TV detectives that might be said to be based loosely on Sherlock Holmes, Columbo, Monk, Detective Goren (Law & Order) are all very eccentric and ask suspected criminals lots of personal questions and have other irritating habits. Did Sherlock Holmes of the books have any such traits?
Holmes didn’t really HAVE to ask a lot of personal questions. He could tell you your occupation, your recent travels, your nervous habits, your favorite brand of cigar, that you had a fight with your wife that morning and that you had served in Afghanistan just by looking at your shirtcuffs.
Did the books list the clues specifically, did the reader have the same chance to make the deduction that Holmes did?
Only after the fact, usually. You can’t really write Holmes as a whodunit, because he’s supposed to be so much more intelligent than the reader. And Conan Doyle kind of cheated a lot of the time and you can’t do that with whodunit-style writing (well, you can…Agatha Christie has one rather infamous novel where she cheats the style outrageously…but it doesn’t usually go over well.)
ah, ok, thanks for answering my questions
Fair play mysteries weren’t really a thing until after most of the Holmes canon was written.
On the other hand, Sherlock was very uninhibited when his curiosity was piqued and I get the impression he would definitely ask people inappropriate personal questions if it was about something that he couldn’t deduce from observation. Definitely an eccentric, as well, which is actually part of the reason he ends up rooming with Doctor John Watson in “A Study in Scarlet.”
To supplement jayjay’s answer, see the TVTropes page on the “Fair Play Whodunnit.”
I read in the past year a collection of short stories. Far from impressed. They followed a quite similar format so it became easy soon enough to guess the perp in most stories. So sort of “fair play” but only because of the formulaic writing.
I would describe Holmes as slightly quirky. Not really “off” in a major way. A bit mischievous in fooling people, especially Watson. Generally not confrontational, at least in the short stories. (Not enough time to develop an arc like that.)
As noted, he usually asked few questions but some of them would seem irrelevant to the observers. So perhaps annoying depending on your point of view.
Stamford calls Holmes an eccentric (" He is a little queer in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough."), and when they meet, Holmes won’t shut up about hemoglobin, but he doesn’t prove to be too eccentric in the work. Here, by the way, are Holmes and Watson comparing their vices to see if either of them have any that the other can’t tolerate in a roommate:
If you’re really interested, you can just get the whole set and check for yourself. They are all out of copyright, after all.
I read a bunch of the full length stuff and then, later, read started working through the short stories. Like you, I didn’t make it far for the same reasons. The pattern became very predictable. Holmes got a case, did his thing on his own. Watson showed up and said ‘wow, super smokey in here boss’, and Holmes had some kind of cryptic answer that he would reveal once everyone was assembled. Trying to read one after another is like trying to marathon episodes of House (yes, I know). Once you spot the pattern, it gets kinda old. It’s Lupus (checks time, 23 minutes in, it’s probably not lupus). He’s cheating on his wife and caught chlamydia (54 minute mark, yup, that’s it).
The nice thing with House is that you can put the POTW on your mental back burner and focus on the rest of the characters, but in the Sherlock stories there really isn’t much in the way of character arcs or interpersonal drama.
@Robert, the Dr House is also loosely based on Sherlock Holmes as well.
Yes. House/Holmes, cocaine addiction/vicodin addiction, Watson/Wilson, 221B…there are also an Adler and a Moriarty involved in House through the seasons.
Must agree. The essential appeal of Conan Doyle’s stories is their engaging readability. When the game’s afoot, you’re hooked. Give 'em a shot.
One subtle thing is that, over time, Holmes became less eccentric and quirky. Watson was a stabilizing influence on him. (Among other things, Watson got Holmes to stop using cocaine.)
As the stories progress, Holmes shows more savoir faire.
(Whereas, if you read carefully, Watson does not. The death of at least two wives hit him hard, and he took to gambling, to the degree that Holmes, at times, had to hold his checkbook for him.)
Nope. Not in the U.S., at least. Eleven of the thirteen stories published in the Case Book of Sherlock Holmes were published in 1923 or later. That was what allowed the Holmes estate to claim control over those wanting to use Sherlock until a recent court case released all the pre-1923 Holmes characteristics into the public domain.
I view the Holmes stories as both fair and not fair. They’re fair in the sense that anybody in Holmes’ position and with his talents could reach the same answer. (See Mycroft Holmes.) At the same time, they’re not fair, because Holmes had clear-cut class distinctions, etc. to rely on that no longer exist.
I was a young teen when I read that story and I remembered and digested the sentence that gives it away, but just figured it was an editing mistake. I never understood the complaints about it, it’s fair game.
I never thought it was something to get outraged about, either. I actually kind of like the novel (although it’s not one of her top 10 or anything).
I thought they were generally fair – all the evidence is there for the reader. Take, say, “The Red-Headed League.” The facts are presented for us as much as they are for Watson; Holmes thinks outside the box to put together what they mean. And, in general, we are shown all the evidence needed to solve the crime so when Holmes does give a solution, nothing is mentioned that has not been mentioned already.
Conan Doyle made Holmes seem a genius because he had him give the answer before he gives his reasoning, but the reasoning is nearly always from the facts are previously presented.