autisticexpression posted this wonderful list of awesome things in the OG literary Sherlock Holmes. This was posted in response to the “travesty” that was BBC’s Sherlock show. The books are better!
Source: autisticexpression
Literary Sherlock Holmes
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I agree with every word about literary Sherlock. However, I believe that the differences you take offense with made things different, but not necessarily worse. Some of these are likely because of the damage done to Watson’s reputation by the Basil Rathbone movies, more specifically Nigel Bruce’s portrayal of Watson as a bumbling fool. Of course that is just my opinion.
For the record: I am a fan of Basil Rathbone’s version, as well as those of Kenneth Howard and Jeremy Brett. (Brett is my favorite).
Ronald Howard’s Holmes show was a lot of fun, too, though short-lived.
Thank you for explaining why I was so disappointed in Sherlock that I quit watching after the first episode. What a waste of a great cast.
The first episode had the same effect on me. I found it embarrassingly awful.
Snooooooooooooooooooobs.
Watson was modeled after an actual British Army Surgeon who was one of the few survivors of an Afghan attack in what’s now Zhari district in Southern Afghanistan.
Precisely correct in every detail.
I only had to watch parts of two episodes of BBC’s Sherlock to realize, quality of the cast notwithstanding, that the names of the characters were very nearly the only relation the show had to books, and I had no need to watch more.
Grenada’s Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett will always be my favourite adaptation of Holmes…but a close second is Elementary. While it leans into the idea of Holmes as an acerbic misanthrope at least to start with, he grows and evolves through the series. The series also takes intelligent liberties with the elements of the Holmes stories — it’s just about the only TV show that ever had me literally swearing at the screen and saying, “I should have seen that coming.” Worth your time and effort.
My favorite portrayal will always be Clive Merrison (not sure of spelling) for several BBC audio plays of Holmes stories.
I agree wholeheartedly. I think those BBC audio dramas are by far the best adaptations of Holmes.
Those radio dramas are excellent. You got the spelling right too!
“Appalling travesty” is a bit melodramatic. It was an adaption, artistic decisions were made and maybe some people who haven’t read the stories start applying those decisions backwards but that’s on them, not the cast and crew of Sherlock. Literary Holmes never wore a deerstalker and smoked cigarettes more often than a pipe but that’s no reason to get mad at Basil Rathbone. Also I take issue with the idea that Holmes grew past his misogyny after a woman outsmarted him. He gained respect for her, not her entire gender. She was “The Woman” she “surpassed all her sex.” And while he didn’t call Watson an idiot specifically he did do down his intelligence. Also Sherlock’s Holmes shows humility as well. The poster doesn’t like Sherlock, which is fine, but has rather overstated the literary Holmes’ virtues and gotten way too angry at the show.
Book snobs. Most people can chill with them being different and enjoy both.
I don’t recall Sherlock ever doing down Watson’s intelligence, more he got frustrated that Watson wasn’t as smart as him. Like someone with a 180 IQ (yes, I know IQ isn’t the best measure of intelligence, it’s an illustrative example) getting frustrated that someone with a 140 IQ can’t make a logical connection that they can. I recall him saying once or twice something along the lines of “Now Watson, I know you are too intelligent to believe that”. He recognises Watson’s intelligence but also recognises that his own is greater.
I feel like ACD’s Holmes may also have been on the ADHD spectrum as well. It would track well with his incredible eye for noticing every detail about people and scenes. His impatience with Watson could also easily stem from a combination of both Autistic and ADHD traits. Holmes in problem solving mode is so fully involved in his special interest of solving cases and his mind is moving so incredibly fast from piece to piece as he is fitting things together that it simply doesn’t occur to him that he’s left Watson behind and having to pull out of his ‘solving’ flow state (which can be really difficult to do) to get Watson caught up to the point that he understands what Holmes was processing ages ago is likely so teeth gnashingly frustrating to him that the part of his brain that manages social relationships is temporarily out of the loop so he’s irrationally irritated with Watson being just neurotypically brilliant instead of Holmes’s type of neurodivergent brilliance.
Just remembered, in the original stories after Holmes was apparently killed Watson took over the business applying the same methods that he had learned from Homes and was successful. Not a bumbling idiot then. Holmes’s, when he reveals himself, even compliments Watson on his abilities, albeit in a “You’re good, I’m just better” way.
This. All of this.
You’re leaving out a few things here… like for instance the fact that the literary Holmes was also a cocaine addict who injected rather than snorted the drug. Or that he was generally distant and aloof with people to the point that if they didn’t need his prodigious skills to help them, they likely wouldn’t have wasted their time trying to speak to him.
Literary Holmes wasn’t so much inclined to talk down to Watson, as he was to make a leap of logic and announce its results, then refuse to tell Watson how he got there so that Watson had to figure out the how on his own. Which was a great literary device for unveiling the mechanisms behind that leap of logic for the reader, but make him seem somewhat condescending towards Watson’s intellect (which as a doctor wasn’t at all deficient).
But yes; he is certainly a great example of an autistic character in a world that didn’t yet understand that term.
Great post. Check out the old Russian series (1979) for a portrayal of Sherlock Holmes that has been recognized for its emotional nuance and faithful adaptation of the books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Sherlock_Holmes_and_Dr._Watson
Beekeepers are awesome. So is “The Beekeepers Apprentice” by Laurie R. King – a worthy successor of Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes was an autistic coded character before people knew what autism was, and from what I’m reading here, BBC Sherlock is people’s idiotic assumptions of what autism is (sociopathic, doesn’t care about people, etc.)
Literary Holmes was almost definitely ace. Whether he was aromantic, I’m not sure about. I think he loved Watson deeply. Whether it was platonic or romantic is up to interpretation.