This is the second story written from Holmes’s POV, but unlike BLAN, it doesn’t feel like Holmes at all. While the narrative in BLAN is always strictly to the point of the case (except those 9 times when Holmes mentions Watson, saying how he misses him), LION features a lot of romantic descriptions of nature, florid similes, admiration of a pretty lady… doesn’t it remind you of someone? The very voice of Holmes is off and there are too many inconsistencies:
Holmes yearned for Nature while living in the gloom of London? Oh please, Holmes didn’t care for it and loved the atmosphere of the metropolis. “…as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumor or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of Nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the country.” (RESI)
Holmes waxes poetic about the beauty and merits of a woman and compares her to a flower??
Holmes reads everything indiscriminately and stores “out-of-the-way knowledge without scientific system” in his brain attic??? “A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it.” (STUD) Seriously, it’s Watson who reads anything all the time, from yellow-backed novels to decent fiction to medical literature and etc.
The relationship between McPherson and Murdoch is a curious parallel between Holmes and Victor Trevor. In both cases two men meet because the dog which belongs to one of them attacks the other. Murdoch resembles Holmes in many ways, being tall, thin, dark, and somewhat detached from reality, living in his own world.
Murdoch says a rather interesting thing after McPherson’s death: “I have lost to-day the only person who made The Gables habitable.”
Maud Bellamy, when asked whether Murdoch was an admirer of hers, says: “There was a time when I thought he was.” It implies that later she discovered that she was mistaken.
So there’s a picture which becomes quite clear: “for a year or more Murdoch has been as near to McPherson as he ever could be to anyone”, his feelings for McPherson being most likely unrequited. Then McPherson fell for Maud. And Murdoch, loving him selflessly, agreed to be a messenger between them.
Another interesting detail is that Murdoch is a math teacher and ACD makes him a prime suspect. As we remember, Moriarty was a mathematician too. It must have sprang from ACD’s distaste for math. “It is indeed, as you say, a very great consolation to know that I will never more need mathematics. Classics I like, and I shall always try to keep up my knowledge of them, but mathematics of every sort I detest and abhor.” (ACD in a letter to Dr Bryan Charles Waller, a family friend, September 9, 1876)
Holmes lives with “his old housekeeper” who is rather outgoing and knows every bit of gossip in the village. The very same housekeeper then takes care of an injured Murdoch, being obviously proficient in administering medical aid. And note that when Murdoch pleads for “oil, opium, morphia” to relieve his pain, there’s only oil in Holmes’s house. No opium or morphine, considering his past.
Taking into account all of the above, I’m pretty sure that it was Watson who wrote this story. From Holmes’s POV. But his obvious is showing. In BLAN Holmes tried very zealously to make an impression that Watson and he are estranged. In LION these two cunning gentlemen continue this charade, to protect their privacy, of course, as always. They live quietly together in retirement and have fun by still mystifying their readers.
What’s remarkable about John Watson is that when Sherlock first deduced everything about him, he must’ve thought that “Okay, this person just told me my whole life story without being nice about it” and then just accepted it. Like, “okay, he knows everything about me now, no going back. And besides what does it matter? He just knows. I can’t take all that back. It’s just who I am and this person knows and didn’t have any judgements about me. This Sherlock Holmes just knew everything about me. He didn’t mean to humiliate me by telling me about my life. He just told me everything he knew about me. Which is remarkable, by the way.”
What I’m trying to say is, I don’t know how I’d react if put into such a situation but Sherlock just knows things about people. He can’t help it. It’s just that he sees these things about them. Like signals coming into his brain, he can’t stop that. It’s as natural for him as breathing. When Sherlock tells everyone what he’s deduced about them, he doesn’t mean it to be humiliating, (sometimes he does that, if it’s necessary)he just lets people know that he knows. Like, “you’re a pilot and I was able to deduce that from your thumb. You’re having an affair with so and so” etc. He just states them like they are facts. He isn’t judging anyone. It’s just what he does. He deduces for the sake of it. Not to harm anyone.
But people get offended. Would I get offended if a stranger just tells me my whole life story? Well, I’m currently on my bed and I think I won’t be offended. But I don’t know what I’ll do if I was in that situation. What I do know is that it won’t make sense for me to be offended. There are things I do, things about my life that are just facts. I can’t change them. I’ve made decisions that made me the person I am and that’s made up my life, so why should I be mad if someone just tells me all of that?
