. I myself will drive you all to London."

"You will do nothing of the kind," said Summerlee with decision.

"No, indeed, George!" cried his wife. "You only tried once, and you remember how you crashed through the gate of the garage."

"It was a momentary want of concentration," said Challenger complacently. "You can consider the matter settled. I will certainly drive you all to London."

The situation was relieved by Lord John.

"What's the car?" he asked.

"A twenty-horsepower Humber."

"Why, I've driven one for years," said he. "By George!" he added. "I never thought I'd live to take the whole human race in one load. There's just room for five, as I remember it. Get your things on, and I'll be ready at the door by ten o'clock."

Sure enough, at the hour named, the car came purring and crackling from the yard with Lord John at the wheel. I took my seat beside him, while the lady, a useful little buffer state, was squeezed in between the two men of wrath at the back. Then Lord John released his brakes, slid his lever rapidly from first to third, and we sped off upon the strangest drive that ever human beings have taken since man first came upon the earth. ...

At the last dreadful moment, brought suddenly face to face with the realities of life, those terrific realities which hang over us even while we follow the shadows, the terrified people had rushed into those old city churches which for generations had hardly ever held a congregation. ...

And now I come to the end of this extraordinary incident, so overshadowing in its importance, not only in our own small, individual lives, but in the general history of the human race. As I said when I began my narrative, when that history comes to be written, this occurrence will surely stand out among all other events like a mountain towering among its foothills. Our generation has been reserved for a very special fate since it has been chosen to experience so wonderful a thing. How long its effect may last--how long mankind may preserve the humility and reverence which this great shock has taught it--can only be shown by the future. I think it is safe to say that things can never be quite the same again. Never can one realize how powerless and ignorant one is, and how one is upheld by an unseen hand, until for an instant that hand has seemed to close and to crush. Death has been imminent upon us. We know that at any moment it may be again. That grim presence shadows our lives, but who can deny that in that shadow the sense of duty, the feeling of sobriety and responsibility, the appreciation of the gravity and of the objects of life, the earnest desire to develop and improve, have grown and become real with us to a degree that has leavened our whole society from end to end? It is something beyond sects and beyond dogmas. It is rather an alteration of perspective, a shifting of our sense of proportion, a vivid realization that we are insignificant and evanescent creatures, existing on sufferance and at the mercy of the first chill wind from the unknown. But if the world has grown graver with this knowledge it is not, I think, a sadder place in consequence. Surely we are agreed that the more sober and restrained pleasures of the present are deeper as well as wiser than the noisy, foolish hustle which passed so often for enjoyment in the days of old--days so recent and yet already so inconceivable. Those empty lives which were wasted in aimless visiting and being visited, in the worry of great and unnecessary households, in the arranging and eating of elaborate and tedious meals, have now found rest and health in the reading, the music, the gentle family communion which comes from a simpler and saner division of their time. With greater health and greater pleasure they are richer than before, even after they have paid those increased contributions to the common fund which have so raised the standard of life in these islands.

Chapter 6: TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS' WORLD COMA UNPRECEDENTED EXPERIENCE CHALLENGER JUSTIFIED OUR CORRESPONDENT ESCAPES ENTHRALLING NARRATIVE THE OXYGEN ROOM WEIRD MOTOR DRIVE DEAD LONDON REPLACING THE MISSING PAGE GREAT FIRES AND LOSS OF LIFE WILL IT RECUR?

Underneath this glorious scroll came nine and a half columns of narrative, in which appeared the first, last, and only account of the history of the planet, so far as one observer could draw it, during one long day of its existence. Challenger and Summerlee have treated the matter in a joint scientific paper, but to me alone was left the popular account. Surely I can sing "Nunc dimittis." What is left but anti-climax in the life of a journalist after that!

Uncredited painting of Doyle via the official site of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate