A few words about the Annotated Sherlock Holmes

[truepenny]

First of all, let me say how much I love and admire this book, in all its insane, obsessive glory. It is truly a labor of fannish love, in the best sense of all those words, and it offers, among other things, a window into a non-sf fandom which behaves in ways comfortingly and fannishly familiar. These are people who love Holmes, write about Holmes, sometimes in essays, sometimes in pastiches, and who above all have devoted incredible amounts of delighted energy to the great Sherlockian Game of pretending that Watson is real, Holmes is real, and that therefore, if you are ingenious and painstaking enough, you can fit all the stories into a chronology of exact dates, matched against the actual weather and historical events. In fact, so taken for granted is this game (what I think we would now call "fanon"--fan-generated canon) that the stories are arranged in "chronological" order.

I admire this crazy fannishness; I love Baring-Gould and all the Irregulars for their unapologetic devotion to their cause. But I have to say that this supremacy of fanon--not over canon, for the Sherlockian canon is sacred as scripture in this game--but over reality, makes the apparatus as frustrating as it is delightful.

Conan Doyle barely exists in Baring-Gould's annotations. Most, though not all, stories have a brief bibliographical note which details the history, insofar as it is known, of the original manuscript. The dates and order of publication of the stories are completely ignored. Not even a tiny note allowing for cross-referencing. Baring-Gould happily talks about the disputes among Sherlockian chronologists (should "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" be dated to 1886? 1887? 1888?), but not a word about the actual dating of the actual stories.

The problem with this methodology is that Conan Doyle was not playing the Game.

It takes only a very cursory acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes to know that his creator did not like him very much. Reichenbach Falls is a byword. Moreover, Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories at tremendous speed and with little or no interest in continuity. One of the many introductory essays to the ASH even quotes Conan Doyle dismissing continuity as unnecessary: "In short stories it has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?" Conan Doyle, in other words, was a slovenly writer. Dr. Watson's wandering wound is an example of this, as is the fact that in "The Man with the Twisted Lip," John H. Watson is called James by his wife. (Watson's wife or wives is herself--or themselves--another shining example.) And many of the stories are not even consistent with themselves. Conan Doyle never checked a fact if he didn't have to.

So the spectacle of Sherlockians standing on their heads trying to make a chronology out of straw is charming and entertaining, but I am finding that, more and more, it gets in the way of trying to figure out how the stories fit together. Once you've trapped yourself into trying to explain why Sherlock Holmes, or Mycroft, for that matter, is referring to Watson's published accounts of his cases before they've been published in the fan-generated chronology, you are beginning to do a great disservice, as much to yourself as to your material. In the historical chronology, and clearly in Conan Doyle's own mind, when Holmes mentions Watson's stories, it's because Holmes, Watson, Conan Doyle, and all their readers know that the stories have been published. For example, in "The Greek Interpreter," Mycroft tells Watson, "I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you became his chronicler." Baring-Gould admits this means the adventure has to be dated after the publication of A Study in Scarlet in 1887. He dates it in 1888, which means that A Study in Scarlet would be the only story Watson had published, making the word "chronicler" seem more than a little ridiculous. But "The Greek Interpreter" was published in September 1893, the twenty-fourth Sherlock Holmes story to see print. Suddenly Mycroft's comment doesn't look ridiculous at all.

Though I adore the ASH, I think the aggressiveness with which it locks itself and its readers into its self-chosen chronology makes it almost as problematic as helpful. Which is a great pity, because in so many ways, it is the most marvelous of books.

Comments

[saffronhouse.livejournal.com]

(Hi! wandered in by way of eliade's journal)

Oh, I adore the Annotated Sherlock Holmes! I received it as a birthday present about a million years ago when I was in eighth or ninth grade, and have loved and been happily bewildered by it ever since.

You're right: It's not the edition of the stories to be reading if you're actually, you know, primarily interested in reading Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, but the alternative history -- an entire separate story constructed in the footnotes -- is a pure (if bizarre) pleasure in its own right as it totally overtakes and overwhelms the actual Holmes canon. As if Nabokov had written Pale Fire about Conan Doyle... Heh.

Who knew the Baker Street Irregulars were so postmodern?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

The Pale Fire analogy is insidiously apt.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I love you.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Because I am cranky and pedantic?

*g*

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[hunningham.livejournal.com]

And what do they do with Watson's war-wound, which had a tendency to wander around his body, "... I cannot quite remember whether I was wounded in my shoulder, or my leg ..."

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, there are a variety of theories. One that Watson went to Afghanistan twice and was wounded both times, the second time in the leg. One that Watson was wounded in the shoulder at the battle of Maiwand, as he says, and then wounded in the "leg" after being thrown over a packhorse by his orderly. (In general, there is some suspicion that the vagueness of the location of Watson's war wound is due to the, ahem, unmentionability of the body-part affected.) The most ingenious hypothesis offered is that the bullet entered at the shoulder, caromed around the rib cage, and exited at the thigh.

[hunningham.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful set of bug fixes. I love fans.

[firecat]

I grew up with the ASH too. Thanks for the great essay!

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

I am a sad, das woman. I not only own the Baring-Gould annotations (bought as a 1-volume set at a used bookstore for $35) but the recent short story annotations by Klinger as well. (A lot more than $35!)

The recent version is, in my mind, very realxing for being laid out in order published. There's no hand-wring, no explaining away, no references to weather patterns. Most stories have one footnot saying, "Some people date this to here, some people date it to here." and it travels on its merry way towards elucidating the things that really need elucidating. It's still a work of lavish, fannish love, but Klinger seems a bit more laid back about it all than Baring-Gould. Baring-Gould is the rabid fan for whom the fannish object is the meaning of life, while Klinger is the guy who introduces himself to the new fen, doesn't laugh at their stupid questions, and realizes that while fandom is a way of life, it is not life.

I need a Holmesian icon.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the heads-up! I was not aware of the existence of the Klinger.

(I, too, have the 1-vol. B-G, also from a used bookstore, also for about $35. It was my present to myself after I took my Master's exam.)

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I wandered here through metafandom; what an interesting subject! One of my guilty pleasures is reading the Baker Street Journal; it's fandom at an incredibly dedicated and intricate level.

I was wondering what you think of the new annotated Sherlock Holmes by Klinger, which seems to take a deliberately softer tone about some issues than Baring-Gould? I don't think it's as obsessed about chronology and dates as B-G and is more interested in characterization and mentioning as many theories as possible (it was from this work that I learned that people have speculated Watson was married as many as 6 times. Obviously he was a busy man).

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware of the Klinger annotated until technocracygirl's post. So, um, no opinion yet, but from what you and she say, it sounds lovely.