What does it take to become a hardcore fan of Sherlock Holmes?
I don't just mean an "I like it when Sherlock Holmes falls my way at the bookstore, on TV, or in a theater." I mean the level of "If no Sherlock Holmes exists in my life at a give idle moment, I'm gonna put him there." Sherlock Holmes as your primary interest. Sherlock Holmes being such a focus that you'll deep dive into some other subject like Victorian history, Conan Doyle, or forensic science just to keep in the general area of Holmes.
Sure, it's all very interesting. The world is full of very interesting things, 99.999999999 percent of which do not involve Sherlock Holmes.
I recently googled "What is it that we love about Sherlock Holmes?" looking for a particular essay and a horde of headlines popped up. "Why I love Sherlock Holmes." "Why is Sherlock Holmes still so popular?" "What is it that we love in Sherlock Holmes?" "Why Are We So Obsessed With Sherlock Holmes." "Ten Reasons Americans Love Sherlock Holmes." The parade of "why" articles seems endless. But they all focus on Sherlock Holmes himself.
Like an ancient god (or modern one, really), Sherlock Holmes embodies some attributes or gathering of ideas that fill a need in us. He's not a rain god we pray to. But . . . and I hate to say this . . . he's not a person. He's a wish. He's a feeling. He's an idea.
And apparently an idea we need in our lives.
Personally, I can look at the time I attached first attached myself to Sherlock Holmes, puberty hitting hard at the same time I lost a father. And then the time when I doubled down on Holmes, that point in later college years when the great unknowns of adulthood lay in front of me and I was about to step into the abyss. Both were times when one's mind is desperately search for solid ground.
And there was Sherlock Holmes. The idea of solid ground. The idea that there were answers to all of life's mysteries if one was clever enough. And, having had a little evidence that I could be clever at times, he gave me hope. He's a fiction, a dream of what a person could be, but a dream that Conan Doyle shared with us, and we share with each other.
It makes me a little sad that Sherlock Holmes's creator tried to run away from Holmes as his writing career went on. Doyle himself created Holmes at a point in his life where he was uncertain where his profession would take him, and once he became successful, Doyle felt Holmes had no purpose in his life and wanted to leave Holmes behind. He wasn't really thinking about what other people got from Holmes, because I think if he truly understood it, he wouldn't have cared about spiritualism or fairies or any of those other causes he felt were so much more important than the best thing he ever did for humanity.
Some of us never give up on those things Holmes represents. Our better selves. A world where things make sense. The phrase "true believers" has always been an apt description of hardcore fans, because that's the level we must be at to devote as much time, energy, and money toward this idea called Sherlock Holmes. Because we believe he has something we need in life, something worth holding on to, because we came to him at some point in our lives and he delivered.
In a way, the hardcore fan of Sherlock Holmes is a bit like one of his clients -- we came to 221B Baker Street and Sherlock Holmes provided an answer for us. And even though he retired in the early 1900s, he is still working for us today.
No comments:
Post a Comment