Spontaneous ∂erivation

Dear Fans of the new Sherlock Holmes movie:

Let me apologize on the behalf of older Sherlock Holmes fandom for the bits of it that have been generating get-off-my-lawn reboot wank, not five days after the release of the movie. The Sherlock Holmes fandom has thrived for over a hundred years and multiple generations, and every generation has its… special snowflakes.

But fortunately, every generation has also produced creative fandom work (though they may not see it that way), from the solidly analytical to the wondrously fanciful. I may not agree with all of them, or even remotely like some of them, but they all occupy a place in my heart, because there wouldn’t be a Sherlock Holmes fandom without constant re-interpretation of the works. Yes, even the fic pastiche where Moriarty is a vampire who falls madly in love with Holmes.¹

I present to you the more amusing pieces of Holmesiana I’ve gathered throughout the years. I’ve strived for a varied collection here that is at the very least sometimes accessible, even if it knocks out some of my absolute favorites. Too much of the fandom is out of print; I hope that changes one day, so that reading all the ’ship wank doesn’t cost 500£.

[Love and adaptation: that's how legends survive.]

On IMDb there’s a report that one Andrea Plunket, furious over Downey and Law’s interviews playing up possible homoerotic subtext in the Sherlock Holmes canon, is threatening to withdraw sequel permissions if Guy Ritchie keeps this up.

Plunket comments, “It would be drastic, but I would withdraw permission for more films to be made if they feel that is a theme they wish to bring out in the future. I am not hostile to homosexuals, but I am to anyone who is not true to the spirit of the books.”

Dear Ms. Plunket: allow me to introduce you to the concept of shipping wars. Because you’ve just put your foot right into one of the longest ones in unofficial existence—one that is, in fact, over a century old at the time of this writing.

[I mean, just look at the hats!]

“There were eighteen months… not that I suppose he’ll ever tell you about that, at least, if he does, then you’ll know he’s cured… I don’t mean he went out of his mind or anything, and he was always perfectly sweet about it, only he was so dreadfully afraid to go to sleep….”

– Lord Peter Wimsey’s mother attempting to describe his difficulties from second-hand experience

In the first part of this series, I talked about how PTSD is experienced in real life versus many of its more popular and less accurate portrayals in fiction.

In the second and third parts of this series, I went into more detail with four examples of PTSD in fiction: Sinclair in Babylon 5, Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, the apocalyptic version of PTSD postulated in World War Z, and Josh Lyman in The West Wing.

While these depictions are somewhat successful, even extremely so, they tend to be either one-off Very Special Episodes (Babylon 5, The West Wing) or bittersweet finishers (World War Z, The Lord of the Rings). Writing about a character experiencing PTSD is already a difficult affair; writing about a character living with PTSD is much, much harder. So often we think that the most exciting part of PTSD is when it explodes, an event that supposedly either leaves a shattered mind behind, or must be immediately mostly or completely dealt within the next few chapters, lest the aftershocks shake the plot and character relationships too much.

Thus, there is one more example I want to discuss that particularly sticks out in my mind, because it covers the long-term portrayal of a character with PTSD who nevertheless is functional: Lord Peter Wimsey, one of the famous sleuths in the mystery genre. His author, Dorothy L. Sayers, whatever else she may be, had a very good grip on chronic PTSD.

[You know, PTSD reminds me of that sword that eats people's souls.]

Right now I’m writing what’s probably the most difficult review I’ve had to do yet. Last week’s review of Federations was quite difficult, and this week’s is actually harder, in that it’ll be quite easy for me to put my foot in my mouth.

And the consequences of that would be pretty bad, I’m guessing, so there’s a bit of pressure. If I can get through this, I suspect I’ll have reached some kind of landmark in reviewing, and can cover a certain manga bookended series… but never mind that.

Today’s linkage (some of which may be a bit old):

Whatever: D-Day + 65 Years

John Scalzi offers some thoughts on D-Day’s passage from memory into history, links to a touching CNN interview with one of the veterans from that day, and the comment thread is as usual starting to pick up.