Like, Anderson and Sally are having an affair and Sherlock points that out and they get offended. Sure Sherlock does that to achieve that effect. But my point is, if you’re doing something, own up to it, like “Okay. I’m having an affair. So what?” But if it’s something worth getting offended over, stop doing it. It’s a simple choice. Sherlock Holmes’ deductions aren’t false: he points out your life and your choices and if you get offended by his details, then that’s your problem, not his. It’s like a doctor telling someone that they have a disease and them getting offended. Pointless, that is.
But John, oh my lovely John. He’s not happy with himself when he meets Sherlock. His image of himself is this: an invalided army doctor who has nothing to do, no purpose, useless in every sense of the word. He’s aware of everything Sherlock points out: he is an army doctor, he got shot, he has a psychosomatic limp, he has an alcoholic, divorced sibling with whom he wants nothing to do with. They are all facts about him. So why should he be offended? This stranger he’s just met and is about to probably live with, knows everything about him. Which, of course, makes one feel vulnerable and such but this person already knows and that can’t be changed, so what? He doesn’t care about all that.
What our Army Doctor does think about is how amazing that was. How incredible it was that someone was able to tell him all about his life. Because he knows it’s not common, it’s extraordinary in every way. He knows no one else can do that. It’s interesting. So let’s concentrate on that because the rest are just facts about his life, no point in dwelling on that.
As self deprecating he is, he is self aware. He knows his weaknesses. He knows he can’t change them. So why should he be angry at someone who just told him all that he already knows about himself? Why not tell this person that what they just did was amazing and extraordinary and he’s never seen anything like it. Because those are facts too. Sherlock Holmes’ deductions and mind are “fantastic” and “brilliant” and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t let Sherlock and the rest of the world know that.
yes!!! even though he’s insecure and not entirely comfortable with himself, john is still confident enough that sherlock’s comments don’t make him feel inferior. he knows he’s exceptionally smart, and doesn’t make him feel bad about it out of envy. i feel like the reason why most people hate sherlock isn’t because of the things he says but because of his near-superpower. take sally and anderson, for example. they clearly can’t be upset about the fact that they’re having an affair-i mean, it’s their choice; and they are adults who should own up to it. of course it would be beyond annoying to have someone tell you that to your face, but that still doesn’t explain why she would hate him so much, and constantly insult him. i mean come on, what grown person on the planet starts and ends every sentence with an insult? it just makes her look childish, because her reaction to sherlock is out of her control and isn’t really the annoyance that one would normally feel in that situation, if a clearly lonely and weird man tells you something insensitive. i’d shrug it off unless it was something truly offensive, in which case i’d tell him once to stop, and otherwise i’d just avoid contact with him. isn’t that what adults (funny that i’m considering myself one) do? that’s because this is not about what he says, but about 1) the fact that he sees through people, which makes everyone uncomfortable (the content, if you will) and 2) his actual ability to know what he knows. that’s envy, plain and simple.
yes!
Yes yes yes. I also feel there’s something very particular about the moment at which Sherlock meets John – in other words, when John is suicidal. He’s trying his best to envision a future for himself (find a flatmate, a basic precaution against the loneliness that leaves him time to stare at the gun he shouldn’t have).
He’s operating on nothing – we can all recognise it. He’s tired of himself, tired of things going wrong, tired of life; but still holding on, still struggling to keep going out of that desperate urge to live – that will to hope that better things might come – that every human has deep down.
You’re so right to say that he has no illusions about himself during ASIP. He’s too tired to pretend, to bristle, to put up walls between him and the all-seeing madman. He’s almost got used to taking himself out of the equation, to thinking of himself as hardly there. Instead, he just sees Sherlock, and how brilliant what he can do is. He doesn’t have that gap that most people – most adults – have between what their actions say about them, and what they believe about themselves.
John’s lack of ego in ASIP is a very subtle and beautiful part of his characterisation, and a good indicator of how close he came to suicide, to loss of himself.
