Budrevich: Sherlock unlocked
A few years ago, I stumbled upon the BBC show “Sherlock,” a modern TV series about the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective stories. I was hooked — I loved the beautiful cinematography, the incredible acting and most importantly, the mind-baffling stories. Because I loved the show, which has been nominated and won several awards since its initial airing, including a BAFTA for Best Drama in 2011, I decided to start reading the original works by Doyle himself and doing some research on Sherlock Holmes and detective fiction in general at the library and on the Internet.
My research gave me compelling evidence that, although the mystery genre in general has been around for ages, it was Doyle’s work on Sherlock Holmes that rocketed detective stories into the limelight and kept them there. So what exactly qualifies something as a detective story and what is so appealing about detective stories that they have remained incredibly popular for over a century?
Alfonso Reyes, a scholar in Greek mythology and literary critic, states that the detective novel revolves around the question: “How did it happen?” as compared to the typical, “What’s going to happen?” or more romantic, “When is it going to happen?” Brendan Riley, Ph.D and assistant professor of English at Columbia College Chicago, further breaks down the detective story into six main phases: introduction of the detective, crime and clues, investigation, announcement and solution, explanation of the solution and denouement or conclusion.
The detective genre, although changing slightly over time, can be traced back through history in light of these elements. While some might trace the detective genre back to the biblical story of Daniel, Reyes attributes the detective story to Sophocles with his ancient Grecian sleuth Teiresias in “Oedipus Rex,” followed much later by Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” finally flourishing with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in “A Study in Scarlet.”
While Doyle himself cannot be credited with the creation of the detective story, he can be held responsible for the rise and maintained popularity of the detective genre as a whole. Doyle initially created Holmes as a way to earn some extra cash for his failing medical practice. However, much to his chagrin, his 1887 publication of “A Study in Scarlet,” the first of the many adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, gained an almost cult-like popularity.
Doyle tried everything to quit writing the Holmesian stories, from retiring the Great Detective to refusing to write any more stories to finally killing off the beloved character, but the fans would not let Sherlock die. They protested Doyle’s killing of the character for over ten years, from 1893 to 1905, until he agreed to write him back into life in “The Adventure of the Empty House.” Sherlock then went on to become the modern archetype for the detective — the man who lived for the thrill of the chase and capture, to prove that he was more clever than everyone else and to this day, the character has the most recreations of any fictional character in history with over 300 interpretations of the character and more in the making, which is more than Dracula, Frankenstein and Robin Hood combined.
So what is it that makes the detective story and the character of Sherlock Holmes so universally popular as to survive for the span of three centuries? The detective story attracts readers because of the joy that comes from puzzle solving, the escapism offered by the stories themselves and the empathy that can be found through the characters. The detective genre, unlike any other, is written in the form of a puzzle, occurring simultaneously between the author, the reader and the detective, making it a genre unique unto itself. Unlike the fantasy or sci-fi genre, detective stories take place in a realistic universe, were problems can be solved using merely logic, reason and an eye for detail, which allows the reader to envision themselves in the story more easily. On the other hand, they have the addition of the fantastic, manifested in the larger-than-life superheroes that can identify a man by the shape of his ear or the crumbs on his jacket collar, which whisks the reader away to a world where no mystery is impossible to solve and justice is always served in the end. Readers can be swept away by the pomp and flair of the detectives, while remaining grounded in the pseudo-realism of the stories, inspiring them to believe that maybe, just maybe, the characters could really exist somewhere, solving crimes with their wit and cleverness and bringing a little bit more justice to the world.
Jordan Budrevich is a first-year majoring in bioengineering.
