The Mortality of Sherlock Holmes

 The good Carter and I were contemplating eternity over dinner the other night. Eventually the conversation drifted to Sherlock Holmes, of course. I can't help myself.

Something in us likes to think things can somehow last forever. Even the most practical and irreligious of us probably has some corner of our mind where we skip pondering our refrigerator going bad, or some other instance of things just not staying the same. Life and death may be where we focus our deepest deliberations upon brevity versus eternity, but everything has a "best if used by" date when you look closely enough . . . even Sherlock Holmes.

We have heard the phrase "the immortal Sherlock Holmes" many a time, and the classic Vincent Starrett line, "Who never lived and so can never die," of course. But even Sherlock Holmes has a date with Neil Gaiman's Endless goth girl at some point. We'd like to think otherwise, for to contemplate Holmes's finish is a very, very big thought.

Sherlock Holmes is woven into human culture, human legend, human iconography. But it is very possible to envision his departure before the extinction of humanity itself. A little bit of a dark age. The fall of Western civilization followed by a purge of its cultural remnants. Humanity existed for a very long time without Sherlock Holmes before 1887. We might find someone to replace him come 3784. 

I think its important that we see Sherlock Holmes as the fleeting blip in cosmic chronology that he is, for one simple reason: It reminds us to just enjoy the hell out of him now. 

The spirit of Oingo Boingo's song "No One Lives Forever" was introduced to me at a dance party once, and it's manic energy lined up with a grim reminder speaks volumes. "Celebrate while you still can, at any second it may end . . ."

That collection of Sherlock Holmes books you've stocked your shelves with? It's never going to have anyone else enjoy it as much as the person it was built for by the person who knew what it needed.

Those friends who've shown enough interest to actually choose to spend some time with you unasked? Roll out the carpet, as those hours will pass and you'll have to get back to your chores.

Yes, yes, carpe diem is an old concept, we all know that. And the thought of Sherlock Holmes as immortal is not limiting our fun, but adding something to it -- his immortality gives us some feeling that we ourselves will be remembered. Since Conan Doyle's writings have outlasted the man for almost a century now due to Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock Holmes fandom is about a century as well, there is a feeling that our writings about Holmes might continue to exist past our time. He gives us the idea that our fun might be remembered, clipped to his coat-tails. Sherlock Holmes just feels like forever.

And as humanity goes, and even fictional humanity, Sherlock Holmes  is a fairly young guy. Robin Hood has been with us since at least 1370 . . .  he's seven times as old as Sherlock! And then there's folk like Hercules and his clan, which might come in at about twenty-seven times as old as Sherlock Holmes. And  King Gilgamesh, whose story is definitely that old. Will little Sherlock Holmes make it as long as those guys? Now, let your fannish knee-jerk "YES!" subside for a moment before you answer. What do those other stories offer humanity that keeps them going forward, despite changes in language, despite changes in their story, moving through time beyond their original text.

Time is a fascinating thing, and history as well. And while concepts like "immortal" and "forever" give us both comfort and security in our loves (and are actually simpler to think about than the life journey through time that even a candidate for legend must go through), we can miss things by holding them too dear.  Something to ponder, as Sherlock Holmes always has been.