I’d also argue that it’s very faithful to ACD canon. You can tell, in the way Watson writes in STUD, that his affable exterior hides a desperately unhappy, scared man. All the clues are there: “my health irretrievably ruined”; the description of London as a “cesspool” (the place that he chooses for himself, and this is how he describes it!); “leading a comfortless, meaningless existence”. Watson’s life truly reaches a crisis the day he meets Holmes – and the writing makes clear that he clings to his interest in, and intrigue about, the mysterious figure of Holmes, as a way to escape his own pain and attacks of ‘nerves’ (depression/possibly PTSD).
did i ever share with anyone the time my mom was telling me about a book she’d found, a book about arthur conan doyle, specifically about the story of arthur conan doyle using the knowledge he’d gained from writing sherlock holmes stories to help get a man off a murder charge? because i think it’s important everyone knows that my mother once said to me, in blissful ignorance, ‘arthur conan doyle used his talents to get a man off’
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson Additional Tags: Sharing a Bed, Huddling For Warmth, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, Developing Relationship Summary:
On a cold stormy night, it’s only natural to keep close for warmth
Well, Dorian Gray was barely subtext. The editor censored the first edition without Wilde’s permission and even then there was such an uproar that the second edition (released the next year) was much more heavily edited–that’s the version most of us are familiar with. The original version contained such lines as,
“It is quite true I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling
than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow I have never loved a
woman.” And everyone knew Wilde was queer.
Meanwhile, Dracula frames gayness in monstrous terms. This is a literary device that’s been used in many queer stories in homophobic times: make it tragic, horrifying, monstrous, and the cishet audience will feel comfortable in their removal from it, while the queer audience recognizes their otherness.
And unlike Wilde, Doyle was staid, and respectable, and not especially radical; and his characters’ queerness was framed in purely emotional terms. They are devoted, tender, adoring, intensely intimate, but never sexual. Doyle repeatedly makes Holmes seem to be removed from lust by nature; frames his queerness as an absence of feeling toward women, rather than a physical desire for men. And Victorians loved intimate friendships. They considered them to be quite separate from sexual passion. A man could promise his friend to love him forever, offer all his loyalty, share his rooms, and take his arm in the street. As long as there wasn’t a hint of carnality, no one minded. (Honestly, quite a number of Victorians didn’t mind if there was; but publishing a book about the subject brought out the cultural gatekeepers.)
@a-candle-for-sherlock I recommended for @brilliantorinsane ’s book list Richard Dellamora’s ‘Masculine Desire: the Sexual Politics of Victorian Aestheticism’, a difficult but brilliant book on exactly this subject. You’ve just summed up its 223 pages in a paragraph.
Intensely homoerotic friendships, love, emotional passion, deep devotion between men were accepted – just – as long as they could be fitted into a paradigm where those men also were married, or were planning on marrying, or even had been previously married to a woman, and any sexual activity was male/female. Women were predicated as the gatekeepers of male’s sexual desires. And a large part of the discourse around what was acceptable between men was played out in those male spaces where women were absent: universities, the church, the army, political fora, clubs. It was there, in the absence of women, that men policed themselves and others most strongly to ensure that friendships remained acceptably pure. Reading the literature, it is quite clear that men who broke the rules – men such as Wilde, who were openly sexual with other men – posed a tremendous threat to all those who carefully constructed their lives to fit with the socially acceptable model. If Wilde could make it clear that sex and love went together, then what of those men who loved other men deeply, whose emotional lives were completely centred around other men, but who refrained from physical expression of their love? When society so strongly condemned genital expression of love, but allowed intense devotion, where does that leave men who felt their affections needed physical as well as emotional, expression?
(This is where my Watson in SFISYF is at the moment. He is deeply, intensely devoted to his Holmes. But where can he go with that love, when society applauds it as an essential aspect of male hegemony when it is chaste comradeship and soldierly devotion without sex, but condemns it as the most vile of sins if it is expressed sexually?
His is the dilemma faced by many. And Holmes’ dilemma is similar, in that he knows his own desires, but has been taught to consider carnality – the matters of the flesh – as incompatible with chaste comradeship and soldierly devotion.)
