The Problem With "The Final Problem"

While one of the pivotal tales in the Canon - Sherlock Holmes dies! - The Final Problem is also one of the weakest. Despite its misleading title, this is not a detective story at all and the plot upon close examination makes little sense. Moriarty in particular is little more than a deus ex machina which Doyle conveniently pulls out of his hat so as to cause Sherlock's death; that he came to become one of the most famous characters in the Holmesverse is thus extremely ironical.

Of course these weaknesses may be explained away by the simple fact that Doyle was looking for the easiest way to get rid of a cumbersome character but even as a hatchet job The Final Problem is rather feeble; by no producing a corpse it leaves the door open to a possible "resurrection". Which leads us to the Big Question: Did Doyle really want to kill his creature? He could have settled the matter once and for all by giving him a proper "burial"; Holmes certainly would have had difficulties rising of the dead had his body been found and taken to the grave. Agatha Christie did this with Poirot and it's certainly one of the reasons why we don't see pastiches and continuations popping up on the shelves.

Doubts are furthered by the way Holmes was ultimately "revived". He had first returned with The Hound of the Baskervilles which Doyle stressed was set prior to the detective's "death". This approach was a sensible one and Doyle might have kept up with it; it was certainly simpler and more "realistic" than asking readers to believe Holmes had survived and spent years in hiding across the world before reappearing in a somewhat melodramatic fashion. So why did Doyle choose this latter option? And why does this "resurrection" fit so well with the events in The Final Problem, looking like their logical outcome rather than a later, recalcitrant change of heart? Is it possible Doyle knew all along that Holmes might be back someday?

Chamber Music - Chet Baker

The P-word

Like it or not, mystery fiction is a very plot-driven genre. This is not to say that plot trumps everything - characterization, writing, setting have their importance as well - but plotting is more crucial to mystery fiction than it is to, say, sci-fi or western; one might even say that it is a defining feature of it. How comes then that modern critics tend to focus on a mystery novel's literary virtues, while either downplaying or ignoring outright plot?

An obvious answer is that many contemporary mysteries tend to be stronger in the literary department than the plotting one, not necessarily because their authors are weak plotters but simply because their interests are elsewhere. And yet "literary" mysteries with strong plots get the same treatment. A good example is Thomas H. Cook who is regularly (and rightly) praised for the elegance of his prose and the depth and richness of his characterization but almost never for his plots even though he is arguably the finest plotter in American crime fiction since Margaret Millar (with whom he has a lot in common, but I'll leave that for another post) I do agree with critics that Instruments of the Night or Red Leaves are fascinating studies in character and tragedy, but they're also masterful exercises in bamboozling and their final twists are central to the books' effects.

One of the mistakes that dragged so much of "literary" fiction into the pit of irrelevance and self-indulgence was to discard plot as unimportant. It is thus worrying to see mystery critics follow in the same trap. A good plot, as any serious mystery buff knows, is a hard thing to find - and it should be celebrated rather than swept under the rug. The P-word is not a dirty word.

Etta

And The Nominees Are.../Et les nominés sont...

The nominations for the 2012 Edgar Awards are out. My thoughts:

- I've been complaining for years about the awards being too insular so I'm glad to see that four out of five Best Novel nominees are foreign; what's more, two hail from non-English-speaking countries! Let's hope it translates into an actual foreign winner, the last one to date being Jason Goodwin's The Janissary Tree in 2007.

- The Edgars should contemplate renaming themselves the Arthurs or the Conans, for they really seem in thrall of anything doylean. Michael Dirda is nominated in the Best Critical/Biography category for his latest book on Doyle and Neil Gaiman lands a (way overdue) nomination for Best Short Story with a sherlockian pastiche whereas both Best Play nominees reference the Great Detective. This makes Anthony Horowitz's much-hyped and critically acclaimed The House of Silk failing to get a nomination all the more surprising!

- The apparent absence of any Best Picture nominees tells probably a lot about last year's cinematic offering, though I can think of one worthy nominee or two.

On connaît à présent les nominations pour les Edgars; voici quelques pensées en vrac.

- Le grand évènement est sans aucun doute l'ouverture sur le monde après plusieurs années de relative insularité: quatre des cinq auteurs nominés pour le prix du meilleur roman sont étrangers; mieux, deux d'entre eux (Hagishino et Holt) viennent de pays non-anglophones! Rappelons que le dernier auteur étranger - non-américain si vous préférez - est l'anglais Jason Goodwin (Le complot des Janissaires) en 2007 et qu'aucun ouvrage traduit n'a été couronné depuis 1971 (Le policier qui rit, de Sjöwall & Wahlöö).

- Les Edgars devraient sérieusement envisager de changer de nom et de s'appeler les Arthurs ou les Conans, car rien de ce qui est doylien ne leur est étranger! Ainsi, le critique Michael Dirda est nominé dans la catégorie Meilleur Ouvrage Critique ou Biographique pour son dernier livre consacré à Doyle tandis que Neil Gaiman reçoit une nomination (bien méritée) pour une nouvelle sherlockienne; sans parler des deux pièces nominées pour le prix de la Meilleure Pièce, dont les titres se passent de commentaire... On ne peut donc que s'étonner de l'absence dans la liste de La maison de soie de Anthony Horowitz, dont la sortie s'est pourtant accompagné d'un vaste battage publicitaire et médiatique.

- Pas de nominés dans la catégorie Meilleur Film cette année. Cela en dit long sur la qualité de l'offre en 2011, quoique l'on aurait pu aisément sauver un film ou deux.

A Historical Event

Historical mystery fan (and fellow GAD-er) Alan Cassaday-Bishop has just started a blog which he intends to be a "forum for comment" on his readings. Alan is the man behind Criminal History, a fine website about - you've guessed it - historical mysteries; need I say that I strongly advise you to visit it?

The Great Detective is back... on TV

I haven't seen the British crime drama Luther for which Idris Elba just won a Golden Globe but its premise and creator Neil Cross admitting he took inspiration from Sherlock Holmes make it part of a most interesting trend in current television: the return of the Great Detective.

It's fair to say that the concept hadn't been very popular in the last decades, mostly because television's focus had increasingly moved away from the individual. Whereas most crime shows from the 50's to the 70's had been built around a single, often eponymous, character, ensemble police procedurals had dominated the airwaves in the 80s and 90s. The motto was realism, with cops being shown as everyday, flawed people working as a team to solve "regular" cases. The often impersonal titles of those shows - Hill Street Blues, Law & Order, NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets or Brooklyn South - reflected that new direction.

Then came a new century and all of a sudden everything changed. Adrian Monk, Robert Goren, Charlie Crews, Brenda Leigh Johnson, Shawn Spencer or Richard Castle - to name just a few - returned the eccentric detective with golden little grey cells to the small screen. Even a non-mystery show like House, M.D. featured a protagonist explicitly modelled after Sherlock Holmes. This ongoing phenomenon is all the more interesting as the Great Detective (for lack of a better term) has scarcely been seen on print recently and its revival as of now remains confined to television. It probably has a lot to do with practical concerns: obviously it is easier to create and manage a show with a single protagonist than an ensemble; also, the modern Great Detective almost always comes with the quasi-contractual angst and personal problems. But it's still good news to the traditional mystery fan as it suggests the genre keeps its appeal and can adapt to the times; it also suggests than not all revolutions (and the rise of the ensemble, modular procedural was undoubtedly one) are irreversible.