Amateur Holmesian Scholarship

The other day I posted on the Hounds-L discussion list about Holmes getting a love interest in the film, Christopher Redmond replied (yes the guy who’s big on self-promotion in his own books and considers any suggestion of ambiguity concerning Holmes’s sexuality as ‘pornography’) with

Some of us (old, married, but far from blind) would consider this to be GOOD news.

I don’t understand what on earth he means by this comment… anyone? I replied with my stock answer about how Irene Adler’s character has become much maligned by lot of suggestions that after all that protecting herself from an ex-lover she’s willing to dump her new husband for a man who spent the last few days trying to trick her.

At some point I really must post a review of his book ‘A Sherlock Holmes Handbook‘, it says some interesting things (I discovered that according to him I’m a pornographer) and it’s full of him referring to his own work as “for an interesting take on this, <insert book name here> by Christopher Redmond is recommended.” or to himself…

Listing the unpublished cases in The Tin Dispatch Box (1965), Christopher Redmond defined them as “any criminal investigation or professional business in which Holmes was involved or took a particular contemporary interest.

‘A Sherlock Holmes Handbook’ by Christopher Redmond, chapter II ‘Characters and Adventures: The Unpublished Cases’, p45. (c) 1993.

I suppose to write a proper review that isn’t me just giggling over his self-references I’d actually have to finish reading the book properly, I’ve been dipping in and out reading relevant sections as I’ve seen the need or interest to.

It’s a somewhat useful book I think and it’s been a cornerstone of a the published Holmesian scholarship for a long time now but he’s rather scathing view on those of us who play ‘The Game’ rather than do dry scholarly discussion about Conan Doyle’s literacy techniques does rather make me cringe.

In his chapter ‘A Spreading Influence’ he blames ‘The Game’ players for the reason why the subject of Sherlock Holmes has had very little attention in the hallowed halls of academia

Only in very recent years have serious literary presses published works about Sherlock Holmes, or serious literary journals made room for articles about him. Much of the difficulty of course that Sherlockian ‘scholars’ make playful assumptions about the historic existence of Holmes, Watson, and their associates, pretending to analyse history rather than literature.

‘A Sherlock Holmes Handbook’ by Christopher Redmond, chapter IX ‘A Spreading Influence: Academic Scholarship’, p217-218. (c) 1993.

I’m very sorry Mr Redmond but I studied English Literature at school and spending many hours writing about the authors intentions and the techniques they used to convey, suggest and whatnot eventually sucked all the fun out of a good book.

The blame isn’t solely rested on us Game players though, he also blames snobbery in academic circles for the little literary criticism and discussion the books have received. I’m more inclined to believe that the reason there is so little literary discussion is because for the majority of us Holmes is a hobby, a fun thing to get together with like-minded friends and discuss… to me it’s more fun to talk about how Holmes was never evicted by Mrs Hudson than to sit around talking about Doyle’s writing technique!

I like to write my Holmesian scholarship in both ways, you can get a lot out of studying as a ‘Game Scholar’ as you can a literary one. I’m currently working on an article to ask the question why the Holmesian community is so against a serious discussion about possible homosexuality within the Canon. In order to write this article I’m having to look at things from both ‘The Game’ side of the spectrum and the literary – it’s the only way and if I was only looking at Doyle’s literary techniques I would have limited myself and been unable to look at the historical context. Another one I’m working on asks the question was Holmes dyslexic, and this is a purely ‘Game’ piece of scholarship – if I was a pure literary scholar, it’s something I would have never even thought about and I bet if all Holmesian scholarship was literary we’d have run out of new things to say a century ago.

Maybe I should write a proper review, one that asks the question are Christopher Redmond’s views holding back Holmesian discussion? If people like Redmond continually dismiss a large area of untapped resources and insist on pure literary discussion then I fear that the Holmesian discussion will eventually die out as it’s main fanbase drop off the mortal coil and younger ones become too disenchanted by the dinosaurs of scholarship to step in with new and interesting areas of though.

I’d love to post my response to Barbara Roden’s essay on Hounds-L and kick start a modern discussion on the topic but I know that just because I raised the issue of homosexuality it won’t even be given serious consideration, I imagine there will be a little head patting, smiles and “awww, silly girl.” comments but no one will actually engage me in a discussion about it.

Perhaps the day will come or maybe I’ll continue to sit quietly on the outside.