There was a lot of discourse centred on Greek concepts of love at this time. The Judaeo-Christian contempt for the body and its needs and wants, the neo-Platonist ideas of the ideal society, the Greco-Roman concepts of how men should achieve dominance through Empire, were in conflict with the actual evidence (written materials, art, ceramics) that, whatever Plato said about the best loves being pure, men in Greece and Rome engaged unashamed in genital activity with each other.
Judaeo-Christian tradition condemned sexual activity between males. Plato considered it to be a factor that detracted from the highest form of love. In Rome, sexual excesses and male/male activity were associated with the least praiseworthy emperors – Caligula, Nero, Heliogabalus. For upper and middle class Victorian men taught to propagate and support the societal paradigm of Empire, the need to integrate these two aspects of male/male interaction – the strong homosocial bonding needed to make Empire work, and the intense emotional ties it required – with a complete absence of physical expression of love produced a psychic conflict that many of them struggled in vain to resolve.
This is one reason why when men such as John Addington Symonds and Edward Carpenter did form happy homosexual partnerships, it was often with men of a lower social class – men unburdened by the neuroticism developed by education in public schools and its consequent mindset. It is why Maurice can be happy with Alec, but not with Clive. It is why the Dublin Castle Scandal, the Cleveland Street Affair and the Wilde trials happened: in all three of those ‘moments’ which tipped society into homophobic retreat, one of the things that was most strongly reprobated by judges, juries and public alike, was that there was a transgressive sexual relationship not just between men, but between men of different classes. These relationships between Gustavus Cornwall and the renter, Jack Saul, between Lord Arthur Somerset and the Earl of Euston and their telegraph boys, between Wilde, and his street lads, struck at the basic of the social compact: that homoerotic devotion in the chaste Greek mode was acceptable so long as compulsory heterosexuality was also forcing men to marry and breed to maintain society. If society allowed for men to be devoted to, to marry other men, England might fall, and worse, the hegemony of the monied upper classes might be broken.
(And don’t even get me started on what that meant for women. Nobody even considers the life of Gustavus Cornwall’s childless wife, to whom he’d probably transmitted the syphilis that eventually killed him. Una Troubridge, lesian lover of Radclyffe Hall was treated all her life for the syphilis her philandering husband gave her as a wedding present. Mary Benson, wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, forced into a marriage with him at an age too young to say no, had lesbian affairs all through her married life. And there are other examples.)
It is impossible for us to consider the relationship of Holmes and Watson, and what it might have been without considering its social and political context. Doyle wrote as a man of his time, imbued with its ideas and ideals and subject to its neuroses. To understand what he writes, it’s also necessary to understand where he’s writing from.
Excellent précis! Thank you so much for the tag. I feel like “subtext” is a somewhat misused word in lots of fandom discussions, and context is often overlooked entirely. This is a very helpful reminder.
Honestly, the impact of the Wilde trials on British society, art, and literature can hardly be overstated; so Conan Doyle was actually incredibly brave to carry on making Holmes act the camp aesthete post-1895, and the fact that he stuck to it shows he had a reason for doing so…
In the article “A Wilde desire took me”: The homoerotic history of Dracula, T. Schafferexplored the potential impact of the trials on Stoker’s 1895 Dracula with the thesis Stoker was working through stuff about his own sexuality. Could we speculate along the same lines, maybe less heavy-handedly, about Conan Doyle? In 1895, his work included two books with the premise of a man admiring a man; he revised The Stark Munro Letters for publication (ACD on the autobiographical Munro in that year: “a man, complete, unemasculated”) and wrote Rodney Stone (ACD: “strikes a healthy manly patriotic note”). Did Conan Doyle see these and later masculine works as a contrast to Wilde’s degenerate ones, was ACD making a statement that men admiring men was wholesome after all, or was he going about his business without any self-conscious effect from the news about his acquaintance?
Sorry for the long response, and how long it took to reply – I’ve been away with no access to my books. See below the cut 🙂
The Albert Hall was crowded. There were eighty competitors, each of whom had to stand on a pedestal, arrayed only in a leopard’s skin… The three men were all wonderful specimens, but one was a little clumsy and another a little short, so we gave the valuable gold statue to the middle one, whose name was Murray, and who came from Lancashire.
anybody else totally straight and reading famous bohemian literature while waiting worriedly for your totally platonic flatmate to come back? no? didn’t think so
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 