Books: Sherlock Holmes: The American Years

I'm about halfway through Sherlock Holmes: The American Years. It features 10 original stories about Sherlock Holmes' years in the U.S.

So far, my favorite story is "My Silk Umbrella." It's an account by Mark Twain of his meeting with Holmes. I don't know much about Mark Twain the man, though, I read his novels and stories in grade school. About the man himself, I knew he had a quick wit and was eminently quotable.

Author Darryl Brock brings that Twainian wit alive with snappy one-liners.

The plot is simple enough. Holmes takes in a Connecticut baseball game (and seems a little put out that it is, in fact, not cricket). He and Twain find themselves sitting together and Twain's silk umbrella, which was given to him as a gift, becomes a topic of conversations. Using those deductive skills, Holmes reduces the prized umbrella to a thing less than the top-shelf module Twain thought it was.

The best scene in the story follows when Twain tries to one-up Holmes' cold logic. You can practically see Twain all but jumping up and down, stomping his feet trying to poke holes in what is entirely simplicity itself.

It shows a much more realistic reaction to Holmes. While reading Doyle's stories and novels, I found myself annoyed at what I thought was a sort of blind faith in Holmes' ability. Sure, the facts were there when he pointed them out. But very few of his adversaries or audiences ever offered an alternative explanation. They were astonishingly accepting, or they accepted, astonishingly.

Twain's determination to doubt was what I was missing in the Doyle books. Twain stood up and said," Wait. What?" He squared off with Holmes and all but pulled a "Dude, seriously?" on him.

And then the umbrella was stolen. Both tried their own methods to get it back. Twain lost. Holmes won.The umbrella was returned. So it goes.

Odd thing is, no matter how irritating I sometimes find the perfection of the Holmes I know, to see him in any other way is hard to believe. Holmes is shown as a young boy conducting science experiments, as a young man feeling the first pangs of love (which presumably keeps him away from women, at least until he meets Irene Adler), and as a young man who meets Dr. Joseph Bell, who introduces him to the powers of keen observation.

I sort of liked the idea that Holmes sprung fully-formed Athena-style from Doyle's head or the fictional Holmes patriarch's head. That I can accept, that he's always got the best explanation, I can't.

In "The American Adventure," by Gary Lovisi, Holmes met Dr. Bell, who was most likely Doyle's model for Holmes. This story helped to humanize Holmes in that it shows he probably didn't pull an Athena and just get born that way. But it did dash the hope I had that he learned his deductive skills from making a study of big brother Mycroft.

Speaking of brothers, Carole Bugge's story, "The Curse of Edwin Booth," features Holmes acting in a production of Hamlet to discover who's trying to kill Edwin Booth, older brother of John Wilkes Booth, sheds the most light on the relationship between Sherlock and Mycroft ... all without Holmes saying anything personal, of course.

Without spoiling this must-read, I can say it offers insight on why Holmes may have been so driven in his detective work, the same "work" that came so easily to Mycroft. It suggests our Holmes is not a pale, lean, hungry, maddening pursuer of his craft because he likes being at the top, but because he's always felt the need to catch up.

Hopefully, the next half of the book will offers more gems.

Creating characters

I'm reading Sherlock Holmes: The American Years, and in one of the stories, a young Sherlock Holmes meets Dr. Joseph Bell, who is supposed to have been Arthur Conan Doyle's real-life model for Holmes.

That got me thinking about creating characters. In a blog post I wrote about the book, I said I liked the idea that Holmes sort of sprang Athena-like from Doyle's head, whole and fully-formed. That may be true to some extent, but knowing that a real person was the model for Holmes was a bit of bummer.

Then that got me thinking. Keir and Gabriel and even Angela are probably based on real people, but insofar as I need a face to work with. Keir now resembles Jonathan Rhys Meyers just because of the coldness of his Henry VII. Gabe is Dwayne Johnson-like with a heavy dose of Vin Diesel. Those men are models in more of a physical sense.

But I think the closest thing I've done to using a model is Chase. He's morphed over the years as I have, but he is a real person. I've never met him, don't know anything about him, except that he's a musician -- a good one -- and you can his CD on itunes. He didn't grow up to be the guy I grew him up into. When we were both younger, I wrote him more closer to the kid I watched afternoons on TV. But as I've grown up, he's become whatever I've needed him to be. Or whatever Kyle has needed him to be.

I'm rambling. My point was it's disturbing to think my people aren't really mine. I don't want them to be based on real people. I want them to be wholly unique unto themselves. I want to be the one who gives their voices an outlet. But I'm not sure if that's possible. People themselves aren't originals. I mean, we all are composites of others, right?

Hmm. Not sure how I feel about that. Other than maybe feeling a bit better about my purely physical models. I can use what I know to fill in their shells, but their insides are unique to themselves.