The Daily Dish: The Feelings of Animals

Why is it that bloggers like Andrew Sullivan can come up with more interesting and informative titles than hard-core news journalists? Whose jobs used to depend on that kind of thing?

Actually, this is in the interest section, so probably less hard-core. Sullivan links to New York Times: Findngs – In That Tucked Tail, Real Pangs of Regret?

Unique title, informative as whut? However, the article is quite good.

orgtheory.net: nixon’s revenge

The Republicans like to think of themselves as the party of Reagan, but this article posits that it’s more the party of Nixon. You poor bastards. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish.

Guardian.co.uk: Two Unpublished Poirot Short Stories Found…

Not one, but two: “The Mystery of the Dog’s Ball”, which isn’t as bad as you think—maybe—it became Dumb Witness later in life; and “The Capture of Cereberus”, which would have completed The Labours of Hercules, Poirot’s last 12 cases. (He’s one of mystery’s great detectives who died, so this is more a reference to “last in his life” rather than “last in Christie’s life” although that appears to have been true as well.)

I love the subtitle of this article: “Fan taught himself to read author’s ‘bloody awful handwriting’ to unlock mystery contained within 73 notebooks at Devon house”.

HarperCollins has the ball on this one.

Hat tip to TYWKIWDBI¹, one of my favorite blogs.

1. Short for Things You Wouldn’t Know If We Didn’t Blog Incessantly. [↩]

On December 31st, 2008, notable author Donald E. Westlake died at the age of 75.

Westlake was most famous for his Dortmunder series, where a modern-day Robin Hood and his gang of merry men and women perform humorous crime capers in the name of good causes (even when they’ve been wrangled into it). Over his long career, he’s written under numerous pseudonyms as well, from the more famous Richard Stark to others such as Judson Jack Carmichael, Samuel Holt, and Edwin West.

I will miss his humor and wit, which could quickly turn to sarcasm and social critique—and gracefully so, on a dime. He was a wonderful writer and, as noted by Jo Walton, a writer that other writers like.

He will be missed.

His books currently available on the Kindle:

Dortmunder Series

The aforementioned humorous capers and adventures of John Dortmunder and friends.

Parker Series

Unlike Dortmunder, Parker is a true anti-hero—he’s not at all a nice guy, and a hard criminal.

Luc Sante comments (and I’m taking this quote from the New York Times Review of Books and Wikipedia):

He is a loner, competing with conglomerates (the syndicate) and fending off marginal elements (psychotics, amateurs). He has no interest in society except as a given, like the weather, and none in power. He is a freebooter who acquires money in order to buy himself periods of vegetative quiet.

Parker was supposed to be the central character for The Hot Rock, but it was too humorous a story for him—he does the serious and grim side of the crime caper, and does and will resort to murder.

Other Novels

Ranging from the humorous to the hard-boiled and deadly serious, even covering science fiction occasionally.

Non-Kindle Sources

The Risk Profession
Feedbooks • Project Gutenberg

From Amazing Stories, March 1961. Not copyright in the United States, but copyright just about everywhere else. It’s not legal for you to download this book if you don’t live somewhere in the 50.

Mister Henderson called me into his office my third day back in Tangiers. That was a day and a half later than I’d expected. Roving claims investigators for Tangiers Mutual Insurance Corporation don’t usually get to spend more than thirty-six consecutive hours at home base.

Henderson was jovial but stern. That meant he was happy with the job I’d just completed, and that he was pretty sure I’d find some crooked shenanigans on this next assignment. That didn’t please me. I’m basically a plain-living type, and I hate complications. I almost wished for a second there that I was back on Fire and Theft in Greater New York. But I knew better than that. As a roving claim investigator, I avoided the more stultifying paper work inherent in this line of work and had the additional luxury of an expense account nobody ever questioned.

It made working for a living almost worthwhile.