I think a lot about the most famous characters in fiction –the ones we read and never forget. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced Sherlock in 1887. One hundred and thirty-eight years later, Holmes remains one of the most beloved characters of western literature: a tall, lithe Englishman wearing a deerstalker hat, an Inverness cape and Ulster coat, and often smoking a pipe.
I found Sherlock at age 10 and could not let go. When our family – seven kids and parents –went on vacation, I packed my complete Sherlock canon, in one volume. It was so heavy I could barely lift it. While others went swimming, I spent days and nights reading – plus a little fishing when I could tear myself away from Sherlock’s current case.
As a writer, I ask myself: What makes Sherlock so compelling? He appears at first more anti-hero than hero. He is odd. He is a loner – unfeeling, obsessive, given to episodes of depression. He is a drug addict. He is often rude and imperious with his friend Watson. And let’s face it, misogynistic.
Why should I and millions of others want to keep reading him? His passion for truth, his indefatigable resolve. Sherlock is on the case. Mysteries are solved, criminals caught, and order restored, fictionally at least.
Because of his absolute brilliance, we can forgive Sherlock’s cold rationality. And under the crust, we suspect he has a heart. We get glimpses of this in Sherlock’s admiration for The Woman, Irene Adler. And that violin. Surely this implies a deeper connection to a tender, feeling heart.
Sherlock values his street urchins as highly as his clients. He does not suffer fools. He does not kowtow to lords, ladies and kings. He receives them all equally in the rather humble apartment he shares with Watson. I like this egalitarian spirit. In Sherlock’s world, there are no “betters.” This is, in part, ego: How could anybody be smarter, better than himself?
Writers do not make characters out of whole cloth. How much of Sherlock is also Doyle I wonder? How did he first conjure up this enduring character?Doyle’s visual image of Sherlock so indelibly imprinted in global consciousness nudges me to think about how I dress my own characters. What do they wear? What color eyes do they have? What are their favored accessories?
After all these years, we can’t stop reading Sherlock Holmes. Yes, he is a flawed hero, a mix of light with quite a bit of dark, but we like heroes with flaws – a bit more human, a bit more like us.
There is only one Sherlock. He seems to be eternal. When Doyle, weary of writing about Holmes, kills his character off at Reichenbach Falls, readers demanded he be brought back. So Doyle resurrected Sherlock – who as it turns out wasn’t really dead at the hand of master criminal Moriarty.