Pastiche versus Legend

 Got into a little debate this morning about what constitutes a Sherlock Holmes "pastiche," and since I've got time to kill, I thought I'd muse about it a bit further. Part of the fun of Sherlockiana for me has always been puzzling over aspects of this hobby of ours, and pastiches have always been a topic for discussion.

Remember back in the 1980s, when all sorts of commercial authors were finding Watson manuscripts in old houses and bank vaults all over the place? If you're lucky, you're not that old and don't remember that time, which means you're a lot less achey than some of us who do. But Watson was "writing" a whole lot of stories about Sherlock Holmes then -- though curiously, not as much as now, even though they don't sell as well.

Case in point, I was in a wonderful old bookstore yesterday and saw a nice little gathering of Sherlock Holmes books I had never heard of nor see before. Once upon a time, this would have been a cause for great excitement, but yesterday I walked away without a single one in hand. Pastiches are now like a raving Sherlock's oysters, so prolific they threaten to overrun the world. Fledgling writers have always taken first steps by emulating favorite authors, and, man, do we seem to have a lot of fledgling writers these days, pretending to be John H. Watson.

But here's the thing, we have a whole lot of writers today that aren't attempting to mimic John H. Watson (or Arthur Conan Doyle, if that is the church of your choice), but still writing about Sherlock Holmes, and that's where I start having questions. If someone loves the BBC Sherlock characters and writes a third-person Omegaverse novel about John, Sherlock, Mycroft, and friends . . . well, we have definitely strayed far from anything recognizable as a pastiche of Watson/Doyle's works. And what of Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century? (Got that earworm in your head now? You're welcome.)

At this point, I think we're talking legend. At this point, I think we're talking about telling the story of Holmes around the campfire to those who haven't heard of that mythical figure who could take the crazy and put it in order. Conan Doyle may have originated the myth, but as the tellers of tales diversify and no longer use Watson narration or the written word to pass the legend along, the word "pastiche" in its dictionary definition, is too small to hold what is going on. 

And, okay, I'll say it . . . after forty-five years or so in this hobby, true pastiches are a bore to me, which is why I didn't pick up any books from that shelf I wrote about a few paragraphs ago. I love a fresh adaptation -- the Sherlock & Co. podcast, the CBS Watson TV series (Morris Chestnut > Jonny Lee Miller), and anything else that plays with the mythos in ways that make it fresh to my old eyes. I'm into the legend more than the pastiche at this point, but I know pastiches are still wonderful things for those who didn't consume their fill years ago, or those who like to hew as close to the originals as possible. They just aren't everything.

And Sherlock Holmes? Definitely legend.